HMRC Tax Specialist Programme (TSP) 2018

I have done it before and passed. My AC is on Tuesday for the Fast Stream. You get 8 questions have 30 seconds of prep time at the beginning of each question then the camera starts rolling straight. You can’t rerecord the answers but can redo the practice question as many times as you want to get a hang of the process. Not sure if it will be anything similar.

You stated - 'I think of all the sifting tests in the CS application process, the SJT is probably the one which derives the most 'honest', 'representative' results. It's not something you can really prep for in the same way you can for the verbal and numerical reasoning tests. It's directly testing the way you are most likely to conduct yourself on a day-to-day basis in a workplace setting. The skills it's testing are those you've acquired over your lifetime, over a multitude of complex settings: your ability to read people, to empathize, to persuade, to read situations, to motivate, to prioritize and so on and so forth. These skills are very subtle; people are rarely self-aware of, and even less likely to self-evaluate (indeed, it's difficult) their strengths and deficiencies in these areas.'

Surely you don't believe this based on some hypothetical situations with ambiguous responses condensed down to about thirty minutes.

Surely the SJT says nothing about a person - more of the cutting down should happen following the verbal and numerical tests and scrap the SJT - the top performers in these tests should get an interview where an interviewer can actually talk to you about your actual experiences and find out 1000 times more about you then they ever could from the SJT.

I'll say again - I perform very well at work. have always been a top performer and have always excelled in team situations etc so I know for certain that the SJT is not representative of me in any way.

Yandog - I am with you, the SJT is complete pot luck and such a stupid way to recruit.

I currently work for HMRC as a fully qualified HO with 5+ years of compliance experience. I scored 99% on both the verbal and numerical tests yet only 54% on the SJT.

In my Business Unit I know of approximately 20 people who apply for this job, all past both numerical and verbal and all but one person failed on the SJT. Now these people are experienced officers, some with vastly more experience than I have, and all a mixture of Band O, HO and SO grades.

There is something very wrong with HMRC's recruitment strategy when only 1 out of 20 experienced officers are deemed worthy of a video interview. People who do the actual job day in day out.

Here's hoping next year HMRC go back to the old way of recruitment.

Yandog - I am with you, the SJT is complete pot luck and such a stupid way to recruit.

I currently work for HMRC as a fully qualified HO with 5+ years of compliance experience. I scored 99% on both the verbal and numerical tests yet only 54% on the SJT.

In my Business Unit I know of approximately 20 people who apply for this job, all past both numerical and verbal and all but one person failed on the SJT. Now these people are experienced officers, some with vastly more experience than I have, and all a mixture of Band O, HO and SO grades.

There is something very wrong with HMRC's recruitment strategy when only 1 out of 20 experienced officers are deemed worthy of a video interview. People who do the actual job day in day out.

Here's hoping next year HMRC go back to the old way of recruitment.

Yes it's still saying that. I think they'll let us know by Friday 22nd, just before Christmas. If we get the job then it'll be a nice present. If we don't we can try getting drunk with some eggnog.

Yandog - I am with you, the SJT is complete pot luck and such a stupid way to recruit.

I currently work for HMRC as a fully qualified HO with 5+ years of compliance experience. I scored 99% on both the verbal and numerical tests yet only 54% on the SJT.

In my Business Unit I know of approximately 20 people who apply for this job, all past both numerical and verbal and all but one person failed on the SJT. Now these people are experienced officers, some with vastly more experience than I have, and all a mixture of Band O, HO and SO grades.

There is something very wrong with HMRC's recruitment strategy when only 1 out of 20 experienced officers are deemed worthy of a video interview. People who do the actual job day in day out.

Here's hoping next year HMRC go back to the old way of recruitment.

I received an email yesterday informing me that I have progressed to the next stage, but my application still says it is under review. Is anyone else experiencing this?

I got 58% and just been informed i passed to video interview, don't lose hope. I think they must take into account the different sections or something as i didn't score poorly on any single one just average to good overall. Might also be to do with the fact that im in the disabled section? who knows. Good luck everyone.

I got 58% and just been informed i passed to video interview, don't lose hope. I think they must take into account the different sections or something as i didn't score poorly on any single one just average to good overall. Might also be to do with the fact that im in the disabled section? who knows. Good luck everyone.

Only 4 questions on the video interview it seems to be a very short process

8 minutes of us talking - not long but I suppose they'll have a flavour of each candidate. They do say you know in the first 5 minutes when interviewing