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2017 Local authority SEO competition

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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 27,981 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    Decinho wrote: »
    Well I scored fairly highly as did someone else I know, so we were waiting for our interviews after being congratulated. There was a huge delay and it turned out what happened was a lot of internal applicants in the local authority scored badly in the test, they complained to their union and the union fought on their behalf to have every internal applicant reinstated. This is what I happened. Despite failing the tests they got reinstated and we got pushed out. Their experience was deemed better than ours as they worked in the local authority so despite scoring much better than some, they were called for interview over us.

    Do you have documentary evidence of this?


  • Registered Users Posts: 94 ✭✭Decinho


    Well just my exam results but it was widely known what happened.

    I was informed by people working within the local authority.

    Documentary evidence means nothing when a union gets involved, the union got their way and that was that.


  • Registered Users Posts: 27,981 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    Decinho wrote: »
    Well just my exam results but it was widely known what happened.

    I was informed by people working within the local authority.

    Documentary evidence means nothing when a union gets involved, the union got their way and that was that.

    If you want to stop it happening next time, you need to shine a very bright light on it. Evidence would be needed to do this.


  • Registered Users Posts: 40 fickletosser


    Nerd Queen wrote: »
    Oh really in what way? Also did anyone else think the results were out only to find it was a PAS survey?

    ME!! Thought oh here we go only to open the message and it to be a survey.....How cruel!!


  • Registered Users Posts: 197 ✭✭Six of One


    I didn't get the survey so was spared that! Found the test very difficult, probably got 12 in each of the timed tests. Just waiting for the email to put me out of my misery.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 94 ✭✭Decinho


    I'm not sure what could be done though, they have loopholes around everything ie. saying performing well in these tests does not guarantee you will be called for interview and that kind of thing.

    I'm over it, I am just bringing it up for the sake of people on here in case something like it happens again. It was completely wrong for people who failed the tests to be brought back in to the competition but that's what happened.


  • Registered Users Posts: 94 ✭✭Decinho


    Has anyone rang to see when the results are expected?


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,579 ✭✭✭prettyboy81


    Decinho wrote: »
    Has anyone rang to see when the results are expected?

    Nah just wait for the email to hit.


  • Registered Users Posts: 301 ✭✭Nerd Queen


    Thought results would be today. Getting more sceptical as time goes by about what filtering they are doing.....


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,579 ✭✭✭prettyboy81


    Nerd Queen wrote: »
    Thought results would be today. Getting more sceptical as time goes by about what filtering they are doing.....

    No need to be sceptical. The last APO competition took around 3 weeks factoring in the Christmas break. Next week will be deliverance, IMO.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 94 ✭✭Decinho


    The are not going to make the same mistake as last time and announce results and then have to backtrack so they are probably making sure they have themselves covered internally and with unions and all that stuff this time round.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,005 ✭✭✭TaurenDruid


    The result emails should - if the follow other competitions - give the pass/qualifying mark and the marks we got.

    If they don't, an FoI request would produce the qualifying marks.

    Seems to be taking quite a while for an automated process (the 'right' answers should already be on the system)...


  • Registered Users Posts: 94 ✭✭Decinho


    The result emails should - if the follow other competitions - give the pass/qualifying mark and the marks we got.

    If they don't, an FoI request would produce the qualifying marks.

    Seems to be taking quite a while for an automated process (the 'right' answers should already be on the system)...

    They had all of that last time, but the ruling was that all internal applicants were brought back in whether or not they failed so your placing obviously ended being almost worthless. They did interview some external applicants so maybe they took the top 50 external I'm not sure. I was disgusted and didn't bother following up to see what approach they took.

    I'd imagine this time it will be more straight forward and if you place high enough you will get an interview. I'm sure they aren't going to do the same thing again as I imagine it lead to a lot of complaints.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,579 ✭✭✭prettyboy81


    Hopefully we all hear soon enough.


  • Registered Users Posts: 197 ✭✭daithi84


    Decinho wrote: »
    Well I scored fairly highly as did someone else I know, so we were waiting for our interviews after being congratulated. There was a huge delay and it turned out what happened was a lot of internal applicants in the local authority scored badly in the test, they complained to their union and the union fought on their behalf to have every internal applicant reinstated. This is what I happened. Despite failing the tests they got reinstated and we got pushed out. Their experience was deemed better than ours as they worked in the local authority so despite scoring much better than some, they were called for interview over us.

    Thats not correct. The way they shortlisted was against policy. Dont know the exact details but they shortlisted people on their application form and didnt take the tests into account where they are supposed to only shortlist from forms of the people who pass the tests. The competition didnt go ahead and no one was called for interview.


  • Registered Users Posts: 94 ✭✭Decinho


    daithi84 wrote: »
    Thats not correct. The way they shortlisted was against policy. Dont know the exact details but they shortlisted people on their application form and didnt take the tests into account where they are supposed to only shortlist from forms of the people who pass the tests. The competition didnt go ahead and no one was called for interview.


    What you are saying may have have happened after the union involvement as originally the process was and is with any publicjobs competition that they rank based on test scores. They then call for interview based on these scores and that is when they review applications. I believe the local authority by passed the norms and did it their own way to satisfy the union ie. called internal people to interview even if they failed the tests. Nothing i have said is factually incorrect, unless you are saying they scrapped the entire competition even after carrying out interviews which I sincerely doubt.I know someone who was called for interview but didn't get a job. What part of what I said is incorrect?


  • Registered Users Posts: 197 ✭✭daithi84


    Decinho wrote: »
    What you are saying may have have happened after the union involvement as originally the process was and is with any publicjobs competition that they rank based on test scores. They then call for interview based on these scores and that is when they review applications. I believe the local authority by passed the norms and did it their own way to satisfy the union ie. called internal people to interview even if they failed the tests. Nothing i have said is factually incorrect, unless you are saying they scrapped the entire competition even after carrying out interviews which I sincerely doubt.I know someone who was called for interview but didn't get a job. What part of what I said is incorrect?

    Just checked there, there was misleading information in the application booklet regarding assessment techniques. Some form of assessment tool was replaced with an online tests. Public jobs also used the same results for some people for other jobs, and the candidates were not informed this would happen. There was also no transparency on how they assessed people to progress to interview. People were getting varying different points depending on which board interviewed them and the discrepancy could not be justified. Also people were offered jobs in locations they never applied for and once they refused those locations further people were interviewed who didnt make the grade and were then offered those jobs. The whole process was completely different to how it was done before and seemed very dodgy selection process and the whole process was not communicated to candidates. In the end no one got offered jobs and whole competition scrapped. The local authority has no say in how PAS is run. Local authority might be on the board but the process is all done through PAS which is run by the civil service. Local authorities dont have the authority to bypass the system and give interviews to people who didnt score high on the tests.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,579 ✭✭✭prettyboy81


    Results should be interesting then going on the last competition and issues.

    Best of Luck.


  • Registered Users Posts: 94 ✭✭Decinho


    daithi84 wrote: »
    Just checked there, there was misleading information in the application booklet regarding assessment techniques. Some form of assessment tool was replaced with an online tests. Public jobs also used the same results for some people for other jobs, and the candidates were not informed this would happen. There was also no transparency on how they assessed people to progress to interview. People were getting varying different points depending on which board interviewed them and the discrepancy could not be justified. Also people were offered jobs in locations they never applied for and once they refused those locations further people were interviewed who didnt make the grade and were then offered those jobs. The whole process was completely different to how it was done before and seemed very dodgy selection process and the whole process was not communicated to candidates. In the end no one got offered jobs and whole competition scrapped. The local authority has no say in how PAS is run. Local authority might be on the board but the process is all done through PAS which is run by the civil service. Local authorities dont have the authority to bypass the system and give interviews to people who didnt score high on the tests.

    While I take on board what you are saying and it all sounds reasonable, PAS run the competitions in the same way all the time. They are very experienced at it, it has many flaws but they know what they are doing at least. The reason for the confusion in this competition was due to what I have stated previously, unions went mad because so many internal applicants failed the tests and thus wouldn't be called to the next phase. The local authority then went back to PAS claiming that the who structure was flawed and got all the internal applicants brought back in. This meant the only way to call people for interview was based on applications alone and obviously the local authority experience won out then.

    I have no idea what happened at the interview stage but it's interesting to hear it was scrapped. What have they done without the SEOs for 2 years? Presumably they had internal staff acting up which would mean the unions got what they wanted in the end, well if staff received pay for acting up.........

    Anyway it is all in the past, I was just highlighting it for people who might assume great test scores will guarantee interviews when it certainly didn't last time.


  • Registered Users Posts: 197 ✭✭daithi84


    Decinho wrote: »
    While I take on board what you are saying and it all sounds reasonable, PAS run the competitions in the same way all the time. They are very experienced at it, it has many flaws but they know what they are doing at least. The reason for the confusion in this competition was due to what I have stated previously, unions went mad because so many internal applicants failed the tests and thus wouldn't be called to the next phase. The local authority then went back to PAS claiming that the who structure was flawed and got all the internal applicants brought back in. This meant the only way to call people for interview was based on applications alone and obviously the local authority experience won out then.

    I have no idea what happened at the interview stage but it's interesting to hear it was scrapped. What have they done without the SEOs for 2 years? Presumably they had internal staff acting up which would mean the unions got what they wanted in the end, well if staff received pay for acting up.........

    Anyway it is all in the past, I was just highlighting it for people who might assume great test scores will guarantee interviews when it certainly didn't last time.

    If the aim of the unions was to get local authority staff shortlisted for interview, I wouldnt see them kicking up a fuss and get the whole competition scrapped. Acting positions have only been authorised again only in the last year really. Some local authorities are very heavy on SEO's. They are downgrading a lot of Executive Manager posts and giving the jobs to SEO's.

    I would say this time round it will be done properly due to the criticism of the last round.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 94 ✭✭Decinho


    daithi84 wrote: »
    If the aim of the unions was to get local authority staff shortlisted for interview, I wouldnt see them kicking up a fuss and get the whole competition scrapped. Acting positions have only been authorised again only in the last year really. Some local authorities are very heavy on SEO's. They are downgrading a lot of Executive Manager posts and giving the jobs to SEO's.

    I would say this time round it will be done properly due to the criticism of the last round.

    Well their aim was to get the internal candidates that failed the tests reinstated and they certainly did that but the scrapping of it I guess was a consequence of the interfering. I wouldn't know what happens internally in terms of acting up or whatever so I don't actually know how it turned out for people. All I know was it was one almighty mess!!! Like you said presumably it will be handled properly this time round.


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 15,676 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tabnabs


    Check you messages on public jobs folks ;)

    Good luck all!


  • Registered Users Posts: 94 ✭✭Decinho


    I got through to supervised test stage, really hope it's a different format and not the 12 minute ones again.

    Best of luck everyone!


  • Registered Users Posts: 387 ✭✭passinginterest


    Decinho wrote: »
    I got through to supervised test stage, really hope it's a different format and not the 12 minute ones again.

    Best of luck everyone!

    Got through too. The supervised tests are usually the same format.


  • Registered Users Posts: 301 ✭✭Nerd Queen


    Got through also. Unusual that there wasn't a number ranking?


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,050 ✭✭✭gazzer


    Got through too. I aced the management scenario which is where I usually fail. I'm thrilled


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,005 ✭✭✭TaurenDruid


    Yay, got through, and genuinely surprised, as I thought I did really badly on the verbal reasoning one.
    Nerd Queen wrote: »
    Got through also. Unusual that there wasn't a number ranking?

    Yup, just checked old messages and they did give the order of merit for the unsupervised tests, previously. I guess it doesn't really matter for the unsupervised ones, but I'd certainly expect placings after the supervised tests.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,005 ✭✭✭TaurenDruid


    Really odd scores, though... how do you score in the thousands where there are only 42 questions and they can only be True, False, or Cannot Say??


  • Registered Users Posts: 197 ✭✭Six of One


    Got through too and am very surprised! Scored high in verbal reasoning but scraped management scenarios. Thought management scenarios was my one safe one.

    What is the process now, usually? Supervised test in the PAS office on abbey st, then review application, then interview is that it?


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  • Registered Users Posts: 2,579 ✭✭✭prettyboy81


    Got through! I think from the pass mark set there will be a lot getting through to supervised tests.

    I wonder will we be called in batches for supervised tests based on how we scored.


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