DWP Recruiting Again - 2012

stargazer30

mommarat wrote: »

trust me no online test, competancy writing or interview can prepare you for face to face interviewing at the jobcentre. Everyone who gets through come back on here in 6 months time and see if your attitude to the job has changed. This is just a process it does not make you good at the job.

I agree with you 100%...this is just a process and cannot be taken as a measure or reflection of how good will be in the JCP environment...it can be mentally exhausting and very challenging for some employees (I've seen this first hand).

None of this process takes into account the amount of patience/understanding/endurance/tolerance a good JCP employee needs to have doing face to face interviews...A lot of it is about your own personality and willingness to go the extra mile (when poss) with supporting a customer seeking employment.

vincentfan

Has anyone had any feedback from South Yorks
My status is the same
54% percentile
15/24
238/336

Guess I haven't done enough, as I only filled in the one competancy to move on to the next stage of application

rob44

Thanks Wanda. I'll come back to that 'time spent' aspect later.

If it's of any help to those who applied to the West Yorkshire area, my online test score was 89%, surname in last third of alphabet, external candidate, no competency scores yet.

I heard from a West Yorkshire sifter that competencies were being marked on an alphabetical surname basis, scores so far were low, and no-one is allowed to sift the application of someone they know. It also sounded like sifters conferred on scoring, which sounds hopeful as far as fairness goes.

WandaFish

Janabiyah-Jane wrote: »

Wanda you have only just joined the forum, and therefore can only talk about your current good news, if you had joined earlier when you had received your test scores, your comments may have been very different...
It would be good for you to try to understand the reasoning behind all these comments rather than just focusing on the negative.. You currently feel elated, unfortunately not all contributers to this forum do... Just think of them too and show some empathy...

But I read all the posts when people got back their excellent online tests and I could have joined up to moan but I didn't. I didnt feel the need to join up to boast either, simply to say that people should be careful what they post because some of it could be seen to be insulting to people who have tried hard and done well.

WandaFish

rob44 wrote: »

Thanks Wanda. I'll come back to that 'time spent' aspect later.

If it's of any help to those who applied to the West Yorkshire area, my online test score was 89%, surname in last third of alphabet, external candidate, no competency scores yet.

I heard from a West Yorkshire sifter that competencies were being marked on an alphabetical surname basis, scores so far were low, and no-one is allowed to sift the application of someone they know. It also sounded like sifters conferred on scoring, which sounds hopeful as far as fairness goes.

lol why not come back to the time spent now? I'm curious!

rob44

Waiting to hear from Mark!

Janabiyah-Jane

WandaFish wrote: »

But I read all the posts when people got back their excellent online tests and I could have joined up to moan but I didn't. I didnt feel the need to join up to boast either, simply to say that people should be careful what they post because some of it could be seen to be insulting to people who have tried hard and done well.

Diplomacy is what is required here.... And its also required in the job that we have all applied for... Perhaps it would do us all good to remember this, no matter how we feel..
Not picking on you Wanda...
For the record I'm still awaiting my competency scores... Aghhh its a long time to wait.. Not sure I would agree with them anyway (good or bad) going by all I've heard, but hey ho what's meant to be.... Fate etc...
:rotfl:

JodyBPM

I didn't apply for this job (although I did think about it, but the low (to me v my present job) salary level, and having to apply for whole areas, when I would only be interested in one specific town meant that it wasn't for me) but I have been following this thread, hoping for some positive outcomes for you all.

I've worked in the public sector for the last decade, so I'm accustomed to competency based applications, and STAR is a fairly general rule. I think it's a shame that some people have missed out because they didn't know this/don't have the skills to present the information in that *specific* way, but for those who missed out this time, think of it as a lesson learnt for almost any public sector job. To be fair, the information was there for those who looked for it.

Ultimately, testing and competencies is always going to be flawed. There will be some people who get the job, who frankly aren't up to it, and others who would do a fab job, but failed to meet the grade. But as a general rule, it's a good sifting method when there are a large number of applicants per post.

One thing I do think should be clearer, is a predetermined pass mark. I don't think its right to need 80% and 6s at competencies in one area, and 40% and 4s in competencies in another, assuming you are applying for the same job. But, of course, its pure conjecture at this stage that this is the case. I think it would be better and more transparent to say at the outset that you need a minimum of x and y to get an interview, so people would know where they stand as soon as they get their marks.

I do wonder, though, whether different areas have different roles. E.g in my area, it would be only be F2F jobcentre roles, as there are no DWP call centre/processing centres in the locality. Could it be that different *roles* have different pass criteria?

Good luck to everyone, and I hope we hear a few success stories in this thread. On the whole, though, don't blame the process if you didn't get the result you wanted, use it as a valuable learning curve to help you get other (public sector? no idea if private sector uses similar methods) roles in the future. There's clearly a lot of talented and motivated people on this thread, so good luck to you all.

SpiralGalaxy

WandaFish wrote: »

But I read all the posts when people got back their excellent online tests and I could have joined up to moan but I didn't. I didnt feel the need to join up to boast either, simply to say that people should be careful what they post because some of it could be seen to be insulting to people who have tried hard and done well.

Who is insulting you for doing well?

WandaFish

SpiralGalaxy wrote: »

Who is insulting you for doing well?

I just said it could be seen as insulting. Like if you'd done well on the online test and people started saying "Well that test was completely flawed! Just because you knew how to answer the questions doesn't mean you'll be good at the job. The best people for the job are going to miss out" etc.