Thanks for answering my questions the other day Danielle. I’ve a few more things I wanted to ask that have popped into my head since if you don’t mind answering them as well.
Firstly, I noticed you came into ONS from a psychology background, so was just wondering how you found that switch/if it was easy enough getting settled into the role, because I’ve also been studying psychology at university. My main worry is that I’ve been doing a PhD for the past 3 and a half years and asides a couple of stats modules during my first year of it I’ve barely had a chance to do much stats outside of the “extremely difficult” one sample t-tests I’ve been using to analyse my thesis data!
Secondly, do you know was the application process that you went through to gain your promotion the exact same as the one that the external candidates would have had to complete, or once you’re already in ONS are there parts you’re allowed to skip because it is assumed you are competent with a lot of the stuff already? And if you did get to skip parts, do you know will this be the case for other future promotion opportunities?
On a related note, I noticed yesterday that ONS are currently recruiting Senior Statistical Analysts and was almost tempted to stick in an application (I decided I probably wouldn’t have anywhere near enough experience at this point though), but I was just wondering if you know do ONS recruit for this role on a regular/annual basis or could it be a few years after we start as HEOs before this promotion chance comes up again? Also, do you have any idea how long we would need to have been working as HEOs before having a realistic chance of being successful in applying for SEO positions?
Finally, I started briefly looking into to trying to find somewhere to live in and around Newport a few days ago and realised I hadn’t much of a clue really as to what sort of areas I should be looking at, so I was wondering if you would have any recommendations on nice areas to live (preferably close to ONS and/or with good public transport services available, because I don’t currently drive at the minute).
Anyway, this is quickly starting to turn into a short essay rather than the few questions I promised at the start of this post (sorry!), so I’m going to stop writing now!