Scottish Government - Various Policy and Operational Roles

OP

Original post by Anonymus 123

Anyone have any more information on what the Various Policy & Operational roles are? Where they might be based? Any idea what the interview will be like if you make it to interview? Will there be questions about political theory or stuff on guys like Hegel and Kant and all these guys? Qualitative and Quantative methods..lol all the stuff Ive forgotten from years ago. I'd LOVE to land this job. I've had enough of crappy job agencies with their crappy admin and data entry jobs and crappy retail jobs that will never take you anywhere. Thanks

Never been asked political theory stuff in any interview and I've had a few. I have found that Researcher roles are a bit more technical and need to pass a Social Research knowledge test to show that capable of doing the job.

As for these roles, no information whatever except that they are paybanded on the first step of leadership level - but for some of the roles you won't be responsible for staff. No idea of location either but working on the assumption that most will be across the central belt.

Reply 22

Hi_rise

1

I've applied for this as well, as I understand it as long as you had the relevant qualifications you got through the sift, correct?

Is there any reason why the entire thing is so vague?

(edited 5 years ago)

Reply 23

Nas1593

4

I think a lot of us are in the same boat maths wise but the good thing about the practice tests are once you get the correct answer it explains how you get that answer!

Reply 24

OP

Original post by Hi_rise

I've applied for this as well, as I understand it as long as you had the relevant qualifications you got through the sift, correct?

Is there any reason why the entire thing is so vague?

You had to meet competencies too.

I expect it's vague as there are different roles available so difficult to give specific information.

Reply 25

5dmktom

3

Original post by Nas1593

I feel I’m a bit older than a lot of the applicants at 25 .

I have also applied and im almost double your age, did the numerical test yesterday and thought the questions were pretty difficult and got harder each time but not impossible to work out, however i did think one of the questions was wrong as after several times of working out there was no difference between 2 of the answers i copied the page and even after another few attempts today i came up with the same answer, 2 of the choices worked out exactly the same amount. so i either completely missed something or my brain is fried from trying to figure it .
good luck to everyone taking the tests!

Reply 26

jubilee64

I did the number test today, I had previously applied for an HMRC role but they didn't use my banked score. Some questions were the same, others were different, I still ended up with some really tough ones so think I've done OK. When doing them with HMRC you get an immediate score, but didn't see one here. Anyway, good luck.

Reply 27

Drodadon

How many questions did the people who have completed the tests do? I did 14/15, started getting hard from about Q5 and then the last two or three were quite easy again. Thinking back I think I got a couple of obvious ones wrong so hopefully doesn't hurt me too much.

Reply 28

kitcaite

2

I did it yesterday and was asked 20 questions. The test was quite a bit longer than I was expecting, it took me nearly 1 3/4 hours, but I thought the questions were ok.

Reply 29

Drodadon

Original post by kitcaite

I did it yesterday and was asked 20 questions. The test was quite a bit longer than I was expecting, it took me nearly 1 3/4 hours, but I thought the questions were ok.

They say in the e-mail it shouldn't take as long as an hour so I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing if it takes longer.

Reply 30

CricketKing

7

Hi everyone. Best of luck with the numerical reasoning, just completed mine, deadline on Tuesday. Clear format and no timer on the screen to stress you. Bit unusual not to get any feedback at all! Guess they will take the top X percentiles and send them the verbal test.

Reply 31

I only spent 35mins to do the numerical reasoning test. I was expecting tough questions but in my view they were not. I used jobtestprep SHL numerical reasoning to practise. I would have preferred immediate result. Best of success to everyone.

(edited 5 years ago)

Reply 32

OP

Original post by ayotade

I only spent 35mins to do the numerical reasoning test. I was expecting tough questions but in my view they were not. I used jobtestprep SHL numerical reasoning to practise. I would have preferred immediate result. Best of success to everyone.

How many questions were there? Good luck!

Reply 33

OP

Original post by CricketKing

Hi everyone. Best of luck with the numerical reasoning, just completed mine, deadline on Tuesday. Clear format and no timer on the screen to stress you. Bit unusual not to get any feedback at all! Guess they will take the top X percentiles and send them the verbal test.

Definitely much more relaxed without the timer. Now there's the wait to see the results. I did notice that some of the questions were the same/similar as for applications I have done previously for UK Civil Service. That wasn't the case at the last round of applications for the ScotGov Graduate Scheme.

Reply 34

Original post by vmc21

How many questions were there? Good luck!

More than 10 less than 20. It wasn't numbered.

Reply 35

Original post by ayotade

More than 10 but less than 20. It wasn't numbered.

I guess if you answered difficult ones correctly, you will have less question.

Reply 36

OP

Original post by ayotade

I guess if you answered difficult ones correctly, you will have less question.

Hopefully. Think I did about 15 including the practice ones. I know I got the very last one wrong - or if correct, it's been a fluke 😂 Funny thing is I've done the exact same question before but just couldn't remember the calculations to reach the answer.
Hope they don't take too long to let us know the results.

Reply 37

talabi

1

Does anyone know if time is a major factor in the outcome of the test even if it is untimed? Thanks

Reply 38

username943926

14

Quite glad there is a thread on here for this, it calmed my nerves a bit - there was nothing similar or any information elsewhere on this.

I only completed the test this evening. Took 43 minutes but faffed about on a few questions I didn't read. I think there was maybe about 10-12 questions? One question i am positve had no correct answer, no matter what way you calculated it. I'm positive there was an error.

Was similar to the HMRC numeracy test. I scored very well in that so I'm hoping im ok, it was the situational test which let me down quite considerably.

It'll be quite interesting to see what the roles are. They have been running an extensive recruitment drive of late. I had go to this stage with the research officer position two months ago,however the questions were well above my ability (i took 2 research modules during my politics degree) :biggrin:

.

Reply 39