New 2021 Assistant Principal in the Civil Service

As regards AP Higher, no thread. I checked with PAS and results not out till end of month or start of December. I presume if successfull the next stage will be the same as AP standard.

Said pretty much the exact same stuff in the AP Higher videos - didn't have time to be writing a new script - somehow got a much higher score than for AP standard.

Not sure this is the most objective system, but sure there you go.

No strategic analysis exercise for the next stage, just an interview.

Finished my AP standard presentation/interview. I thought it went as I expected it to go - well structured and rapid fire. As long as you practice and have specific competency examples/responses, it goes as well as you can hope it to go. I suppose today is the last day for AP standard, so hopefully results will be out early/mid next results. Fingers crossed!!!

Hey... I'm presuming this is the first batch through, as in you got called to Stage 2 in mid-September?

Yep, also getting butterflies at every text message at this point, would like to be put out of my misery so I can enjoy the hours between 3-5pm again.

I assume that either interviews are continuing this week (if anyone has one please let us know), or that they're taking a bit more time to mark the Strategic Analysis exercise. Could be doing cross moderation, which they should do to be fair.

I emailed them today and they said results “within the next two weeks”

Yep like that could be a six week wait for some people. Bit excessive.

It's longer than most PAS competitions I've done, but you're definitely right that long waits and very long competitions are the norm for civil service competitions.

It's one of the problems that we face in hiring people from the private sector, especially those with in-demand qualifications and experience in law, ICT, etc. PAS competitions are inevitably focused on eliminating as many candidates as possible with multi stage processes. I know a few from the legal sector who have ultimately gotten frustrated with the process and took other opportunities that presented themselves during that time.

Similarly I know when feedback was sought on the process there was surprise from the hiring depts that candidates saw the process as a major block. These are people who are used to be courted by recruiters who will move heaven and earth to get them in the door. An organisation that instead puts roadblocks in place and won't readily accommodate things like changes of dates where those don't suit candidates is very strange to them, and can frighten someone off if they think that's going to be representative of the culture more generally. Ironically they'd probably get away with this kind of thing during economic downturns when even good people don't have as many options, but the standard thing has been to shut down recruitment at the same time.

Not anything anyone here can do about it, but it's definitely a problem. Obviously an advantage to serving civil servants though who know the process and can generally wait a while longer, and so don't have to compete with those people.

Had my AP higher interview this morning. I don't think it went well as I felt I didn't really hit the competencies correctly. Chairman finished off with "we wish you all the best, regardless of how this goes" 😂😂 I think that means you seem nice try again another time.

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Ah thanks for the vote of confidence. I think i went around the world to make a simple point just didn't hit the structured questions the way I should have. It was a mix of both structured and then random quick fire. It was a nice interview really I think i just forgot I was in an interview instead of a chat 😂ll be better prepared for next time.