DWP Recruiting Again - 2012

redsky1977

JEEC wrote: »

I've been lurking since the beginning and felt it was about time I made a post.
I want to say a big thank you to everyone who posted helpful and constructive advice in particular all posters who gave advice about the STAR method and MakemBill (sp?) who posted advice about making a table with important information in it.

I was interviewed for North West region in Manchester. I only got 4s and 5s on my original sift competencies. I beefed up those examples and had 5 back-ups prepared just in case the questions they asked didn't fit with my existing competencies.

The interviewers were lovely, but I got flustered, started rambling, lost track of the question on more than one occasion, stopped and asked them to repeat it. I knew I must have done badly as one of the interviewers said at the start that they may ask me questions to get more information, but I thought I must have been so far off track that they didn't bother. I was really annoyed with myself as I missed out so much extra information I had prepared. I was lucky that 4 of my examples I was able to use without any changes, and I only had to tweak the 5th slightly, yet I still managed to mess up.

I wanted to cry on the journey home, I was so disappointed with myself. The feedback was on within a few hours the sameday I was interviewed and I did cry when I saw the scores.....

It was tears of joy! Lowest score was a 5, highest an 8, the rest in the middle. I was certain one of the competencies was going to be a 3 at best but strangely that one was one of my higher marks! The 5 was an improvement as I only got 4 in the original sift for that competency.
My marks might not be enough for me to be offered a position but I'm happy now that they are all above 4 and that I got higher marks in interview than sift.

Good luck to anyone who is yet to have their interview!

Well done JEEC! Those scores are great! I'm glad that you are pleased with them too. I haven't checked my scores for fear of bad news/scores - if I could just get 5s and over I'd be happy but I can't bring myself to look! :rotfl:

polekitten

Hi, my friend at work suggested looking through this thread. It's taken a while and I wish I'd looked before my interview!

Anyway, I got a really good score on the test, passed the competencies but I'm currently appealing the interview process. Has anyone else appealed for any reason and what was the outcome? I only sent mine in today.

I was given 3, 5, 3, 2, 3 from the interview and if I just did badly in an interview I would never dream of complaining about it. However I don't believe my interview was conducted in a fair manner so I'm going to try appealing.

Another big reason I think that is similar competencies got me through to the DWP management fast-track final in London and I don't believe they warranted such low scores. I'm not ig headed and think that because I work for them already and because of the fast-track thing I can just walk through but I interviewed well in the situation they actually allowed me and I was given ridiculously low marks in all but 1 question! I'm not holding out much hope of being reinterviewed though, hopefully it'll stop them doing the same again to someone else.

So one question I have is how long were you told the interview would last when you arrived and how long were you given?

Congratulations to those with good results, I hope you all get the positions

anony1234

Hi guys. I've been spending faaaaaar too much of my life reading this forum at work/at home etc and after today i'm not coming back. All the help/advice (especially from the regular posters whoever you are) has been great! Cheers to you guys!

I scored 30/45 87555 so hopefully this will be enough. Interviewed in the South Yorkshire area if anyone else is wondering.

Good luck all.

I bid you farewell.

Might come back once to see if anyone has replied to me

poker21

anony1234 wrote: »

Hi guys. I've been spending faaaaaar too much of my life reading this forum at work/at home etc and after today i'm not coming back. All the help/advice (especially from the regular posters whoever you are) has been great! Cheers to you guys!

I scored 30/45 87555 so hopefully this will be enough. Interviewed in the South Yorkshire area if anyone else is wondering.

Good luck all.

I bid you farewell.

Might come back once to see if anyone has replied to me

well done! and all the best to you

DanH84_2

you'd think that as the interviews begin to thin out and the numbers are such that it would now be impossible for certain people to drop off the merit list (an assumption on my part but I think most regions have finished/are approaching the end) they would be able to start to take action. Whether that's only approaching the very secure, or realising that if you only have a couple of hundred interviews left nationwide it's not hard to look at areas applied for to see if there could possibly be any changes in some of the regions and, if not, they can then start approaching those regions.

I'm guessing they'll not think like that though.

redsky1977

polekitten wrote: »

Hi, my friend at work suggested looking through this thread. It's taken a while and I wish I'd looked before my interview!

Anyway, I got a really good score on the test, passed the competencies but I'm currently appealing the interview process. Has anyone else appealed for any reason and what was the outcome? I only sent mine in today.

I was given 3, 5, 3, 2, 3 from the interview and if I just did badly in an interview I would never dream of complaining about it. However I don't believe my interview was conducted in a fair manner so I'm going to try appealing.

Another big reason I think that is similar competencies got me through to the DWP management fast-track final in London and I don't believe they warranted such low scores. I'm not ig headed and think that because I work for them already and because of the fast-track thing I can just walk through but I interviewed well in the situation they actually allowed me and I was given ridiculously low marks in all but 1 question! I'm not holding out much hope of being reinterviewed though, hopefully it'll stop them doing the same again to someone else.

So one question I have is how long were you told the interview would last when you arrived and how long were you given?

Congratulations to those with good results, I hope you all get the positions

I was told at the start of my interview that I would have 5-6 mins per comp and then time at the end to 'add to my examples' [if I have forgotten anything] and to ask any questions. I can't really remember but I think they said 40mins max altogether. At the end of my interview the interviewer said 'well done, it's been 40mins exactly!' so that's what makes me think there was a time limit of 40mins.;)
The invites said 1hr in total so I guess if you add 20mins for the CRB/paperwork/photocopying that makes sense.

Esoog

mwddrwg wrote: »

Thanks for the tip. I did use a salary calculator and came up with that figure but I wanted to ask them about how much pension contributions will be. I was on the 'classic' pension scheme for nine years in my previous stint at JCP. Just thought that maybe a current staff member on the same scale would know. I'm working to tight budget so every penny counts! By the way, I would be working outside London.

http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/campaigns/pensions/pensionscalculator.cfm

If you've got excel there's one there, just ignore the ranting and raving!

mummybear1_2

Hi, this is a question for everyone who has had their interview but particularly for those in NW region. When the interviewers ask the competency related questions do they stick to the broad headings ie the descriptors on the first page of the competency sheet in the invite pack, or do they ask questions based on the more detailed bullet points on the 2nd and 3rd competency sheets in the invite pack. Also,do they ask more than one question on each competency? and finally has anyone had a question on analysing, improving and changing as this wasn't one of the competencies that we had to submit written comments for. Thanks.

poker21

mummybear1 wrote: »

Hi, this is a question for everyone who has had their interview but particularly for those in NW region. When the interviewers ask the competency related questions do they stick to the broad headings ie the descriptors on the first page of the competency sheet in the invite pack, or do they ask questions based on the more detailed bullet points on the 2nd and 3rd competency sheets in the invite pack. Also,do they ask more than one question on each competency? and finally has anyone had a question on analysing, improving and changing as this wasn't one of the competencies that we had to submit written comments for. Thanks.

analysing, improving and changing is not one of the competencies we are being interviewed on. Only the 5 comps.

1st sheet is for AO applicants. Concentrate on 2nd and 3rd sheet.
They will only ask you one question per competency but may ask you to elaborate more. Some people have been asked additional questions but for the same competency that is being discussed. (hope that makes sense)

Good Luck

mummybear1_2

poker21 wrote: »

analysing, improving and changing is not one of the competencies we are being interviewed on. Only the 5 comps.

1st sheet is for AO applicants. Concentrate on 2nd and 3rd sheet.
They will only ask you one question per competency but may ask you to elaborate more. Some people have been asked additional questions but for the same competency that is being discussed. (hope that makes sense)

Good Luck

Thanks for this. Have quite a few STAR examples but none which fit all of the bullet points under each competency as some of the bullet points are quite diverse. Might have to use more than one example to for each competency to cover all the points. Would this be ok ?