School office interview tasks, help!

[MiMiChuna]

After several applications I finally have an invite to interview for a school office admin role. Beginners level for context. I've no prev experience in this (looking to change industries, currently retraining at college)

Letter says there will be 4 tasks to complete, whoever survives these goes through to the next round. I'm not expecting to make it past these tasks given it's been tougher to get the interview than I ever imagined which makes me think the odds are against me.

However I'd like to not make a holy show of myself so wondered... does anyone have experience what sort of tasks might be planned? How can I prep?

Tysm!

I work in a school office.

In my interview there was a basic excel test, it involved calculating cost per items using very basic excel formulae.
The next one was using a file of a pre-prepared letter and fitting it onto a certain size of paper for printing I think,
Then the other one was a priority task- eg an injured child in playground v's a list violin type thing. You had to rank tasks in order of priority and explain your reasoning.
Good luck! It's a busy but rewarding job

Prioritisation & reasoning - there's usually not a right answer but they'll be looking for your ability to discern what is important over merely urgent

Answering the phone & asking appropriate q's to work out who to put through to (never put a call directly to the HT) & writing messages with relevant info

Maybe a letter task? An Excel task?

Letter to parents in word/email, data input and sorting/filtering in excel, prioritising tasks which is interrupted by another appearing/phone call, safeguarding issue

All the above are possibles. Another one is spotting and highlighting errors in a letter to parents.

Sorry OP I have no advice. I just wanted to say good luck ❤️

Maybe a safeguarding question?

Mine were to write a letter to parents, Mail merge, and fiddle with some data in excel.

Dishing out paracetamol like smarties whilst managing a vomiter and a ranty parent in reception 😀

The tasks we give when recruiting school Administrators are:
Excel - sorting and filtering data;
Word - using the Excel data to mail merge a letter;
Formatting the letter in accordance with the school house style template;
A proof reading exercise on the letter;
Composing a reply to an email from a parent;
4 scenarios that you need to prioritise and explain your actions.

Good luck!

from seeing the admin staff in the school I’m in it will be to do with juggling as many balls as possible and prioritising them accordingly

This was me 18 months ago & I absolutely love my job!
my tasks were reading an email and highlighting errors
prioritising fake scenarios
writing a pretend email to parents
on previous ones I was told they also did a pretend phone call
nothing to worry about - good luck

Definitely.

Staff are not allowed to dish paracetamol out to children.

Vicky, Of course they can if first aid trained and students have parental permission. School offices deal with first aid, too.

Yep! Spend my day giving out medicines!

I'm just surprised the tasks take priority. I work in a fantastic school and it's really hard to get good applicants. The interview itself and how a person comes across is the priority. They might not be so hot on the tasks, but we can teach those skills and it just gives an indicator of ability.

I'm so grateful for all this info, thank you all so much. I have a college exam next week & have been ill, so really behind on study and did contemplate declining this interview as I doubt I'll get the job, plus the prep felt overwhelming, but youvd given me something to focus on and I now have a plan to prepare. Not aware of mail merge so will research.

Thank you so much.

To update, thank you for all the replies, I felt ready(ish) going into this interview.

The tasks ended up being all paper based. No computers at all. Proofreading a letter, how to sort some files, prioritising some tasks & how to deal with an irate parent.

Made it through to round 2 🙌 feedback was that I'd scored highly in the tasks. Chuffed.

Verbal interview seemed to go OK. Only me & 1 other at this stage, job was either FT or job share. During the rest between sessions, the other candidate told me they'd prefer job share but had said they would do FT if essential. We both seemed convinced it was a done deal! I could only do PT & other candidate wanted PT. And only us 2 left.

Phone call several hours later, I was unsuccessful.

😳

So I feel quite disheartened right now. My feedback & what the other candidate had said doesn't add up. Also means the tasks carried no weight in showing what I can do & my ininstincts as it was said several times I'd scored highly, so why not do the verbal interview first if that's the way it's weighted & most important!

Confusing outcome.

My friend thinks they wanted someone FT and they had missed my box ticked for PT when they progressed me. I raised it during my verbal interview as nothing had been referenced about PT aspect which I found odd, as in what days I could or couldn't do etc. Maybe that's what alerted them and ruled me out. Who knows. Waste of days worth of my time in a really busy week pre-exam, but trying to see the value in the experience.

But at least I did well in the tasks 🙂