...to think this interview was unrealistic? (Long sorry)

[EveDallasRetd]

Went for an interview today, for an office manager/PA role. This morning was billed as 'activities' followed by an interview in the afternoon. I've bombed out, but am left wondering if it's 'me' or 'them'

There were 11 of us going for the job. Separately we were taken into an office, given a laptop and data stick and told to complete the exercises in 45 minutes. The exercises were:

*Put these 6 tasks into priority order explaining why you have chosen that priority and how you would action the tasks (things like "a person called from the LA saying there is a problem with a casual workers time sheet. The LA needs answer by 1200 tomorrow, but the casual workers manager is off work until tomorrow morning" and "You arrive at work at 0800 to a note from a colleague saying they have emailed you a doc that must be signed by the HT or DHT before 1100 or a trip will be cancelled. When you open the email the doc is corrupted and cannot be printed")

*Write a letter to a member of staff whose sickness record you are concerned about, pointing out how many sickness days she has had this term.

*Miss X is on maternity leave and has written a letter request she returns in a part time role. Write a letter to the HT and Governors explaining the law (you may use internet links) and suggesting a course of action.

*The attached document needs to be seen and signed by all staff within a one week period. You can use email.

*Send a text to all parents requesting assistance at the end of year disco. Mrs Y is organising it and her telephone number is 01234 567896.

*You receive an anonymous telephone call suggesting that the parent of Tommy Smith in Yr4 collected him from school yesterday smelling strongly of alcohol. You know that Tommy Smith is under CP. What do you do?

*Proof read this letter correcting all mistakes and punctuation.

And in the midst of all this i received a (pretend) telephone call from a local resident complaining about parking and litter and demanding to speak to the HT.

I didn't manage to proof read the letter and think I was prob a bit 'curt' on the phone. oh and I was annoyed by the alcohol scenario which probably showed. The current PA thanked me for coming in and said "I would have expected you to finish everything in the time provided, if we do want you to come back I will call you about 230"

So I'm not going back, am I?

Is that scenario normal? I thought it was too much to do in 45 mins, but am I just not as good as I thought I was . Do you think you could do that in 45 mins?

Oh. The postwoman has just been and I have a letter calling me to a different interview next Fri . It sounds like its on the same lines though - and I'm glad to know it beforehand. This letter actually says that I will be expected to complete an in-tray exercise, two Word Processing activities and an excel task in an hour. Sounds more like it! (Better brush up on my excel skills next week ). I went into today's school completely blind, this school is as least telling me what I will be doing.

That's obviously what schools are doing to recruit these days. Makes sense I suppose. You can't really 'know' if a person is any good just from an interview, can you? I do think today's school was taking the piss though if that is really the workload.

Good luck!

What maddy68 said...it's a pretty standard in tray exercise for a school job. Safeguarding one has to be spotted & dealt with first. I wouldn't have offered all those solutions in the phone call either - that's ht's job.

It doesn't sound like they quite know what they're looking for though, lucky escape on your part probably. Good luck for next week!

YANBU. I would struggle to do all that in 45mins while under the pressure of an interview. It would be different once in the job and comfortable with the role.

It sounds a lot to get through. But perhaps they were testing how people would choose the most important tasks and how much of each task they would get done and how well, rather than a race to see if anyone could complete them all.

Oh dear Maddy, well I'd fail there then, because I wouldn't have prioritised an anon phone all at all. Hell.

My logical side says 1. The call is anon and could be malicious. 2. They said 'smelling of alcohol' not 'drunk'. 3. It's not illegal to have a drink or two in the afternoon. 4. Some mouthwashes smell strongly of alcohol. 5. Tommy is 'under child protection' (think that was the wording) -what for? Did mum have a violent exP? Is Tommy a LAC? did any of that have anything to do with alcohol? 6. Why did anon phone this morning rather than tell someone yesterday when it was in progress?

Is that really wrong of me then?
(Some of the problem lies with my old job I think. For eg, we aren't allowed to charge a solider with 'drunkenness', even if he is reeling around, unless he has been declared 'drunk' by a medical officer who has tested him - he could be unwell, had one beer that reacted with medication, be diabetic, be epileptic, had a head injury etc)

I wonder if I should have done that first instead of dismissing it with a "I'd pass the message on to the guidance councillor" then? Bugger.

It wasn't that much work, seeing as people weren't expected to actually do all the tasks but just to put them in priority order. But it was a little tight and I agree, things like having to explain what you're doing, use unfamiliar computers, familiarise yourself with new documents etc, would all add to the time and make it take longer than it actually would in RL.

I think they sound a bit haphazard, not knowing about your prior experience! You might be better off out of it.

Very best of luck with the next interview!

Good luck with the next interview, hopefully the fact that they've told a bit about what to expect is a sign that they are more professional at interviewing than the school today, as I do agree think they were quite unrealistic in expecting interview candidates to finish all of the tasks they set. I would say from your description it sounded like you approached it well, and now you have some experience of this type of interview under your belt you'll be able to think about anything you might do differently in the on Friday, which means today may not have been a total waste of your time

Child protection/safeguarding will always be number one in schools. You may only ever know Tommy is on the child protection list even if you worked in that school. It would only be disclosed to staff members that needed to know; usually those dealing directly with the child. Your logical side statements are irrelevant in regards to child protection. You had a report = you report to the safeguarding officer. That is probably the only response the interviewer is looking for. It isn't your job to question it or the reasons behind Tommy and his current status.

Good luck next time

It was only the first exercise that was putting things in priority order onlylovers, the other 6 exercises and the phone call had to actually be completed.

Yep, that's how I'm going to treat today I think - an exercise in what to expect. I thought I'd be disappointed but I'm not, so I do think it probably was a lucky escape on my part.

Thanks loubells. I didn't actually realise school had safeguarding officers, so that will stand me in good stead. That makes sense. Thank you.

I love in-tray exercises. Remember that you are not doing the work, but presumably, as office manager, delegating some of it.
You do not make any decisions about the validity of anything to do with Child Protection, you pass everything on immediately to the named person.
It is about prioritising and making clear what you would do. For example, the school disco one and the staff email one can be done last as there is no time pressure for them.
For the staff sickness one I would expect there to be a standard letter. Your action would be to double check the dates member of staff was off, double check it was sickness, send letter. NOT write letter in the exercise!
The local resident one is important because twatty people like phoning the local paper. You don't want them saying "I phoned the Office Manager and she wasn't interested, are you?". You sound very concerned, say you know the DHT will be very disappointed, you are going to take notes on everything and let resident know if DHT can't call back today.
The LA one you establish whether anyone else can get the info and if not call them and explain the situation.
The corrupted email document - you contact the person concerned, explain that there is a problem. You could contact the IT dept to see if they can help but it really isn't your problem if this colleague is so disorganised.
Once you have dealt with urgent stuff you take ten minutes to proof read the letter. For the maternity leave I would be contacting HR whose job it is to know these things. I wouldn't expect the OM to know the law and I certainly wouldn't expect them to be surfing the internet (unless looking for shoes) to find legal information!
My take on it, anyway.

BTW even if you don't know about a child being at risk you don't ask questions or decide for yourself how true an allegation is. Nor do you discuss with anyone else.

Oh, sorry, Eve, I misunderstood. That IS a lot then (and I'm quite a fast worker).

It'd be more realistic when/if someone was already in the post as they might have dealt with similar scenarios and had template letters and emails on file already etc. But for someone who's fresh to the tasks, the role and the company culture, I don't think it's realistic.

I still think they sound a bit clueless. If no one out of 11 candidates managed the tasks in the set time, that suggests to me not that you were all rubbish but that the time wasn't realistic.

Onwards and upwards!

I work as a Business Manager in a primary school and these are very typical of the sort of tasks I have to do. The reason they gave you so many is because this is really what the pressure is like nowadays, its not just a mum earning a bit of pin money. We are expected to know about CP and employment law along with finance, assessment, food hygiene etc etc.
Probably why I get paid for 6.5 hours per day but usually work 9. No it no use asking for extra staff/ more hours; I also prepare the budget andwe can't afford it!

Well, I hope the successful candidate receives more pay than the average school secretary if this is what the expectations are.

Yeah every school has one. From what I remember it's usually the head followed by a senior member of staff in their absence. It's one of those if you've been in that environment you know that's the only acceptable answer, if you haven't why would you know.

Next time I'd mark that as task one and basically put; report to safeguarding officer following the schools agreed policy. (That will then cover you for every eventuality eg if the safeguarding officer was out or off sick it should say who the next person is.)

If you do get through to interview next week one thing you could do when they ask if you have any questions (I always hate that especially as I usually go blank at that point.) is maybe ask about safeguarding training. Eg I know it's important to report any concerns but not having worked in a school before I'd really like some training on this area to ensure that I'm confident with things to look out for.

It's been a long while since I dealt with safeguarding in schools so some of it may have changed but I'm sure someone else will be along to help too.

I've just seen your updates. Sounds like they have very unreasonable expectations and that you had a lucky escape! At least, the silver lining is that you have a much better idea of what to do with an in tray exercise next time (Google has a number of good links) and hopefully the interviewers are much more realistic about what can be done in the time!

Flossyfoof, the exercise actually said "Write a letter" in both cases, so I did. The school disco was on that evening and it said "send a text to..." So I did.

From memory the 6 things to put in priority were:
The LA/Casual worker one
The school trip/corrupted doc one
A parent wanting an urgent meeting with the HT about her child (HT out of office 0830 to 1300 and 1500-1700)
A local company wanting to donate books to the school
The receptionist needing to leave at 1445 and the front desk needing to be covered until 1530
And the cancellation of something, sporting event?

I had to put them in priority order, explain why I chose that priority and then say how I'd deal with them.

And that was only one exercise!

I put corrupted doc first because the trip was going at 1100 that day
The meeting next as HT was out most of the day
Then the LA one (holding reply to LA, then msg to manager)
Then the cancellation (think it was skipping or something) because that was next day.
Then asked if anyone could cover the reception, saying I'd do it if not.
Finally the donation.

The other exercises I just did what I could, but didn't get round to the proof reading. I actually figured that as it was a hard copy letter that was to be posted it wouldn't be as important as an email etc, or rather not as urgent.

That's ace loubells, thank you. Good idea re the safeguarding training. It's not generally something I've had to worry about surrounded by hairy arsed squaddies!

Thank you Dinosnores, wouldn't have thought to google that, have found some great examples to practice with

Wow! I have had secretaries (or Pas) I've never been one. I could never complete all those tasks adequately in 45min. No one who ever worked for me would have been expected to either.

My first thought is, your lucky. State school secretaries get paid a pittance. If you can do all that, you'd be better off looking for a managerial position will you will be paid what you are worth. Or getting more money working the cash register at a local grocery store where you won't have all the aggro.

I would second what loubelles says about safeguarding in schools. I do CP work in schools and have been a CPLO (Child protection liaison officer).

The overarching principal of safeguarding is that unless you have direct responsibility for CP, you only have to follow the school's safeguarding procedure and pass the information on to the CPLO. There should be a notice clearly displayed in the school stating who the CPLO and deputy CPLO are, and there should be "expression of concern" forms to complete if you need to record a conversation or disclosure. They are guidelines for how you record information on these forms. You do not need to know why a child is subject to a CP Plan and neither do you need to guess whether the call is malicious or not. Just record the information and pass it on.

In my schools, all staff must have mandatory safeguarding training within six months of starting work and this is repeated every two years.

I also think there was an internal candidate they wanted to appoint. To me, quite a few of those tasks are about testing someone's experience in that specific role. Which is fine, but it's pretty pointless interviewing you in that case, as you've not had that experience.