Here you will find the complete recording and the full transcript of the 2013/2014 EPSO Assistant Competition's Information Webcast held on 5 December, 2013.
Transcript
Good evening everyone and welcome to this Online EU Training online information webcast on the 2013/2014 EPSO Assistant Competitions. My name is Gabor Mikes. I’m the Managing Director of Online EU Training and I will be your host tonight.
Hopefully everyone can hear me well and I’ll give you few seconds to adjust your audio settings. Hopefully my colleagues will be able to tell me if it’s too loud, too quiet what have you.
In the meantime let me just remind everyone that should you missed something, a part of the webcast, or you experienced technical difficulties, you can be rest assured that we will make available the recording of this event and there will also be a transcript that we will publish online. But it is worth sticking around until the end because we have a special exclusive offer for you as well at the end of this session.
So without further ado, let me quickly talk about what we are going to cover tonight and what you need to know about Online EU Training. I know that many of you already know eutraining.eu quite well. But for those of you who are new to our site and to our services, we are a community of over 75,000 people who at one point in time have all prepared or wanted to get a job in the European Union. We also have a Facebook page where there is always lively discussion about tests and competitions and how to prepare.
How do we help people? How do we help candidates? This is mainly through test packages which contain practice tests for the various competitions and various tests that the European Personnel Selection Office is using when they are measuring and evaluating candidates and we also offer webinar which are online trainings which cover how to be successful and how to be good at these tests.
Today’s Agenda
So today’s agenda we are of course going to concentrate on the recently announced, directly announced today the EPSO Assistant Exams. More precisely, we are going to talk a little bit about what it is like to be an EU assistant. What are the typical tasks? What kind of duties you can expect? Then we will talk about the different types of positions that are available, that were announced today for this year. These are also called profiles. Third, we are going to talk about eligibility criteria. Eligibility criteria are the various formal conditions you need to meet in order to be able to participate in the competitions. We are going to talk about why being an EU assistant is a good opportunity from very pragmatic points of view like salary or multi-culturalism.
When it comes down to the actual process of getting an EU job, being successful in the assistant competitions, we are going to talk about the two main phases of the exam namely the pre-selection phase which consists mostly of multiple choice tests and the assessment centre which is the second phase of the exam and only those who are successful in the first phase get to the assessment centre.
We will see what an assessment centre looks like, what kind of exercise there are and how these exercises are scored and so on and so on. Since many, many people apply for EU jobs and these competitions, these exams are very competitive, it is very important to prepare for them and we will quickly mention a few good ways in which you can prepare for these exams.
And finally what I already mentioned we have special offer for you, for those of you who are participating tonight which hopefully will be helpful in your preparation.
A Day in the Life of an EU Assistant
Alright so what is a day in the life of an EU assistant look like and one of the first question that comes to our mind, where exactly would an EU assistant work if he or she was successful in a competition like the one announced today both geographically and in which EU institutions. When it comes to geography most of the jobs, 80% of the jobs are in Brussels but there are also institutions or administrative parts of institutions that are placed in Luxembourg and Strasbourg. That’s the third one Strasbourg is the one with the fewest number of jobs usually available. And we should also not forget that there are a lot of other, a lot of delegations of the EU in third countries all around the world which are also places where you might end up as an assistant.
EU Institutions
Now the Institutions. It’s very important to note whenever the EU, the European Personnel Selection Office announces positions they are not concrete positions within the institutions. Rather they are so-called horizontal competitions which means that first they determine whether you are eligible, whether you will be a good fit to work in an EU institution and once this is established and once you are on the list of those people who the EU thinks would be a good EU assistant, this is the so-called reserve list, that’s when you can get an actual complete job offer from any member of EU institutions for example the European Commission, the Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions so it’s really a wildcard and it’s only decided at the moment of recruitment. You are not going to know in advance where you will end up working.
Assistant Positions Available
So let’s see the types of positions or profiles that were announced this year and the reason I’m emphasizing that is the situation this year because this is changing from year to year depending on the types of people that the EU needs in any given year. They may recruit or elect people for Economics profiles or Legal profiles or Communication profiles. This is really depends on the demands of the institutions in the given year.
In this year, in this particular competition, we have three profiles, one called Economy and Finance. Second one called Accounting and Financial Management and the third one which they refer to as a Legal Matters.
Now what does that exactly mean? Let’s take Economy/Finance. The Economy/Finance profile as an example and if you are successful in that profile, you could for example end up as an Assistant Economist in DG Trade. DG Trade is the Directorate General in the European Commission dealing with trade issues and typical task in such a position might include organising a project team meeting where you can discuss let’s say the tasks, the background tasks that need to be taken care of before trade negotiations or revising bi-lateral trade chart which involves compiling information, compiling data for negotiators in a trade negotiation. Checking status with other DGs on proposed measures or checking what other organizations, other parts, other units think of a proposal that your DG, your unit prepared.
You can also attend unit or department meetings and create reports and memos on what was said and what is the state is of play in a project. These are typical tasks of a senior assistant.
You can see that we referred to a senior assistant as AST 3 Assistant, this is a classification used by the EU whereby junior assistant are classified as AST 1, senior assistants are classified as AST 3, administrators of various seniority are classified as AD 5, AD 7 and so on and so on. So this is really just a formal classification of the level of responsibility you have in the given job.
Eligibility – citizenship, languages
Remember the eligibility criteria I mentioned, one of the most important conditions you need to fulfill is the language requirements and the citizenship of course. Citizenship is quite straightforward; you have to be a citizen of one of the 28 member states of the EU. And when it comes to language requirement you need to have a command of two languages. The first language is for most people their mother tongue but the reason EPSO doesn’t use this expression because there are bi-lingual people for example in Belgium where this particular expression might not be that straightforward. But first language is the language you speak best and you have a thorough knowledge of this language. You also have to speak and have command of a second language which has be to be one of English, French or German and you have to have what they refer to as satisfactory knowledge of that language. Satisfactory knowledge is basically knowledge which enables you to communicate with colleague and to perform effectively in your day to day work.
Number of positions
Now, a very important question is how many positions are available? A total of roughly 110 positions are announced this year so that’s quite a lot. That’s very good. More precisely 32 positions were announced for Economy/Finance, 51 positions for Accounting/Financial Management and 28 positions for Legal Matters.
So this should be the number of positions available can also be something that informs the decision you make as to which profile you apply for especially because you can only apply for one profile. You can’t select more than one so you have to make a wise decision.
Application
We’ve heard a lot about applications, when exactly do you have to do that? Well, applications are open from today (5 December, 2013) so you can do it anytime from today until the 14th of January 2014 and whenever there is a deadline given in EU competitions, the deadline is always noon of the given day. Now, I don’t encourage you to leave things last minute, the EPSO website is notorious for crashing on the last day of applications so I encourage everyone to submit their applications at least a week before the deadline.
So here’s a quick summary of the languages. Once again first language can be any official EU language; second language can be English, French or German and an important thing to note here: if your first language is French or English or German for that matter, you can’t select the same languages or second language. So if your first language is English, you have to select French or German as the second language.
Eligibility - qualifications
Back to eligibility criteria, we’ve covered languages, but there are also two other important aspects: qualifications – this is your education background and experience. The assistant competitions are a type of competition where work experience is required. This is in contrast to for example the AD 5 entry level administrator competitions which will be announced in March because for administrator exams, all you need is university studies but you don’t need work experience. But we will cover that when we get to that in March. So as for assistant positions, there are two ways in which you can fulfill the educational eligibility criteria. If your highest level of education is secondary school then you need to have what they refer to as 3+3 years of relevant work experience. The reason is 3+3 because they count three years as if it was part of your education and the other three years are the actual work experience requirement. But this is just the formal differentiation, the formal difference, it basically has to be six years and it’s very important that it has to be relevant work experience. That means that if you applied for the Accountancy/Financial Management profile this work experience has to be from working as an accountant or as an assistant to an accountant or in the Finance Department of a company you can’t count any work experience that you may have done during you studies or even after you studies but in a different field. So if you have that, you are eligible.
The other way to fulfill the criteria is if you have relevant post-secondary education. Post-secondary education can be a university diploma, it can be an officially accredited course for example an Accountancy course and if you have that, then only three years of work experience is required. So if you have either of these two sets of requirement, then you are eligible from both the work experience and the qualification standpoint.
Common Questions
A couple of common questions always come up here. Since many people really want to work for the EU, there are always people whom are a little bit higher qualified than the minimum that is a given here and they also want to apply and participate in the competitions. The question whether over qualification can be a problem always comes up and the answer is: No, but it’s not an advantage either.
If you fulfill this minimum requirement then you are eligible and your further qualifications will not be considered. This is really just the threshold. And if you meet that threshold, if you can cross that barrier then anything else doesn’t matter then the next thing that EPSO would consider is your performance in the pre-selection in the assessment centre.
Another common question is when people ask which diplomas exactly are accepted? And it’s very hard, impossible to reply accurately or answer accurately because all EPSO says is that it has to be relevant qualifications, there’s no extensive list of what kind of diploma or courses or accredited courses are accepted. And the final decision rests with the Selection Board which is the official body that decides on the applications. You can inquire with EPSO about whether your particular qualifications could be accepted but they will also be able give you advise and though say that the final decision rests with the Selection Board.
Another typical question is what other prospects of an assistant in the EU, can assistants become administrators? And the answer is: Yes, there are internal competitions and so called equivalence exams organize which is a route from advancing from an assistant position into an administrator position. While nobody that it is easy to do so, it is certainly always an advantage if you’re participating in the internal selection procedures as opposed to an external one because in external open competitions like the one we are talking about right now, the competition is always very fierce.
Why is it a great opportunity?
Why is being an EU assistant a great opportunity? Well, one of the most pragmatically reason is there’s an attractive salary. Obviously whether how attractive you find this depends on which member state you come from. Member states with higher GDP and higher level of incomes might find this less attractive, people from member states with lower levels of income might find it more attractive but it is certainly not an underpaid position we would say.
Also there are also very good generous benefits. Benefits if you’re married, if you have children, also very good health insurance, there are schools maintained by the European Union where you can send your children and they are very good quality schools and I know that this is also an important aspect for a lot of people.
Steps toward getting a Job
Now, how do we actually get one of these positions? What are the steps and how to be successful? Here’s a quick overview of the process. What we’re talking about so far is eligibility. We’ve covered that, this is determined based on information you submit during your application and if your application is successful, you successfully submit your application, your first challenge that you will need to face is the so-called pre-selection exam. The pre-selection exam is an exam based on several different multiple choice tests mainly six. That’s quite an extensive, quite a big and long exam. We can group these test into categories: Abstract Reasoning, Numerical Reasoning and Verbal Reasoning are one category. They are unique because they are part of basically every single EU competition. The other reason we can move them in a separate category is because you will take these three tests in your first language. We will see some examples of what these tests look like if this is the first time you are applying for an EU job. The second groups of tests are a little bit more specific because these are specific to assistant competitions. These are namely the Accuracy and Precision Test, the Organising and Prioritising Test and the Situational Judgment Test.
I’ll give you some examples of what these tests look like in a minute. The other reason they are in a special category is because they are administered in your selected secondary language so either English, French or German so just to give you an example, if your first language is Bulgarian and you selected German as your second language, you will take the Abstract, Numerical and Verbal Reasoning Tests in Bulgarian and the Accuracy, Organising and Situational Judgment Tests in German.
Abstract Reasoning Test
Alright. So here’s an example of an Abstract Reasoning Test. Abstract Reasoning Test as you can see not really language based so it doesn’t even make sense to talk about taking this test in your first language because all you have to do is look at the series of figures in the top row from left to right and figure out observing the rules and the changes that are happening from figure to figure to figure out which of options below would come next in this imaginary series of figures.
And of course there a lot of things to look out for in Abstract Reasoning Test, just to give you one example. Various shapes can move in various ways from one position to the next place, there can be all kinds of different shapes, all kind of different movements, rotations, transformations and so on and so on.
In Online EU Training methodology webinars, we dedicate a lot of time to discuss in the types of rules and the types of operations that can take place and the types of shapes you might face in Abstract Reasoning Test.
Numerical Reasoning Test
The Numerical Reasoning Test is based on a table or a chart of data. This particular table or chart is about production of apples in the EU. And your task is always to calculate some kind of metric based on information given to you in the table and optional in the question text as well. So for example, a question could be asking how much apple is harvested per hectare in France in 2006 and you would be able to calculate this using the information given in the table. And the difficulty and the challenge here is not the usually the Mathematics because they are always based on simple operations: addition, subtraction, division, multiplication but rather on the time limit and to be able to figure out which calculations you need to perform and to do so in the time given.
Now that we are talking about time, the Numerical Reasoning Test consist of 10 questions and you have a total of 20 minutes to answer those so that’s two minutes per question and I forgot to mention this for Abstract Reasoning. The Abstract Reasoning test is much more intuitive last role is played about by logical thinking its more about intuition and this is reflected in the time limit as well. The Abstract Reasoning test consists of 10 questions and you have 10 minutes to answer those questions. Once again Numerical Reasoning 10 questions = 20 minutes.
In webinars when we talk about Numerical Reasoning methodology and how to be fast in Numerical Reasoning one tip we always give to estimate, to realize that certain values in the tables are close to other values that are simpler to work with and this can really speed up the process of finding the correct answer.
Just to give you an example of the theory behind Numerical Reasoning, these are the four skills that come into play in Numerical Reasoning. Data Interpretation, Reasoning which is your ability to figure out which calculations to perform, Estimation which I just mentioned and the actual Mathematical Calculation that you need to carry out.
Verbal Reasoning Test
The third test type is Verbal Reasoning and the Verbal Reasoning Test is based on a short passage of text usually one or two paragraphs followed by a standard question: Which of the following statements is correct? That is followed by four sentences, four statements and your job is to figure out which of these four statements is the correct one. And by correct we mean statements which you can prove to be correct and based on the information in the text passage.
Typical traps that EPSO tries to set in the Verbal Reasoning test is to use generalizations in the statements or to introduce outside information that might be true but EU can be sure about it based solely on the text passage and these are some of the things that we address in webinars.
Accuracy and Precision Test
On to this specific assistant test types we have Accuracy and Precision. This is a very interesting test. It’s based on a table with very simple data points. In this example, we have country, quantity, the percentage of the quantity recycled and then we have this small pictograms or icons which denote different types of waste products. You can also see that there’s a smaller table in the bottom which replicates the information from one of the rows of the larger table and your job is to check for errors in the small table. So you have to check whether country is correct, whether the quantity is the same as in the table, whether percentage is the same and whether the ticks in the small table are in the correct position based on the pictograms in the main table.
If you think that this is ridiculously easy, I agree with you. It would be very easy if it wasn’t for the time limit. But the time limit makes it extremely challenging and you really have to be very accurate and very precise because you have to check 40 of these tables in six minutes. That’s nine seconds per table.
Now what we always say in webinars is that you shouldn’t worry and shouldn’t panic if you can’t answer all the questions. This is by design and we also discuss a couple of ways in which you can shave off a few pressure seconds of your answering time for each of these tests.
Organising and Prioritising Test
The Organising and Prioritising Test, it’s usually quite popular among candidates. This is the least intimidating and probably most down to earth test. It’s basically also based on tables of data but it completely does away with any kind of Mathematical calculations. All you need to do is perform comparisons of products, of services or look at schedules or timetables and try to select the best possible option based on the information in the table and the preference is given in a question. In this particular example, you have to figure out which car to hire if you want to transport certain number of people to the airport. And you have 24 questions in the Organising and Prioritising Test and 30 minutes to answer those questions. And sometimes there would be multiple questions about each table. And in webinars about the methodology of these tests we use all the different types of tables that you might face tables to meetings, schedule, and product comparison type tables and we give some useful tips on how to quickly narrow down your options and select the best one.
Situational Judgment Test
The final test type that you will face in the assistant exam, pre-selection phase is the Situational Judgment Test. The Situational Judgment Test is a test in which you read a short scenario which places you in a very concrete work related situation. For example, you are working in a team and let’s say one of your superiors always criticizes your work in front of others and you are represented with four courses of action: A, B, C and D. You have to select what you would do in this situation or actually more precisely what you think is the most effective thing to do in that given situation and the least effective thing to do.
And this also means that this is the only test type where you have to select two options, not just one. In all other multiple choice tests, you have to select one option, the correct statement, the correct figure, the correct result, the calculation in Numerical Reasoning and so on and so on.
In Situational Judgment, you have to select both the most effective course of action and the least effective course of action. The Situational Judgment Test is tight quite closely to the assessment centre which we will discuss in a couple of minutes because it tests the same competencies.
Now we talked a lot about competencies in assessment centre, web and classroom trainings that we organize but just to give you a preview EPSO is looking for people who have good let’s say communication skills, Organising and Prioritising skills, who can handle stress quite well and these are some of the competencies that are tested in the Situational Judgment Test as well.
Six Test Types
So here’s a quick summary of the six test types that you need to sit. As I said it’s a pretty long test because, let’s just quickly count: Abstract Reasoning - 10 minutes, Numerical Reasoning – 20 minutes, that’s 30, Verbal Reasoning – 35 minutes that’s already 65 minutes, Accuracy and Precision – 6 minutes, that’s 71 minutes, Organising – 24 minutes, we’re off to a hundred minutes now and the Situational Judgment Test is 30 minutes. So the total exam takes about 130 minutes over 2 hours. So it’s a quite tiring, quite stressful, and it goes with our saying that if you prepare for it then you will be less stressed out, you would be more prepared for the kind of things that you can expect and generally much better performance can be given if the real exam date is not the first time you see what these tests look like.
Scoring
A couple of words about the Scoring of these tests. There are two things you need to be aware of. There’s a pass mark and there’s the concept of being among the best X number of candidates. The pass mark is quite simply the minimum score you need to achieve in each test. If you don’t achieve that, then you won’t even be considered. But if you reached the pass mark that’s unfortunately no guarantee for proceeding to the assessment centre because you also have to be among the best X number of candidates. What is X? Well, remember when I said that about 110 people will be selected in this particular competition. Well, if it’s 110 people selected then that means that EPSO will invite roughly 3 to 400 hundred people to the assessment centre. And that means that you need to be among the best 3 to 400 hundred candidates in the pre-selection in order to be invited to the assessment centre. So that’s what the best X means.
And since this always changes depending on the candidate’s performance in the given year, we can’t say which score you need to achieve to be successful. What we do know are the pass marks. In most of the tests, the pass mark is 50% of the total score that you can achieve and some tests are evaluated together so that means that you can reach 20 points both in Accuracy and Precision and Organising and Prioritising Tests and the pass mark is 20 points aggregate for these two tests types. That means that you can reach 20 points bar by getting only 5 points in Accuracy and 15 in Organising. The same goes for Abstract Reasoning and Verbal Reasoning there’s an aggregate pass mark of 15 points. And the Situational Judgment Test is interesting because there the pass mark is not 50% but 60%, 24 points out of 40. And you can see that it represents quite a significant part of your total pre-selection score.
And the final thing I want to call your attention to is something new this year namely that the Numerical Reasoning pass mark is differentiated depending on the profile you selected. How exactly? Let’s see. If you applied for either the Accountancy/Financial Management or Economy/Finance profiles which you can see are more closely related to numbers, the pass mark is 5 points but if you applied for the Legal Matters profile which is less closely related to numbers and counting, the pass mark is only 4 points.
This is a new development in EU competitions so far in earlier years, these pass marks were uniformed no matter which profile you selected.
Steps toward getting a job
Let’s see you were successful in the pre-selection phase and one day you received an invitation to the assessment centre, that’s a very happy day. You should be proud of yourself if you do that. So what is the assessment centre look like?
First of all the assessment centre is an actual centre. It’s a place, it’s a building, and it’s in Brussels. So you have to travel to Brussels but don’t worry, the travel cost will be reimbursed and once you get there, you will be part of a group of let’s say five or six other candidates as well. You’re not working against each other so don’t feel that way in the centre during the exercises. All six of you from the group could theoretically be placed on the reserve list so the best thing to do is to help each other perform well. And you have to complete various exercises. Some of them alone, some of them together with others.
Let’s see what these exercises are like. First of all you’ll have a Structured Interview. This is something you do alone. A Structured Interview is not like a classic job interviews so you won’t be able to ask questions and they won’t tell you about the job because as I mentioned this is a horizontal selection process. You don’t know which job exactly you are interviewing for. A Structured Interview rather again wants to pick your brain about how you perform in particular situations and this is another way of checking the same competencies that the Situational Judgment Test measured.
So they might ask you to give an example where you had to prioritise and what you learned from the experience.
The In-Tray exercise is an exercise which tries to simulate a typical work day. This is computer based; it’s possible that you will sit this exercise in your home country. But it will be formally part of the assessment centre. It basically simulates the inbox where you receive emails and you need to answer questions based on the information in these various emails.
You can check it out on Online EU Training. We do offer Case Study and In-tray simulation and there is a free demo as well which shows you what the interface looks like and what the simulation looks like.
The Case Study is again based on assortment of documents that you need to read. And the difference between an In-tray and the Case Study is that the output that you are expected to provide based on the documents in the Case Study usually an essay. You have to either write one longer essay or answer a couple of questions with short open-ended text answers which will measure your ability to absorb information and to notice relationships between data and collating information from various sources.
And finally the Group Exercise, this is where you can really help each other out with the other candidates. A Group Exercise is an exercise you as a group of five or six people are given a task for example to agree on a certain course of action as a group, simulating let’s say a meeting, and you might have a specific role given in the exercise or it might be just be something general. Let’s say you need to agree on how to present data the next meeting like trade negotiation meeting and there’s no written output. There’s no formal output of the exercise. They will actually observe and evaluate you while you’re discussing this task with the other candidates. So this is very important exercise where you have to try to assert your opinion, but without silencing others and giving everyone a chance to speak and contribute.
There are various ways and tricks in which you can show your best side in this exercise. This is something that we regularly discuss in assessment centre simulation trainings.
Assessment Centre Scoring
The assessment centre is also, the output of the assessment centre is also a score. You are scored across the various exercises based on several competencies. And the interesting thing is that you don’t get scored by exercise basis so you don’t get a separate score for let’s say your group exercise or your case study but rather for various competencies which are measured always by one in one exercise.
So for example, there’s the competency working with others. This competency would be measured in the group exercise and in the In-tray exercise or the Prioritising and Organising competency would be measured in the case study and in the In-tray exercise. And you can get a maximum of 10 points for each of these seven competencies for a total of 70 points.
This is the one occasion where your specific skills, your specific competencies in profile or field you selected are measured. So if you applied for Accountancy/Financial Management, your Accounting or Financial skills would be measured in the assessment centre more specifically in the case study.
And for that aspect of your case study the professional knowledge aspect, you can get a total of 30 points. So as you can see your professional knowledge is tested but it is a rather minor component of your total score 30 points versus 70 points for your general competencies.
And just like in the pre-selection phase, there is a pass mark; the pass mark is three points out of 10 points for each general competency for a total of 35 points out of 70. And 15 points out of 30 for your professional knowledge which they refer to as specific competencies.
You can see that the total score is 100 points and your general competencies like I’ve related to work with other Organising and Prioritising, Communication Skills these represent 70% of your total score and your professional knowledge only represents 30% of the total score.
And at this stage it’s very easy to figure out who will actually be placed on the reserve list or ranked ordered list of everybody’s scores and the first roughly 110 people with the highest scores they will be the ones that are eventually and ultimately successful in this particular assessment competition.
Why 110? Because that’s the number of positions on the reserve list that EPSO announced for this year. The reserve list is basically a list of names which EU institutions can consult when they have a vacancy and it’s this list from where they have to invite people for classic job interviews.
And if you are on the list and you are invited for a job interview, this is a very traditional; this is like a classic job interview. They would ask about your previous experience, you would be able to ask about what the job entails and then you are given an offer or not and if you argue an offer then you can think about it and accept or refuse it.
How to get it?
Now when it comes to how to get one of these jobs, how to be successful at the exams, we already mention that practice is very important but it’s also important how exactly we recommend practicing. And a lot of people sit down one or two weeks before the exam and they sit down and they practice for 10 hours each day, we believe that that’s not a very efficient way of practicing for these particular types of tests and exercises because these tests, the performance improvement with these tests comes from the routine that you gain and the routine can only be gained if your practicing for an extended period of time. We recommend 8 to 12 weeks, that’s the bad news; the good news is that you don’t have to practice for long durations. 30 minutes a day is more than enough.
You have to be persistent because EU competitions are not quick affairs. They are long process stretching up to nine month so you have to be persistent and you have to keep up your motivation.
There will always be people who are naturals in one or the other pre-selection tests. People who they do a lot of Sudoku and other logical tests. They will be intuitively very good at Abstract Reasoning. People with a Mathematical background will be intuitively very good at Numerical Reasoning but the good news is that everyone has a weak point so things balance out and secondly it is possible to improve practice and knowing the good and correct methodology so practice and methodology. These are important things.
Get in the Mood
Towards the end, I wanted to show you a couple of examples of what these tests look like. These are screenshots taken from eutraining.eu, our website. This is a Verbal Reasoning Test with the text passage and the four statements; we provide detailed explanations for all of our tests. A novelty this year was we introduced explanations for Verbal Reasoning Tests as well.
This is an example of a Numerical Reasoning Test with table. We also provide an on screen calculator because that’s what you need to use in the EPSO exam as well so it’s better to be used to it.
This is an example of an Abstract Reasoning Test; you can actually see the explanations we provide, they are very detailed on the website.
This is an example of an Accuracy Test. We are actually in the process of changing the layout of these tests to make it more similar to EPSO tests where the tables on the left side and the answer options on the other side so this is something that is a recent innovation on the practice site.
This is an example of a Organising and Prioritising Test. As you can see by the face of it, it looks quite similar to a Numerical Reasoning Test. As I mentioned it involves much less calculation. This is why we don’t show the on screen calculator and in this interface.
And I’ve already showed you the Situational Judgment Test layout when we’re talking about the both the most effective and least effective option.
So if you do decide to practice on Online EU Training, there are three test packages that we recommend: the EPSO AST Abstract-Verbal-Numerical Reasoning package, the EPSO AST Professional Skills Tests and the EPSO AST Situational Judgment Test package.
These cover all the test types that you will face at the exam and they come in various sizes so everyone can find the ideal combination.
To help you with the methodology of these tests, we regularly organise webinars, web based trainings; these are interactive trainings where you listen to the lecturer’s voice. The presentation is being shared, you can vote on the correct answer for the test, you can ask questions via chat and the next set of webinars will be in mid-January. You can see the dates here. January 16 will be the webinar about Abstract, Numerical and Verbal Reasoning and January 21st will be the webinar about Professional Skills Test, you know the Accuracy and Organising Tests and the Situational Judgment Test.
We also have a lot of free resources. Let me emphasize or let me highlight two e-books that we recently published: The EPSO Assistant Exam Workbook Volumes I and II. These introduce all the EPSO Assistant test types with very detailed examples and explanations on how to approach these tests so there are very popular resources and we also have an extensive library of articles with various book tips for your preparation for how to fill out the application form and typical problems faced that Numerical Reasoning Tests and so on and so on.
New Design
Those of you who know Online EU Training for quite a while, you will be surprised that we have a new design that we are introducing. This is a screenshot from the page where you can compose your practice test and we introduced the new design with a view to really simplifying your job of starting the practice test so you can get all the difficulties and complications out of the way so you can really prepare for your exam and concentrate on your practice. So we hope that this would be an improvement.
If you want to practice offline as well on the train, on the subway, or outside if you’re lucky enough to be in the country where it’s warm now, we recommend the EU Test book which includes hundreds of practice tests and a lot of useful tips and preparation advice and all the practice test in the book are completely separate from the website so you don’t run the risk of getting the same questions.
Final words
So I would like to thank you for your attention. I really hope that this session was useful and I do encourage you to go ahead and start filling out that application form, don’t make it to the last minute and if you start practicing now, then you’re in the golden period because you will be able to practice for at least 6 to 8 weeks before your exam date and that’s the most ideal way for preparing for this exam.
So once again thank you very much and have a lovely evening. Goodbye.