DWP Recruiting Again - 2012

alexaj86

JXB05 wrote: »

Has anyone received the working locations form for the North West? I submitted my application and completed the test last weekend.

Nope... I didn't know it had already been sent to a lot of applicants until I read this thread.

[Deleted User]

redsky1977 wrote: »

P.S. I did score 97% and 99%. I am not happy to be called a cheat because I did well. I have worked as an EO before. :mad:

I agree. Although I didn't do very well, I think many people who got high scores (over 90%) did so without cheating. You obviously have a much better idea of what the testers are looking for than I do. After speaking to some people, I realise I'd done the situational judgement part completely wrong and am armed with knowledge that will hopefully increase my scores next time. I applaud you if you've achieved such high scores without any assistance.

Erazor

redsky1977 wrote: »

P.S. I did score 97% and 99%. I am not happy to be called a cheat because I did well. I have worked as an EO before. :mad:

No one called you a cheat, I just said I was skeptical about those who scored insanely high, that's just my opinion and no one has the right to tell me otherwise. You know you didn't cheat so why feel insulted or the need to justify yourself?

If anyone did cheat you would think they would be in the high bracket, as cheating and still scoring low is plain stupid, it's like making mistakes as you cheat.

Not being bad, but with the job climate and recession I really doubt a lot of people will feel morally bad about cheating to secure a job interview, they will in the end work for the money they get so not a major crime/illegal or something people will lose sleep over.

I talked about the job application and cheatable test and everyone was confused about the fact why I didn't just cheat then to secure an interview. These were the opinions of general nice people I know.

C00kie1

alexaj86 wrote: »

Nope... I didn't know it had already been sent to a lot of applicants until I read this thread.

I did not receive an email, but I found this form and message asking me to return it by yesterday morning when I logged into the civil service jobs website. It was under a heading on the left 'communications' it seemed to have been posted on 26 Jan. I completed it but not by the deadline.:(

tsimehC

The benchmark will be pushed up to around 60% for passing the test as they believe there are too many people that passed the test (to be subsequently interviewed). This is something I got from someone who's part of the recruitment process. No mentions of doing the test again at the interview but I didn't press the matter on that (this is probably all old news (and I should say on hearsay) so sorry if it is).

On the note of the test, is it a gamble to do +3 or -3 on each question as you can lose all points (-1 or +1 being the safer options) or are they all one of each; -3, -1, +1, +3 (I followed the latter way of thinking and landed a relatively bad score).

drwho2011

tsimehC wrote: »

The benchmark will be pushed up to around 60% for passing the test as they believe there are too many people that passed the test (to be subsequently interviewed). This is something I got from someone who's part of the recruitment process. No mentions of doing the test again at the interview but I didn't press the matter on that (this is probably all old news (and I should say on hearsay) so sorry if it is).

On the note of the test, is it a gamble to do +3 or -3 on each question as you can lose all points (-1 or +1 being the safer options) or are they all one of each; -3, -1, +1, +3 (I followed the latter way of thinking and landed a relatively bad score).

the -3 to +3 questions are graded out of 7.

If you pick the "right answer" you get 7, the "wrong answer" gets you 1. Anything else will score you between 2 and 6 depending on how close you were.

Daedelus

It says on the feedback that that the two parts of the test were weighted equally.

Xena_007

I thought the wording on the situational part was not clear

I remember one question about two women !!!!!ing about each other and one of the statement were "Sit them down and tell them if they don't get over their differences then both would have to be taken off the project"

So.... THe answer could have been major negative reaction -3 as obviously you might make them both cheesed off if taken off the project

Equally the answer could be + 3 as the dwp people what to see people being decisive and take firm action... And actually taking them both off the project could be better for the other team members.....or not...v. Difficult indeed.

Basically when answering this part I didn't know from which perspective you should have been looking at

greenberet1990

Xena_007 wrote: »

I thought the wording on the situational part was not clear

I remember one question about two women !!!!!ing about each other and one of the statement were "Sit them down and tell them if they don't get over their differences then both would have to be taken off the project"

So.... THe answer could have been major negative reaction -3 as obviously you might make them both cheesed off if taken off the project

Equally the answer could be + 3 as the dwp people what to see people being decisive and take firm action... And actually taking them both off the project could be better for the other team members.....or not...v. Difficult indeed.

Basically when answering this part I didn't know from which perspective you should have been looking at

agree. there was one also that say i.e tim does not like training/or change, so what will you do?. A)do nothing as he don'ts not like change/training or talk to him about his long-term devlopmnet.
sound right to me, but i guess A was right.

Lorac05

greenberet1990 wrote: »

agree. there was one also that say i.e tim does not like training/or change, so what will you do?. A)do nothing as he don'ts not like change/training or talk to him about his long-term devlopmnet.
sound right to me, but i guess A was right.

Remember there aren't any totally right or totally wrong answers - you were asked to grade the answers as to which you thought were more or less appropriate. These are then compared to what a panel has decided are the most and least approriate - and that doesn't mean they are even in agreement as to the most/least appropriate - they grade them themsleves and come up with a joint decision. And then the percentile we are given is against a benchmark group and how they answered the questions not how the panel may have answered ( that is the raw score given).

In your example you only give two of the answers and there were four - all with varying levels of appropriatness. Saying that I would I'm fairly sure that A) doing nothing is not a good answer from someone in manangement or in this case being a DWP employee who is trying to help people get work and encouraging them to get training etc. and I'm sure I graded that at -2. If the panel agreed I would score 7 for that but if they felt -3 was the most appropriate and -2 was the 2nd most appropriate I would score 6 - the other 5 answers being graded as determined by the panel. The other 3 answers in that question are also graded like that and again your answer is compared to how the panel graded them. There is therefore a total of 28 points per the analysis questions - and 12 of those in total - which accounts for the 336 points.

Note that the people who scored in the 99% percential are not scoring 300+ raw numbers - they are just in more agreement with the test groups answers. This also expains why the difference between the raw marks can be minimal but the difference in the percential mark can appear much larger.

Does that make sense?