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Five Tactics for Civil Service Exam
You can increase your score on almost any multiple choice civil service exam or test by employing five simple
"tactics for exam taking." In fact, it is likely that you could increase your
final score by between five and ten percentage points by using these exam taking tactics!
That means if you studied enough to score eighty, these tactics can get you a score of eighty-five or ninety.
These tactics aren't about studying (a subject of later articles), they are about actually taking a civil service
exam. You wouldn't approach a robbery-in-progress, burglary or traffic stop without
a plan. The same is true for a civil service exam. Like any other tactical problem, the more you know about the problem, the more planning you can do. The first task is to understand a little more about the nature of the problem a civil
service exam or multiple choice test.
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The Strategy of Preparing for a Promotional Exam
In our first article we looked at five tactics for taking
a civil service exam. These tips were classified as tactics because they were
immediately deployable to the situation. Like field tactics, they are something
you learn and then use when they apply. Studying for promotion is significantly
different from the actual civil service exam process. It calls for longer term
planning, preparation and implementation. In this article we will look at five
test preparation strategies.
A successful study plan is a strategic plan. A good strategic plan starts
with an assessment of the enemy, competition, market or in this case, the test. Several
basic questions need to be answered:
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What is Civil Service?
A civil servant or public servant is a civilian career public sector employee working for a government department or agency.
Many consider the study of civil service to be a part of the field of public administration. Further workers in non-departmental
public bodies may also be classed as civil servants for the purpose of producing statistics. Examples in this category include
some employees of so-called QUANGOs. Collectively they form a nation's Civil Service or Public Service.
In the British
Civil Service, civil servants are career employees recruited and promoted on the basis of their administrative skill and technical
expertise, and as such do not include, nor are appointed by, elected officials or their political advisors. Civil servants
are expected to be politically neutral, and may be prohibited from taking part in political campaigns. However, the extent
of this political neutrality in practice - especially within the ranks of the most senior of Civil Servants - has sometimes
been questioned.
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Assessment Center 101
Assuming
your either a police officer or firefighter, imagine yourself either driving through the dark streets, the police radio finally
quiet after a night of breaking up fights, wrestling drunks and mediating family quarrels, or as a firefighter, racing through
the streets, responding to three-alarm fires, lugging hoses and pumping water until your arms feel like rubber. Finally, you
have a moment to think about your future with the department.
You
know the next promotional civil service exam is coming up soon, and you have made up your mind that you are ready to promote. You feel you have demonstrated to the department that you are "ready" for a promotion.
After all, haven't you volunteered for all the last minute overtime assignments and "special projects", just to show your
boss that you had what it takes?
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Just what are Assessment Centers?
The term "assessment center," connotes a location where one goes to be "assessed." In truth, it is only a method, not a location. The method itself is basically a series
of exercises where each participant is given an opportunity to demonstrate his or her skills to a group of skilled observers
who carefully monitor the candidates behavior. The observers are called "assessors." Usually, the assessors are at least one to three ranks above the candidates.
However, a trained assessor need not actually be a higher rank, but must be thoroughly
familiar with the assessment center method, the dimensions and behaviors required of the position being tested for and trained
in observing and recording behavior.
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Assessment Center
Specifics
Several basic exercises have become fairly standard in
today's assessment centers. They are:
The In-Basket
The Group discussion/Leaderless group
The Interview Simulation; often called the
Role play Employee counseling session
Oral presentation (often a personal biography)
Written exercise
Panels/Oral Boards
Actually, the exercise could be almost anything as long
as it can be shown to be job related.
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