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Interview with a 'short administrative test'?

9 replies

Quink · 20/02/2010 13:16

I have a job interview next week for an administative/co-ordination role. The letter says that the interview will include a short administrative test - what might that include? The job description doesn't give much of a clue.
I've been out of the job market for a loooong time and I'm really starting to feel it!
Thank you!

OP posts:
MarthaFarquhar · 20/02/2010 13:18

Depends on the role I guess
One of the interview tasks for an admin post in my office was to organise some paperwork for alphabetical filing
sounds daft, but a fair few candidates fell at this particular hurdle
there was also a typing test

Blackduck · 20/02/2010 13:19

I had to answer some emails....

Quink · 20/02/2010 13:44

OK, thanks. I did wonder about filing, but then thought that seemed silly. Obviously not! Will practise my typing...
Blackduck, what were the emails? What were they testing you for?

OP posts:
Lonicera · 20/02/2010 13:51

posssibly an in-tray exercise?

you are given a number of emails, notes etc to prioritise and say what action you would take.

Intergalactic · 20/02/2010 13:56

I've set tests like this when recruiting at work - I'd expect it to be something similar to what you might have to do in the job. For uni PA/admin, we gave candidates some (fake) student figures for last year and this year, and asked them to draft a letter to the faculty dean about our unexpected increase in numbers - I was looking for accurate spelling and grammar, plus a bit of initiative, for example including something like 'please contact me to arrange a meeting with x' or 'as you'll see, this is a y% increase and we may need to consider the space and staffing implications' or similar.

We made the timing on the task pretty strict, so that it would be difficult to complete in the time given. We weren't necessarily expecting people to complete it, but to check how they'd prioritise the work/work under pressure.

Just remembered, we also gave them an 'in-tray task' - a list of things that they had to deal with on coming in to work, they had to order them from 1-10 to show what order they'd approach them (passing on info about someone ringing in sick etc first, catching up on filing last). Although we weren't bothered about the exact order, more that they'd given it some thought and it wasn't nonsense.

Hope this helps a bit. Do they ask for Word/Excel in the person spec? Maybe have a play around to make sure you are familiar with simple formulas if so - I've done a test myself where I had to create a simple budget - things like how to add a column of numbers and make the figure turn red if it's less than a certain amount (obvisouly no need to bother with this if you're unlikely to be using Excel in the job!).

Quink · 20/02/2010 18:44

This is really helpful, thankyou all!

OP posts:
tibni · 20/02/2010 18:49

When I went for a job in school they gave me a mail merge task, - I was delighted that I managed it but then the PC crashed and the IT guy couldn't recover it. I also had a display board task.

Quink · 20/02/2010 20:46

Blimey - mail merges! I haven't done one of those for a while! What's a display board task?

OP posts:
tibni · 20/02/2010 21:26

It was a school job and the second task was all Blue Peter - big rolls of paper and industrial staple gun to display students work.

Job was general humanities support. I had thought of spread sheets, letter writing but hadn't thought of mail merge.

Maybe im not the one to advise as I didn't get the job! Good luck with the job.

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