Fast Stream 2011 Competition

Scroll to see replies

Reply 40

Dapple

4,973

Reply 41

faststreamer

Where can I find numerical and verbal reasoning practice tests?

Reply 42

Prince Rhyus

To all those who are asking about where tests and stuff are, my questions to you are:

1) Why do you want to join the civil service?
2) What qualities can you contribute to the civil service?

Reply 43

Prince Rhyus

And anyone who wants to go into the Foreign Office...

Listen and learn...

(i.e. if you want to go into a policy area where stuff really does change - and change very quickly policywise - where your recommendations to a minister could change policy - seriously consider a home department)

(That's not to say the FCO ain't fun... :wink:

)

Reply 44

staysha

Prince Rhyus

To all those who are asking about where tests and stuff are, my questions to you are:

1) Why do you want to join the civil service?
2) What qualities can you contribute to the civil service?

What happens if I attempt to answer this, and my answer fails to satisfy? Will I be thrown out of this thread? Or will you just politely ignore my questions from now on?
:wink:

My answer:
1) I have to be honest- part of what draws me is entirely selfish. I like the idea of a good salary. I also think the job will be challenging, and I will always be improving my skills and learning new things. I think it will afford me the opportunity to work alongside intelligent and focused people. But mostly I want to work in a job that I perceive as having value. Its difficult to articulate what this means, but I think working in the service of society has inherent value.
2) I think I am moderately clever and articulate. I also think I get on with well with people in a work environment. I am keen to learn, and have determination. Yada yada, I am brilliant :p:

....
So, does my answer cut the mustard!!??!!

Reply 45

Prince Rhyus

staysha

What happens if I attempt to answer this, and my answer fails to satisfy? Will I be thrown out of this thread? Or will you just politely ignore my questions from now on?
:wink:

....
So, does my answer cut the mustard!!??!!

On 1), everyone has to pay the bills - it goes with the territory. What matters are your priorities. In part it depends what you define as "decent" - you won't end up with the telephone number payments of investment banking.

2) How does that answer differentiate you from all of the other candidates who could probably say the same thing...and more?

Reply 46

Prince Rhyus

For everyone in general, imagine you're a senior manager in a department of state, and a report along the lines of:
http://collections.europarchive.org/tna/20080205132101/fco.gov.uk/files/kfile/cgreportfinal,0.pdf
lands on your desk.

How do you react?

Reply 47

thatwhichiam

Prince Rhyus

To all those who are asking about where tests and stuff are, my questions to you are:

1) Why do you want to join the civil service?
2) What qualities can you contribute to the civil service?

1) At no point in my life have I ever been interested in working for anything but my country. I have considered teaching, the police, anything that can help people here have a better life. After much thought and research I realised I was probably best suited to a job in the civil service; helping continue the work of the government really appealed to me.

2) I believe that aside from intelligence, I am both organised and open minded. I have had to organise my friends to help perform the annual German society play; organise my year abroad, and having spent so much time around other cultures (7 months in Russia, 3 in Austria) I am probably more open minded than most people. In Russia certainly I had experience of poverty and what it's like to live a life where Macdonald's is a treat, and where dead bodies lie on the street for hours, ignored, and the police are corrupt enough to steal a young man's debit card in his first week in the country. From there I have experience of what the country doesn't need and experience of what some people in this country may have to deal with on a daily basis.

Well, I hope that makes sense.

PS Prince R, I will reply to your PM, thank you very much, I'm on holiday and have been for a while and only just got the internet properly :p:

Reply 48

staysha

Prince Rhyus

TBH 2) probably doesn't separate me from others very much. I do not overly enjoy going on about how great I am. I know I have to do it in interviews in order to sell myself, and I know you are helping us to see that we will have to do this, but I feel a bit icky about doing this here.....

Is it just me, or is the tone of this thread becoming a tad antagonistic? Reading the previous years threads I saw this place as somewhere to come to get advice and trade stories, but it is starting to feel like I have to prove myself worthy here even to apply for the fast stream.....

Reply 49

TiBFS

staysha

Id say PR is putting a bit of a challenge to people to think about what is motivating them to apply, whether this is a job for them and if they have a realistic chance of succeeding.

Thousands of people apply for the FCO option (as an example) with mind bogglingly small odds, in a process which will cost them some money and a lot of time.

I don't think the questions are to justify to PR or the thread but you need to be able to justify committing to an application process which will take 6 months or so.

Reply 50

Prince Rhyus

staysha

No one's asking anyone to prove themselves worthy.

As TiBFS said, I'm trying to help manage expectations more than anything else. I'm challenging people now because these are the sorts of things you may find yourself being asked whether at an assessment centre or by a hostile colleague or stakeholder who may for whatever reason see you as a "jumped up graduate from a posh background."

On my third day as a Fast Streamer I attended a cross-Whitehall meeting where the chair - a senior civil servant said some disparaging things about how a piece of guidance would probably be taken forward by some excitable little Fast Streamer. At the end of the meeting my then boss introduced her to me. (She was initially mortified until she found out I came through the in-service route from her department).

The other thing that I'm also trying to do is to help ensure that future FSers don't make some of the mistakes that previous generations of FSers have. Such have been the issues with previous FSers and the systerm itself that the largest civil service union, the Public and Commercial Services Union (the PCS) - with over 300,000 members, passed the following motion at its conference this summer:

"This conference believes that the Civil Service Fast Stream process is divisive and elitist. This scheme provides a fast track into government departments for the chosen few at the expense of others. It has succeeded in maintaining the white middle class domination of the Senior Civil service and restricting access to working class candidates.

Not only does the scheme recruit on divisive lines by requiring academic qualifications and then assessment centres, but once in departments candidates are afforded preferential treatment. This comes in the form of higher salaries on the HEO(D) range and advantageous career moves orchestrated by departmental human resource teams.

This conference therefore instructs the NEC to use its resources to argue for the scrapping of the Fast Stream process. "

The decision is listed in http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/news_and_events/conference/conference-reports-2010/wednesday-afternoon-session--conference-report.cfm which states:

[INDENT]The Civil Service Fast Stream “is elitist and divisive and should be scrapped,” said James Cox, Home Office Greater London, moving motion A32. Almost a third of those appointed had been to Oxbridge, and white applicants were consistently favoured over black and minority ethnic, he said.
Vicky Searle, Liverpool HMRC, disagreed. She said dozens of her young members applied to Fast Stream every year as internal candidates bypassing the formal qualifications – “it’s an opportunity they value.”
Supporting the motion, Joy Dunn, NEC, said Fast Stream “is one of the greatest examples of institutionalised inequality and part of the “conveyor belt of class privilege.”
“We need genuine rights and opportunities for all. We’ll take a new policy to the Cabinet Office.”[/INDENT]
The motion was passed. "

I'm a member of both the PCS and the FDA - a former elected rep of the PCS and a current elected rep for the FDA. Therefore I'm treading a fine line. My personal view is similar to Vicky Searle's - mentioned above. One of the reasons why the Fast Stream is targeting more new universities is because muggins over here through the FDA leant on Cabinet Office to argue that if it wanted to diversify the applicants and entrants into the Fast Stream, it made far more sense to target those universities that had a more diverse intake in the first place.

So yes, Fast Streamers have historically rubbed some of their longer serving colleagues up the wrong way. (If they had not, the above-motion would not have been tabled, let alone passed).

Being on the Fast Stream - especially in a policy area, is a real baptism of fire. One of the things you'll end up doing (I did in each of my three separate policy areas) is delivering public speeches and then getting stuck into Q&A sessions facing what normally is a hostile audience that is more than likely to contain people who want to tear strips out of the government of the day. As an official responsible for helping deliver what that government of the day wants, you are a magnet for all of the proverbial punches. Given what the Coalition has set out in its plans, many a civil servant is going to take a hammering. This at the same time the civil service is taking a hammering anyway.

The Fast Stream is a graduate programme like no other - it's the only programme in the country where as part of your work duties you have the opportunity to make recommendations to ministers that 99 times out of 100 they will follow. (That even includes making recommendations asking the minister to table legislation to change the law). My biggest recommendation - that any minister has gone with - was one recommending that £2million should be spent on a particular community facility in a deprived part of the country - despite scepticism from other colleagues around me. (It took me over 6 months to persuade everyone to go along with me but I managed it in the end). Think of all the energy everyone else outside of the civil service has to expend trying to persuade ministers to go one way or the other.

One of the reasons why I encourage people to do voluntary work - in particular in deprived areas of the UK is because a lot of the work civil servants do involves trying to deal with the problems that society has. When people are at college and university, they have huge opportunities to gain such experience. Much as I would love to have continued what I did at university, work takes up most of my time, and what little is left is spent on public transport between work and home.

Reply 51

staysha

PR, I find your last post fascinating. Is it the case that there is a glass ceiling for non-faststream civil servants, or is the hostility based on the idea that faststreamers do not deserve the status they have?
TBH everything you said resonates with me. The fast stream works. It brings in talent to the civil service. But it is elitist, and 'talent' can very often breed arrogance and self-satisfaction. But I don t see how this implies that we hopeful faststreamers should constrain our expectations. Anyone who has read any of the previous years threads (or even just skimmed some statistics) knows that it is unlikely that we will succeed on our first attempt. Personally, at the moment I am trying to organize a plan B- volunteer work/non-faststream civil service job etc, and then applying again. But that knowledge shouldn't stop us throwing everything at the present application. If we get past the first stage, our chances of success improve enormously (statistically speaking), and so it makes sense to look for as many practice tests as possible. Also, we can help each other! Isn't that what these threads are about?
By the way, thank you for all the helpful comments in this thread and the others- I really have learned a lot from them. I really do not want to come across as contrary as I do appreciate the help, and time, you, and TiBFS have given us hopeful faststreamers.

Reply 52

Prince Rhyus

staysha

PR, I find your last post fascinating. Is it the case that there is a glass ceiling for non-faststream civil servants, or is the hostility based on the idea that faststreamers do not deserve the status they have?

TBH everything you said resonates with me. The fast stream works. It brings in talent to the civil service. But it is elitist, and 'talent' can very often breed arrogance and self-satisfaction. But I don t see how this implies that we hopeful faststreamers should constrain our expectations. Anyone who has read any of the previous years threads (or even just skimmed some statistics) knows that it is unlikely that we will succeed on our first attempt.

Personally, at the moment I am trying to organize a plan B- volunteer work/non-faststream civil service job etc, and then applying again. But that knowledge shouldn't stop us throwing everything at the present application. If we get past the first stage, our chances of success improve enormously (statistically speaking), and so it makes sense to look for as many practice tests as possible. Also, we can help each other! Isn't that what these threads are about?

By the way, thank you for all the helpful comments in this thread and the others- I really have learned a lot from them. I really do not want to come across as contrary as I do appreciate the help, and time, you, and TiBFS have given us hopeful faststreamers.

No glass ceilings that I'm aware of - the old school "Sir Humphreys" have perhaps at times struggled to deal with both the significant changes in technology and the impact that this has had on the ability of campaign groups and the wider general public to scrutinise what the government of the day (and by definition the civil service) does. There has also been a significant turnover of senior civil servants in a number of departments as Sir Gus has tried to turn things around. As Cabinet Secretaries go, I think he's been one of the best in recent years - even though whenever I see him at conferences I have a habit of throwing very awkward questions at him.

Remember that with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, it was only in the mid 1990s that it was put into the Labour Party manifesto for the 1997 election. It took 3 years before legislation was taken through Parliament, and the civil service fought tooth and nail to get it delayed for as long as possible - the Act only coming into full effect in January 2005. That gave the civil service 8 years to get its house in order.

(It didn't - I should know - I joined the civil service in the run up to the Act coming into full force, and was based in a team responsible for making it work in my department at the time. Some of the statements coming out of senior civil servants who at the time were on well over £50,000 a year were, looking back on it now, quite astonishing. But most of them have now since retired - leaving things to people like me who quite like the idea of public scrutiny because it stops people from making silly spending decisions).

The biggest risk with Fast Streamers is that many of them have been have been extraordinarily successful throughout their education. As you move up into more and more elite institutions, you find yourself surrounded by people who are working at a similar level. The problem is that once you graduate, you don't necessarily end up working with a group of people who are on the same level as you. The same is true for Fast Streamers who start in the civil service having come straight out of university: How do you even begin to get your head around working day-in-day-out with someone who left school with barely any GCSEs but has been in their post for...ooh...20 years?

The problem in part is also that they have a habit of assuming that everyone is as competent at everything as they are. (This was a statement given to me by a former director of mine who found himself as a senior civil servant in his early 30s). Well...one of the challenges that you have to deal with in the civil service is working with a people at all levels of competency. Not easy when you are relying on certain people, and dare I say it, organisations, to do certain basic things that they then end up screwing up big time to the extent that it significantly limits what you can do as a result. But that's all part of the learning process.

What information everyone exchanges across these boards is up to them. I'm not in the business of giving hints and tips on how to pass the psychometric tests ( - going through the in service route I never had to do them anyway) nor the FSAC - which in my opinion you can't really prepare for anyway: Such is the standard of tasks that they have that those who genuinely do have the potential to make outstanding public servants are the ones who tend to shine.

What I do try to do is to give a realistic (warts and all) picture of what it might be like working in the civil service and surviving life in the Whitehall jungle. It's a very subjective view - other civil servants who post on here will have had some similar and some different experiences.

For some, it may inevitably put them off. For others it may be a revelation that they can go into the world of politics without becoming politicians. The only thing they have to be careful with is political jokes as there's always a risk that one of them will become a minister that they have to work for... :biggrin:

Reply 53

username48778

Can't agree with that more. Fast Streamers think they're god's gift and struggle with people who aren't as competent. So one of things you will have to learn, and learn quickly, if you become a Fast Streamer, is how to replace all the people around you with other Fast Streamers. Because it's the only way to get anything done :tongue:

Reply 54

username336628

Would you recommend for, if possible, someone wanting to work in the civil service to do the two year placement on the National Graduate Development Programme, to improve their understanding of local government?

Reply 55

Prince Rhyus

Jontip

Definitely.

Reply 56

username336628

I assume it will also have a great positive impact on anyone's application? E.g things to talk about in interview?

Reply 57

Prince Rhyus

Jontip

I assume it will also have a great positive impact on anyone's application? E.g things to talk about in interview?

By the time you finish on the local government programme, you won't need to go on the Fast Stream - you could go in straight as a G7. I've know a number of people who have moved from local to central government like that.

Reply 58

nabeshiniii

Prince Rhyus

The problem in part is also that they have a habit of assuming that everyone is as competent at everything as they are. (This was a statement given to me by a former director of mine who found himself as a senior civil servant in his early 30s). Well...one of the challenges that you have to deal with in the civil service is working with a people at all levels of competency. Not easy when you are relying on certain people, and dare I say it, organisations, to do certain basic things that they then end up screwing up big time to the extent that it significantly limits what you can do as a result. But that's all part of the learning process.

I absolutely agree with you on that point prince. It's the same with any work place where there is a range of mixed ability workers, each suited to their positions but on different levels of competency and working practices. It's the same in where I am working now and the same everywhere else I've worked at. I think that the fast stream application process is robust enough and long enough to find those people who really want to get in to the fast stream and also find those with the required skills needed to work with people from all facets of life.

Reply 59

staysha

Been doing these practice tests a lot now- I can do a vandn test one day and get in the top 4 percentile, and the next I am in the bottom 10 percentile- what is wrong w me.... Note to self- work on consistency!!!