Here you will find the complete recording and the full transcript of The European Commission's 2016 Internal Competition's Q&A Webcast held on 13 April, 2016.
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Webcast Transcript
Making The Best Of The European Commission's 2016 Internal Competitions Q&A Webcast
Andras: Alright, I think we can begin and I’d like to extend a warm welcome to everyone who’s at the live sessions. We are recording this webinar. This is Andras Baneth speaking from Brussels and I have the pleasure to welcome as well, Thomas Williams, who is our partner, coach and trainer for many, many webinars and in the individual coaching sessions.
So the way this Q&A session will go today, just a few words of housekeeping, is we suggest that you turn on loud and clear your headphones or computer speakers. Disable any instant messaging software. Turn off your phone or put it on mute or make sure that you are completely comfortable and not distracted and maybe get yourself some snacks or water because we’ll be spending I guess 60 minutes answering all of your questions to the best of our abilities about the European Commission’s Internal Competition.
So the rules of the game, so to say, is that you can type any question relating to this Competition or broadly speaking preparation methodology or best practices, technical questions, technical information or anything that’s on your mind that we could possibly help with and we will share with you our expertise live right now.
Whatever questions we will not be able to answer right away or if there are many questions that we didn’t have time for, we’re going to send you a follow up Q&A note or perhaps post it on our website. We will look up these questions and make sure that no question is left unanswered.
So this is a photo of the two of us – myself and Thomas. By all likelihood you should see at the bottom part of your screen, a chat box, where you can enter your questions and we will be screening those and looking at those, and answering whether myself or Thomas, depending on whose expertise it falls into.
So I encourage you already to grab your keyboards and type your questions and we will be then going through them and answering them as we can.
So please feel free, I see that many of you are typing right now, so please go ahead and ask those questions. And as I said we are happy to discuss issues related to the exam, the competition itself or other.
Maybe just one word, make sure Thomas if you could just say a word of hello and then let’s get started with the answers.
Thomas: Hello, good afternoon. Thomas Williams here looking forward to your questions.
Andras: Alright, excellent. Thank you so much. Here’s our very first question from Regina asking:
Question: What are some good materials to prepare the tests in French?
Andras: Well obviously we are very biased here because we are selling good materials in French. So our products in terms of webinars, we have methodology webinars in French as well, done by a seasoned expert who has drafted many of the questions that are available on the website so we have both webinars and we also have a large number of online tests, I think over 800 questions whether it’s Verbal Reasoning, Numerical Reasoning, Situational Judgement Tests or Abstract Reasoning.
Question: Do you have information about the difference between the CAST competitions and the AD 5 competencies
Andras: Well the CAST competitions are somewhat different because these are usually much more limited in their scope as an exam, compared to the AD5. So in most cases when the CAST competition is launched, they would not be testing competencies in the first place, because it would be limited to psychometric test so - abstract, verbal, numerical reasoning sometimes the situational judgement - but in most cases it would not have the oral presentation or the in-person section of the exam.
Now obviously there’s a caveat that we need to see the Notice of Competition so I’m giving you the main rule, but for AD5 competitions (the one that everybody is very much waiting for to be launched), this is independent of the European Commission’s Internal Competition. I mentioned here the AD 5, the open one where everyone can apply, so for those there’s always an assessment center with the 7+1 competencies.
Question: Do you have materials in Swedish?
Andras: Not yet, but if we see a demand for that, we will work on that. Right now we have 14 languages covered from Greek to Portuguese, Dutch to say the latest ones: Bulgarian, Romanian and the others. Swedish is not yet there, but hopefully we can get with very soon.
Question: I can’t see you. Is the camera working?
Andras: The camera is not turned on purposely, because this is more about the substance than looking at us with our headsets on so we have decided not to use the camera right now.
Question: Any suggestions how to prepare the best for the Situational Judgment Test except the questions included in the EU Testbook?
Andras: Thomas, maybe you could answer that question? What are your tips for Situational Judgement Test taking best practices?
Thomas: Well certainly practice, practice, practice. I think that the book is very good for getting some basic tips and strategies and of course the methodology and of course there some practice there as well. But what I find from feedback from candidates that I’ve worked with they said too that it’s really through practice that they noticed the recurring themes, the typical sorts of answers that seemed to work best so I hate to tell you the sort of harder way to go about this, but I can emphasize practicing and practicing regularly enough
Andras: For Situational Judgment perhaps we could mention some background reading or any sorts of, I wouldn’t say shortcuts, but something that could work well apart from identifying these trend.
Thomas: Well, I know that there’s a very good set of suggestions for background reading in the Ultimate EU Testbook actually so I would refer you to that part and see what books, what kinds of books you could look at there.
Andras: Yes, one thing, one background really we always recommend is the Code of the Administrative Practice which is available online. It’s a European Commission document. It’s familiarising yourself with the Commission’s expectations. So in terms of cultural context in which a Situational Judgment Test operates, that’s very important to understand and the value sets based on which you need to make your decisions in terms of which answers and which course of actions you would choose.
Thomas: That’s right. That’s basic reading and also the Staff Regulations not to read them necessarily too carefully, but to go through them, sort of skim them and get a sense of what the priorities are there.
Andras: Very well. We might come back to the Situational Judgment Test later if there are other questions around it, but for now let’s go with other one. There are few technical questions I see here.
Question: Materials in Greek?
Andras: Well we have Verbal Reasoning in Greek. If you have a specific request of the type of information you need in Greek, please send us an email and make sure to mention that it’s to be passed on to me - Andras, so I can look into it and we can perhaps develop. But we certainly have a large number of Greek Verbal Reasoning tests.
Question: Do you know if there’s going to be an AD Competition?
Andras: Well, this question is not directly related to the Internal Competitions of the Commission, but all I can say, not because I don’t want to say it’s just the information is currently limited that we have. It is most likely there will be Competitions and most likely we’ll hear some updates in the next week or two. This is with the caveat that it’s just rumors, we heard it but it’s from people who called up EPSO and that’s the information they were told. So we are hoping that the AD Competitions, the open competitions, will be launched fairly soon or at least announced very soon.
Andras: Okay here is one, Thomas this is one probably for you.
Question: In your Verbal Reasoning preparation tests, the questions seem all the same (so they are repeated, as far as I understand), only asked which one of the following answer is correct? Others have a variety of questions – not sure I understand what you mean in this question.
Andras: Thomas, what’s your impression or some ideas about Verbal Reasoning tests?
Thomas: I am scanning through the questions, can you tell me the name of the person who asked it?
Andras: Yes, it’s Bob.
Thomas: Bob I see.
Andras: So it’s a technical issue regarding the Verbal Reasoning and a calculator we can address that definitely so we’ll come back to you on that. Let’s go back to more substantive questions.
Question: Is there a specific material for different profile-test? (so Profile 4: Agricultural, Environmental and Earth Sciences)
Andras: I think this relates to a Competition where specific knowledge is tested and we don’t have these questions only just for very, very limited of fields unfortunately. I think its Financial Management, some EU Knowledge Tests we have from the past. But we don’t have this sort of very specific type of multiple choice.
Andras: Thomas, here’s a good methodology question too.
Question: A few tips about Abstract Reasoning. What do you tell candidates when you’re coaching them, or when you’re running a training course, in terms of how to approach Abstract Reasoning problems?
Thomas: Well, I think what we do in the webinar and the classroom training is a very good way to approach it, to sort of pick it apart. Sometimes an Abstract Reasoning item can look very daunting, very messy, full of symbols and so forth but if you can separate them, usually the three or four building blocks, just focus on each one and as you focus on each one looking at the pattern for each one then try to eliminate answers along the way. What you’ll find then is that very often if you’ve got say four building blocks there, it’s enough maybe just to look at three of them and you’ve managed to get the right answer. I think that’s a very important way to approach not to find it too daunting and to be very flexible. There’s so many different patterns.
Andras: Right. What’s your take on when you’re a little lost or let’s do it this way. If you have the sequence and you’re looking for the last item. Is it best to look at the question and try to come up with the answer yourself even without looking at the answer options or try to fit the pattern that you have sort of identified into one of the answer options?
Thomas: Definitely the latter. Try to match your own hypothesis of what ought to come next, you’re on hypothesis of what the pattern could be to the answer options. I think that’s the fastest way to go. That’s the most effective way.
Andras: I think if you have a limited amount of time, probably the first method would be more bullet proof because you’re not trying to match pattern or match the solution to your pattern but the other way around but obviously given the time constraint, it will be much more efficient to look at the answer option and then do that part.
Question: Regarding the Internal Competition, would you consider that this requires special training or the typical training for the AD5/AD7 would be fine? Would you consider the level of difficulty would differ?
Andras: I don’t think it does require any special training in the sense that it requires the same type of training as you would have for an Administrator Competition. So if you’re sitting in the Commission’s Internal Competition, the AD6, then it’s pretty much the same level as an AD5/AD7. In terms of difficulty, it might be slightly more difficult than an AD5 because the level of the AD competition it relates to the difficulty of the Competition but other than that it should be just the same preparation as you would normally have for an AD Competition. It doesn’t require a special kind of preparation.
Andras: Right here’s another one and I encourage everyone, please type your questions, ask anything about the Commission’s Internal Competition or interview or any other part. We’ll get to those.
Question: Abstract Reasoning: any tips how to decrease the time I usually need to solve the more complicated ones? Usually, it takes too much time to go through all the possible rules, exclude the false ones and find the proper one.
Andras: Thomas, bring out your best tip.
Thomas: Well, what you definitely need to do is figure out how much time on average each item will take and some of them are going to be easier, some of them harder. Certainly the easier ones you’ll get through more quickly, you’ll then have that much more time, that you’ll need for the harder ones. But I think going back to what András said, looking at the answer options first and sort of letting the hypothesis you formed about what the different patterns could be based on what’s actually available. I think that’s the best way to go. And again and again I hear from candidates, so the ones that nearly had panic attacks about the Abstract Reasoning early on, if they practice a lot, they just naturally get more accurate and faster.
Andras: In your experience, do candidates that have a lot of practice behind them would they look at Abstract Reasoning and just kind of see the pattern or does it require a lot of thinking and cognitive process to really find out what could be the pattern?
Thomas: Well, what I’ve been fascinated to find is that with people, who again have started from zero and then after a month of regular practice have come back and said: ‘Okay, I feel a lot better about Abstract Reasoning.’ We’ll go over a few items and they seem to have an intuitive sense about what the pattern is, what the right answer is even if they can’t really explain it. So that may not be everyone operates but I think one can find as one gets used to doing anything, speaking a language, driving a car – you just end up doing it. You don’t need to analyse it as much anymore and that makes it faster.
Andras: I think that’s a very good analogy. Well, you’re an expert in the linguistic area as well. I think it’s just like learning a new language. In the beginning you have separate words that you’re trying to memorize and after a while these words get connected in your mind and visually and all of sudden they just make up sentence and that’s probably Abstract Reasoning is exactly the same thing where you just have those separate blocks. After a while you look at it and look at them as a sentence. What do think? Does that analogy hold?
Thomas: I think it really does. Yes you just end up doing it naturally without thinking twice about it, without analyzing what part of your sentence the verb is in or what have you. Absolutely, and as I say this is what I’m hearing from candidates – it becomes second nature.
Andras: Well, and then in terms of the rules of the Commission’s Internal Competition, as you know the scoring of the Abstract Reasoning is combined with the Verbal Reasoning so even if you might lose a few points there, you can still overall make it up with a solid performance in the Verbal Reasoning.
Thomas: That for the SC2/AST Competition, that’s absolutely right there. It’s a bit different for AD6 level.
Andras: Yes, exactly. Sorry for not pointing that out. Thank you.
Question: Any general tips on how to approach Verbal and Numerical Reasoning would be appreciated.
Andras: Thomas, what do you say for this?
Thomas: Any tips on how to do Verbal and Numerical Reasoning?
Andras: Right, yes. Any ideas that you usually share with course participants.
Thomas: Yes, certainly. So that’s sort of two big questions. With Verbal Reasoning I think it’s something that I always tell people is that it’s important to, though it looks like some kind of reading comprehension test of the type that so many people have seen in so many languages, it really isn’t that. You don’t need to understand the whole text, you just need to look at the statements first and see which one is closest to some fact or sets of facts that are in the text. So practically speaking, I would say, read the statements first and then skim the text to find what sentences or clauses are relevant there. You don’t need to understand the whole text. I think that’s very important to…though it looks like a reading comprehension test, you need to look at it rather differently. You need to leave outside information out, just focus on the statements and just the text. I think there’s some of the important bits there.
For Numerical Reasoning, definitely review the half a dozen or so basic Mathematical operations that you must have under your belt and it should be nothing new to you. All stuff that you’ve learnt in primary and secondary school that maybe some of us needed a bit of review of. So definitely start there and don’t be overwhelmed by the sort of sea of data. Be really strict about reading the question and then looking at the chart and noting just what those three or four values that you need to deal with are. I think those are some of the essential tips
Andras: Sorry to interrupt. I was just going to back up what you said in a sense that for the Numerical Reasoning, I think it’s essential really to revise the basic Mathematical operations as you said because obviously we all know to divide, multiply etc. but in might be a bit rusty so might not come so fast, it might not happen at the appropriate speed that would be required. So really refreshing these core Mathematical operations are very important for you to save time. Again, not because you cannot do it, you might not be able to do it as fast as it’s needed. And then quickly identifying the right thing and not mixing up the operator and the numerator, the division, this is all essential for a precise and accurate answer.
And I think your point for the Verbal Reasoning is usually there are two schools of thought I think where some people say well read the questions first or read the answer options first and then the actual passage to text or do the other way around, but whatever your preferred way of going about it, it’s still vital not to get stuck in the detail and bogged down when reading the text passage. Because if you read it as a novel or you read it as a serious scientific article, it’s going to take far more time than it normally should. So it has to be a fairly superficial reading instead of a deep reading. Thomas, do you agree with that?
Thomas: I agree, absolutely. Those who would say read the statements first and then read the text would point to; reading the statements first helps you to focus on what bits of the text to look at more carefully. But at the end of the day what András said is absolutely right. Don’t get bogged down by it, some people find certain kinds of subjects a turn off and then their eyes glaze over if the text is about Chemistry. It’s not a text to enjoy or to learn from, it’s just a means to an end. And as I said, don’t get bogged down, don’t spend too much time on it, just get the answer and move on to the next one.
Andras: I think another very important point when it comes to Verbal Reasoning is to be aware that there are different types of answers. Meaning that among the answer options, the point is not that one of them is going to be correct and all the three others will be incorrect. Well, that’s true but the three will be incorrect in different ways. So some answer options could be incorrect because they have insufficient information, they don’t have all the information that would make them a valid correct answer.
Other answer options might be outright incorrect because they state something that clearly contradicts the statements in the original text. And other answers might just be you don’t know because it operates with assumptions, something that was simply not mentioned in the original text and it just assumes things which were not there. So this is to say that just because an answer is incorrect they are not incorrect in the same way. And if you’re aware of these types of (I don’t know if it’s a word), “incorrectness” - if you’re aware that they’re not true for various reasons, it might be easier for you to identify these patterns. Whereas, if something is true then it doesn’t have the traits, the characteristics of any of these. Meaning it doesn’t operate with assumption, it doesn’t contradict information, it doesn’t work with other types of assumptions, but it just simply in and by itself contains the true statements that is reflected in the original passage.
Thomas: That’s right and sometimes what makes an answer option wrong is maybe one little word like never or always or the difference in verb tense, between something that will happen as opposed to could happen. Sometimes specially if we don’t look too carefully at the sentences we could miss those details and those are the kinds of details that often make the different between a right and a wrong answer.
Andras: I think any kind of adjective or a preposition is a ‘red flag’. Just like you mentioned: never or sometimes or barely. Whatever adjective might precede a word you say, “Oh oh”, I got to be very careful because this really changes the meaning of that statement and I need to make sure that I don’t fall into that trap.
Thomas: Right now you and I are speaking English and we are talking English words and English texts but the same basic principles apply to any of the languages that you choose as your first language. So the same idea of verb tenses, model verbs like will or can and then adverbs like never, sometimes and so forth. It’s exactly the same set of principles in all the languages so that’s something you can look out for.
Andras: I think that’s a very important point that you just mentioned because yes we are basing our tips on English but these principles hold true obviously in other languages. With the very important warning that if you’re language is mostly Slavic language or any Eastern European languages tend to be like that that you wouldn’t have the prepositions but you would agglutinative so you would add these adjectives or the conjugation to the end of the word so there you need to really watch out for these nuisances because again one letter maybe, one accent of difference can change completely the meaning of the statement.
Alright so here’s another question little bit moving away from the psychometric test but we might come back to that if there are questions:
Question: Do you know if the interview will be conducted in the same way as the structured interview in the usual EPSO competitions?
Andras: I presume you refer to the Internal Competitions so the interview at the Commission’s Internal Competition and based on the Notice of Competition, this will be different. They don’t talk about structured interview in the same sense as they do for normal EPSO competitions, so they do talk about, (let me pull up so I can quote you the right language), they talk about a different type of interview so there’s a presentation or a policy briefing as part of the interview. So one major difference is that it is policy based. Most likely you will be given some background materials for the AST and the SC competitions - so there will be most likely a background material based on which you need to prepare a short presentation/briefing. And for AD competitions this is more of an assumption, there may not be background material, but you need to be or you might be expected to know a given policy area and then give a presentation accordingly. That’s a major, major difference compared to the classic EPSO competitions where you have the assessment centre, which are most importantly, not knowledge based. So there you are not expected, not required to have any knowledge about the EU for that matter or any other policy. So here in this Internal Competition it is much more knowledge driven and the competencies, the presentation and the communication skills are certainly important, but they are secondary. Whereas for the classic EPSO competitions in the Assessment Centre it’s purely based on the competencies that EPSO had previously identified so the 7+1 competencies like resilience, communication, working with others, etc.
Alright, let’s see a few other questions:
Question: Can you recommend the Maths for Dummies book adapted to the test requirements with the bare essentials?
Andras: I think you probably already answered the question in some way because there certainly is a Maths for Dummies in the Dummies series and there are certainly books like that. One thing that we can recommend from our arsenal or our tool-kit is we have a webinar, it’s a recording of a webinar, I think it is 60 minutes or perhaps 90 minutes which really covers all the basic Mathematical knowledge and operations dedicated specifically for the EPSO competitions. This is something we did a year or two ago exactly for this purpose. To those who are in need of refreshing their math knowledge then you can find all of that in that particular webinar. Other than that, I think any high school mathematical book would be fine, well depending on which education system you grew up with, but maybe that’s even too much. But in terms of refreshing, that probably should do the job.
Thomas: And if I could add…so again in András’ book “The Ultimate EU Testbook” there’s a list of those operations that you need to look at and there’s some ideas about how to go about dealing with them. It really is a shortlist. So a lot of people panic when they hear about having they review Math. Will it involve probability? Will it involve Geometry? No no, it’s really just a finite list of basic practical stuff like figuring percentages and that kind of thing so for those who tend to be panic stricken about Math, its actually not as daunting as it may seem.
Andras: And I have a very simple but very useful piece of advice. When you’re preparing for any kind of EPSO exam just simply stop using any kind of calculator in your own life. If at any point you’re in a shop and you need to add up the price of whatever product you bought and you need to calculate, just forget your phone or any kind of calculator, do it mentally or if you do your household budget or any sort of mathematical operation make sure that you really activate those parts of your brain and that you force yourself to count. That definitely helps. It’s like riding a bicycle, it’s not that you would forget it, but it gets a little rusty and you’re a little unbalanced when you do it after a long time.
Right, Thomas question for you.
Question: Would you have any special tips helping in selecting the least effective solution in the Situational Judgment Test?
Thomas: Well, I think what we say in the classroom training and webinars is really the best approach, that is to take each answer option to the extreme. Right? So if it says, like when you’re assembling a team, pick the most enthusiastic people or people who have the greatest interest, well the sort of worst case scenario could be you’ve got a group of people who are very keen, but may not have the skills or the competence or experience to do the job well. That does seem to help you separate the gray area -pretty good answer from the best answer. Sorry, was the question how do you find the least effective? Was that the question?
Andras: Yes absolutely. I agree with you that this is a good way to turn the answer into some sort of caricature and you really take it to the extreme message like in your example Thomas, how do you pick members of the team, the most enthusiastic ones or the ones who have worked on a similar project, your immediate neighbors in the office. Now if you take it to the extremes, okay this is what the caricature does, it takes a certain statement to the absolute extreme. And then you take a step back and say this is really not the right one.
Thomas: That’s right and I also think and I don’t mean sound like a broken record but I can’t emphasize enough the importance of practice. And if you practice these you’ll see the themes that recur, the kinds of obvious worst answers and best answers. It’ll become more and more clear to you. Even if maybe at the very beginning, it seems rather odd because you’re from a different sort of working culture - higher education is very different from the private sector, that is very different from the EU Civil Service - so I think once you see the basic methodology and you do a lot of practice, it will become second nature, I assure you.
Andras: Have you had a similar question or an experience like that? That somebody challenged you and said, “well I think this is the right answer” and you said “well, in this particular context or in this particular case because of the EU, because of what the Institutions are looking for is something else”, a different answer is the right one.
Thomas: Yes, I have had that. I think that those of us who may have had experience in other working cultures really have to kind of adjust our thinking to what really does seem to be successful in the EU Civil Service, what really works there and adjust our thinking. I think that’s the way to get used to it and accept it.
Andras: And in which sense do you find its different from let’s say the private sector or some other maybe national public administration structures?
Thomas: Yes, well in the EU Civil Service, one theme that recurs and if you do a lot of practice, you see this again and again that we try to reduce risk in the EU Civil Service, but if you work for startup in Silicon Valley or that kind of a culture then risk is acceptable. Risk is necessary, risk is how you make a lot of money, but that’s definitely deemphasized. Risk is deemphasized so that would be one example.
Andras: So when somebody’s going through their sort of decision matrix trying to pick the right answer, then I think adherence to procedures, probably role of hierarchy, fairly low risk taking, I don’t know if they are values but these are core considerations that they need to be aware of.
Thomas: That’s right. It’s more important to be responsible to show the pubic the work you’re doing. To give the right answers, to reduce risk as much as possible in your work and in your dealing with the public.
Andras: In the case of Situational Judgment Test, the concept of value is very important and you mention culture and culture is a set of values so making sure that you really empathize and understand what a civil servant is expected to do in terms of their neutrality, in terms of making sure that the right rules are respected. So these core written or sometimes unwritten expectations really sink into the Situational Judgment Test.
Thomas: That’s right and that’s why as you mentioned earlier it’s such a good starting point to look at this code of good administrative behavior if you’ve got the basics there and I think it’s also good to consider that you talk about basic values and competencies. You hear a word like authority. Well, you know what that means, I know what that means, but what does that mean in the code of good administrative behavior? What does it mean in the EU Civil Service? These words we take for granted and think are easy to define they may have subtly different sort of nuances of meaning in the Civil Service.
Andras: Right. A similar question not on Situational Judgment but on Verbal Reasoning. Sorry this is more of a technical one it’s not on methodology so let’s forget that.
Question: Do you have information whether verbal test will be made on your first or second language at the Internal Competition for the AD?
Andras: So the verbal test will be in your first language so one of the official EU languages. The Verbal Reasoning so the same goes for the Numerical and the Abstract, but the Abstract language is not really important. And the Situational Judgment Test will be in English, French or German as long as it’s different from your first language.
Thomas: Dora asked about the verbal test and you’re right. So the Verbal Reasoning Test is of course in the first language and I wonder if Dora perhaps means oral test which is of course the next step and that’s in the second language.
Andras: That’s right. So the oral test it will be English, French or German and not any of the EU’s 24 languages.
Question: What does the computer based test entail?
Andras: Well, computer-based test, that’s essentially Verbal Reasoning, Numerical Reasoning, Abstract Reasoning and for the Administrators in the Commission’s Internal Competition, it includes a Situational Judgment Test and for the AST, the SC tests it includes Prioritising and Organising test as well. So these are all computer-based.
Question: For SC2 Internal Competition, the Prioritising and Organising part – I used your book and online tests last year for my preparation but I found the CBT prioritising part more difficult, more data.
Andras: Okay, we’re happy to hear more feedback so we can fine tune our questions and make sure that’s in line with the difficulty level of the tests, so we would very much appreciate if you give us more information through email and then we can come back to you, but one thing is that we are continuously improving and revising our tests so it may have changed on our platform – on EU Training – so you might wish to look at that, but happy to discuss it bilaterally.
Question: If the Pre-Selection has passed, what is the next stage? Is it an assessment centre with structured interview or what else?
Andras: Well it depends on – so for the Commission’s Internal Competition, it’s not called assessment centre and it doesn’t have a structured interview, as we’ve mentioned before, but it has the second phase so the oral test depending on AST or Administrator it can take different forms, but as I said before it’s EU policy focused and not purely competency based.
Question: What are your suggestions for preparations for the interview (AD)
Andras: Well, for the AD. So for the Commission’s Internal Competition that AD interview tips. Given that there’s such a strong focus on EU policies, I would very much suggest that you do revise some key EU policies and have a basic notion or maybe more than just a basic notion. A little deeper understanding of this key policies. I would suggest three things:
Number one is to revise information about the EU’s institutions and decision making, because this would be a useful knowledge to have even if it’s not directly required of you when you are presenting about any EU topic then it will help you present with the right vocabulary, with the right knowledge, with the right information.
Number two would be actual key policies that are important today. Meaning you probably would like to look at President Juncker’s political priorities and policies related to that. So digital single market, energy union, anything related to these days especially migration, immigration, refugee issues. So you could look at very good briefings or short summaries on the respective Commissioner’s websites or respective DG’S (Director General’s) websites where you can have FAQ documents so frequently asked questions – it’s a very good way to quickly understand the topic even if you have never dealt with it before.
And then number three is fairly broad meaning everything else. You say, “Okay fine András very helpful – revise everything else”. But there are some good websites and I haven’t looked at it for a while but there used to be and I believe you can still find it online, an EU Glossary. So if you just google EU Glossary and look for it. You should be able to find it, it’s on the europa.eu website. I don’t know how updated the information there is but it definitely used to be a very, very good resource for you to get summarised key areas institutional and political, policy making areas that you can quickly understand a certain topic.
And actually there’s a plus one in my list of three, there used to be another website with policy summaries. I think it used to be called and let me type it into here because it is a strange word I don’t know what it was referring to but it’s called Scadplus, so you should see in the chat Scadplus. You could google that, you should be able to find it. Again, I didn’t know whether it’s been updated in the past year or two but it used to be a fairly good resource on most EU policies so you could look up the basic concept in the energy policy or environment or trade or anything else.
Right, let’s look at some other questions.
Question: Case Study - do you have any tips how to prepare for the case study? I’m really concerned about the little time we have to do the synthesis that EPSO is asking.
Andras: Well, I presume you refer to the open competitions so not necessary the internal one since in the internal there is no case study required. For the case study, I think the most important thing again is not to get bogged down and not to have your time used up by reading all the materials very carefully. So all the background materials that you’re required to read for the case study you need to quickly scheme through but definitely not read them. So to have a fairly good understanding what’s in them and use them as a reference and go back to them later but not to read it through as you would a normal sequential document like catalogue or report.
Another tip for the case study could be that not all documents are created equal. So there are many documents there that are only there to distract you or parts of the document which are irrelevant. Obviously the challenge is to identify which ones are these. But to have that in mind that only bits and pieces of information will be relevant and that should save you enough time to get started and my suggestion is to start writing first and then go back to the documents, background materials for reference instead of reading it and only writing in the last 20 or 30 minutes and then panicking whether you can finish or not. That’s case study in a nutshell but happy to elaborate. We also have a few webinars and webinar recordings and free tips and tricks articles on the case study itself on our website.
Thomas I think this will be for you to answer.
Question: Is it true in the case of Situational Judgment Test that you have to forget all your previous knowledge? I sometimes find out that what would be an absolute no go in my unit is the most appropriate answer. One concrete example is: spending without having the budget available.
Andras: What do you say for that?
Thomas: That’s an interesting one. Perhaps different units operate slightly differently and what’s represented in the Code of Good Administrative Behaviour and perhaps more broadly in the EU Civil Service might be slightly different so I mean something like spending without having the budget available strikes me as rather strange. I don’t know if that’s an example of what happens in your unit, Dora, because I can imagine that it’s something that was in example. I would suggest that maybe each unit has certain quirks but I think broadly speaking there’s a general way that’s sort of an ideal way, a preferred way to do things and try to levitate toward that.
Andras: Yes, I agree with that. I don’t know the exact situation, we don’t have enough information about the particular case, but my suggestion would be the same, is rather try to gravitate towards the general than the specific. So if you’re unit might be more specific than others then look at the general rule and not the specific ones. But obviously we would need to see the particular question and again happy to answer if you contact us afterwards, we’ll look at that and we can analyse it with more information on hand.
Question: Do you have any tips for the exercise group? Could I propose to have some time for each participant to speak to avoid that one or two participants speaking all the time?
Andras: It has much more depth in terms of how to approach the group exercise. Again, those of you who might not be aware this is not related to the Internal Competition. This is the classic EPSO competitions, the Open Competitions where the Assessment Centre has a group exercise included and what happens there is there’s always a group of six people, sometimes it can be five, sometimes seven depending on the logistics. In the group everybody is equal. There’s no specific leader in the group and there is no need that anyone be appointed as a leader. The fact that all of you are equal it’s hard to really come up with that sort of proposal because it’s hard to enforce them because you don’t really have the individual authority to enforce it. What you could do is act as a moderator, ask a lot of questions from other participants and try to summarise what others have said. So this will put you in a unique position where you are still completely equal with everyone else but you are not imposing yourself on top of them.
And in terms of when two participants speak all the time, that might happen, but usually a good trick is that you interrupt one participant and you ask a third person so if Mr. A and Mrs. B are talking then you would interrupt them and pass the floor to Mr. C. So in that sense you take away the word from someone but you pass it on to someone else so you break the dynamic of two people monopolising the discussion but it’s not you who starts speaking but that someone else.
It’s just really in a nutshell again and we have much more in-depth tips and tricks specifically on the group exercise and the very best practices for that is the coaching and the classroom training even more the classroom training where you simulate a fully pledged group exercise where you see these tips and these issues in action.
We have about 10 minutes left so we try to answer a few more questions and as I said before, if we don’t have time for everything we’ll come back to you in a short note but we’ll be sending out the recording of today’s Q&A and we’ll most likely do a transcript as well. That will take a few days but we’ll send that out as soon as it’s ready.
So let’s see what else. Thomas maybe you spotted a question I haven’t seen but I’m also scanning and looking at…
Question: For the Prioritising and Organising part (SC2) are the questions always in parts. (I heard that it is made up of 24 questions of which every 4 questions are based on the same tables/scenarios)
Thomas: I see one – the Prioritising and Organising Test for the SC2 and the AST2. So typically you’ve got one chart that you need to deal with – a bus schedule or something like that – and then 1-3 questions and the questions build on each other. So you’ve answer the first question based on the information in the chart and the second question sort of builds on the first and the third builds on the first two. And this is really good in a way because then you don’t have to kind of get used to a whole new chart and a whole new situation with each item. So yes that’s what typically happens. Usually have one to three items – one to three questions per table.
Andras: And is there a total of 24 questions?
Thomas: Typically that’s the number we were given this time around sort of more broadly with the competitions it can vary it can be a few more but it’s usually 24 and I believe in this particular set of competitions it will be 24.
Andras: Right but just a short note on our website on EU Training you can find a few free samples to familiarize yourself with the interface and with the test so feel free to try those out. And then question on CBT.
Question: Are the computer-based test questions picked out from the usual EPSO database also for the Internal Competition?
Andras: Yes, so they will be picked from the EPSO database because the Notice of Competition mentions that it’s the Selection Board (which is a unique group of people who really supervises a given competition) so for the Commission’s Internal ones there are three separate Selection Boards - one for each. So one for the AST and SC2 and one for AST 2 and another one for the AD 6. So the Selection Boards are the ones who actually pick (obviously cooperating with EPSO as an institution) the level of difficulty the questions that they will be using for the CBT. Because (just to give you a little bit of a peep behind the curtain) when we are creating this sort of psychometric tests - so the abstract, the verbal, the numerical reasoning test - we are very careful to decide the level of difficulty of these particular question, so for instance when it comes to abstract reasoning, you could have an abstract reasoning test with two elements moving around but you could only have four elements moving around. And obviously the one with four elements is much more difficult than the one with two elements. So it’s up to the Selection Board to decide the level of difficulty for each competition and as you can guess for the SC2 and the AST competition the level will be less difficult than for the AD 6. So it’s a long answer for a short question because the bottom line is yes they will be using the same database but then again the allocation of the difficulty will be according to which competition we’re talking about.
Question: How much time passes between taking the Pre-selection stage and the second stage oral testing? Weeks? Months?
Andras: I think it’s not as time consuming for the Open Competition. So the for Internal Competitions the exams will start if I’m not mistaken on the 10th of May so in less than four weeks. And once the Pre-Selection is done again this is just an assumption the interviews will be happening in September. And then probably before the end of the year, the Reserve List will be done, so it’s a fairly speedy process of course depends on your perspective of speedy - could be a couple of days but this is the kind of timeline that you can most likely expect.
Right, anything I missed Thomas?
Question: If the verbal/numerical/abstract test in English, will the oral test be in the same language?
Thomas: For the verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning and abstract reasoning on all these tests it’s in the first language, your mother tongue and then the rest of it is in your second language. So if you’re doing AD6 the Situational Judgment Test is in your second language and then everything in the oral test is in your second language as well. If you’re doing one of the other two tests, then its Organising and Prioritising, then it’s your second language and then the oral test is in your second language. I hope that answers your question.
Andras: Here’s a question which wasn’t asked but I take the liberty to answer because I think it’s a relevant for quite a few participants in today’s webinar is something you came up with or not even come up with Thomas but you get this question quite frequently at different training courses. Will I be at a disadvantaged if I select a language other than French or English as my first language? So are the tests equally difficult or what’s your take on the translation or the localisation of these tests, especially the verbal reasoning one?
Thomas: Well, I do a lot of translating and it’s sort of truism that often texts lose something in translation and because that’s sort of in the air, in the process of translating these texts which are often originally written in English or French there’s greater care taken not to let anything be lost and so I’ve much rather heard good feedback about a test that someone’s taken in Italian or Danish or some other language. I think I can safely say that no it does not put you at a disadvantage to choose one of these other languages other than English or French.
Andras: I think just one word in terms of a flashback to a couple of years ago, initially when EPSO launched this new policy of having 24 languages or at the time it was fewer but having everybody taking the tests in their EU official language or their mother tongue, at the very beginning the quality of the test wasn’t very high unfortunately and that situation has been remedied in the meantime. So what you said I think it stands today wasn’t always the case but to their credit they did improve the quality of the verbal test.
Very well. I think our time is exactly up. Given that we spent about 60 minutes answering the questions. Very, very good questions, we really appreciate that and I hope we could give you some good pieces of advice and good ideas. So thank you again and as always if you have further questions please feel free to send us them through our contact form or in any way or through any channel that you can find us through and we’ll be happy to answer those obviously free of charge and usually within 24 hours and we’ll be sending you the recording, the transcript very soon and we will probably collect a couple of useful links or look at other resources we can share with you or perhaps point you to a few free tips and tricks articles or eBooks that are available on our website and you may have not come across this or haven’t found them. So you’ll be in good hands for your preparation.
So I think all that’s left for us is wish you a lot of success and good luck for the Internal Competitions or if you’re doing others hopefully these will be open very soon in the next few weeks and we are at your service at any point to make your EPSO preparation a success.
Thomas, thank you very much.
Thomas: And yes for example Dora you wanted to ask about the one SJT item, if you could send us what it is you like us to look more closely at. We’ll be happy to look more closely and figure out what the disconnect might be.
Andras: Very good. Alright so thanks everyone both listeners and Thomas specially our staff in Budapest who helped us make this happen with the presentation and all the technical side of things Eszter and Lenke so thanks and hope to connect with you very soon. Have a nice day! This was Andras and Thomas.
Thomas: All the best, bye bye!