DWP Recruiting Again - 2012

tinshed

scooterchick wrote: »

They decide by setting a passmark for each individual district. This will be dependent on number of vacancies and number of applicants. Your percentile NEVER changes. For example baby growth charts, this are based on a group of babies who were weighed and measured for the purpose of providing a benchmark against which other babies were measured. When a baby is weighed it's weight is plotted on a growth chart and you get a corresponding percentile. It's exactly the same in this situation. 300 took the test with the purpose of creating a benchmark with which to compare all other people who take the test. Why do you think your score has never changed? If you were being measured against each other it would fluctuate on a daily basis. It does not and it will not.

I understand what your saying, but i think you missed my original point earlier in this thread.

Your score has to be compared against those you are applying against in the district your applying to.

[Deleted User]

SpiralGalaxy wrote: »

Hello all. First post here.

Does anyone know when any of us can reasonably expect to hear whether we've been selected for interview? Cheers.

Welcome! I was told it'd be a couple of weeks after the closing date.

drwho2011

cloe23 wrote: »

I work for the DWP at HEO grade and for this exercise this is completely not true, the department is massively over on there headcount at the lower grade (band and need to promote internally to get the balance back between the two grades. And there are a lot of educated, critical thinking graduates/ex professionals at band B grade who took the job because 'they needed any job' in the last wave of recruitment who are all going for promotion.

I was making a generalisation but I agree about your statement though concerning staff taken in at Band B since 2009 being educated and often graduates. Its also based on an observation of the number of AO's who went for promotion who I knew with years of experience but failed to get through at the interview, some had been on TDA for considerable periods of time doing EO jobs.

On the headcount though I disagree as for some time the proportion of EO to AO grade has been increasing ever since AA's were largely phased out.

In some district's especially in London there were shortages of AO's and it meant they had EO's doing their jobs, I remember one particular instance where an AO's contract came to an end and they were replaced by two EO's who divided the workload between them, not exactly the most cost efficient decision.

scooterchick

tinshed wrote: »

I understand what your saying, but i think you missed my original point earlier in this thread.

Your score has to be compared against those you are applying against in the district your applying to.

Yes, I know what you mean. Your overall percentile is based on the control group but the passmark will be set by each individual district and then, yes, you will be ranked against your peers from that district. So someone in London might only have to be in the 70% percentile to progress whereas someone in Glasgow might have to be in the 80% percentile to progress.

tinshed

scooterchick wrote: »

Yes, I know what you mean. Your overall percentile is based on the control group but the passmark will be set by each individual district and then, yes, you will be ranked against your peers from that district. So someone in London might only have to be in the 70% percentile to progress whereas someone in Glasgow might have to be in the 80% percentile to progress.

Yep thats right. I posted it specifically so those who had not scored particularly high really didnt need to worry to much about other posters stating that they had scored so well. Unless of course all the high scorers were in their district:) but lets not go there:D

Xena_007

I don't mean to be harsh but considering the Sandwell (Black Country) area is ranked 351st of 354 local authorities and is one of the lowest for educational attainment across the UK I sure do hope this benchmark will be lower here than anywhere else lol

scooterchick

Xena_007 wrote: »

I don't mean to be harsh but considering the Sandwell (Black Country) area is ranked 351st of 354 local authorities and is one of the lowest for educational attainment across the UK I sure do hope this benchmark will be lower here than anywhere else lol

It'll be interesting to see what the passmark is in the individual districts and if it corresponds to the general academic performance. Everyone will be hoping it was a bunch of thickies in their area :D:D

SpiralGalaxy

Deleted_User wrote: »

Welcome! I was told it'd be a couple of weeks after the closing date.

Thanks! Have been checking the site and my emails every day like a hawk. Suppose I might as well ease up a bit.

FairyCakes

Erazor wrote: »

Not trying to be a D***head, but I am very skeptical of people who have scored 90%+, and would think that DWP are smarter than just taking on the top 10% of people to a interview.

The test is very open for abuse, I won't advertise how but it's simple, I can gurantee myself 90%+ if i really wanted to, taking the moral high ground and for testing myself. I took the test with no prior experience or revision and scored 70%+

I have read past threads where people who scored 70-90% did well in job interviews and got accept where some who claim some ridiculous score fail miserable for interview stages where they didnt hit the 25 pass mark. Even more skeptical, if you're smart enough to score so high you should really ace the interview and not crumble below pass rates.

People here saying or thinking that only the top 10% scorers will go through is quite interesting, and it would prove that DWP is really THAT stupid.

I took the test with no revision other than the practice question given in the information and I scored 90+%. However, I am pretty hopeless when it comes to interviews (the wrong generation to 'big' myself up) BUT that doesn't mean that I'm incapable of doing the job or that I've cheated in my application/test.

Erazor

FairyCakes wrote: »

I took the test with no revision other than the practice question given in the information and I scored 90+%. However, I am pretty hopeless when it comes to interviews (the wrong generation to 'big' myself up) BUT that doesn't mean that I'm incapable of doing the job or that I've cheated in my application/test.

In most cases a job interview is to judge if the applicant is who they really say they are. If someone is picked for an interview because their CV is great and they fit the job role, all they want to make sure is if you hold true to your CV and abilities, not to figure out that your actually even smarter than what you have already portrayed!

If you need a computer programmer and you see a CV, the person has a lot of company experience and has wrote a lot of software related skill, then when you invite them to an interview and they cannot answer the most basic coding questions the person doesn't reflect their CV and most likely get rejected.

If you really are smart to the point where you can score 90% on this test, you really should be able to be smart enough to prepare and take a good shot at your interviews. The exception is nerves, some people such as myself have stage fright, but even then if you cannot express your ideas to about 3 people you really should be attending special confidence courses.

I think this is why the DWP interview stages are based on compentencies which is already something you have done, it will be basically doing them on the spot and should pretty much compete with what you wrote online.