Vic154,
In my opinion, if you have the intelligence, as shown in the aptitude test, then I think that at least warrants a ten minute interview to give you a chance to prove your motivation for the job.
Basically I think a five minute interview will tell NATS more about a person than them filling in some form for 40 minutes which they could easily make up the answers for.
You'd be surprised how accurate the psychometrics are, especially at finding out those who try and play the system and give answers they think we're looking for(!) Also, imagine if I interviewed you for five minutes, and then decided you had failed. How many appeals would we then get saying that five minutes was not nearly enough time for me to get a decent, overall picture of your personality and suitability for the job?
Yes, in many interviews the interviewer will have made a judgement in the first five to ten minutes. The mark of a good interview, and interviewer, is to then use the remaining time to search for both evidence to back that up, and evidence to contradict that. Sometimes the judgement is borne out by the evidence, sometimes not.
shipway,
I’m sorry but I don't agree that personality plays a big part, its simple down to intelligence and initiative to do the job.
Oh gosh, it most certainly is not just 'simply down to intelligence and initiative to do the job'. If that is truly what you believe, than to be honest I don't think ATC is the career for you. I know plenty of people who have the mind to do my job, most of them to a far higher standard I would imagine, but not the personality to go with it.
The job is not that stressful or even that difficult with all the procedures and technology in place now.
Oh, of course, it's incredibly easy. How silly of me to find last Monday in the tower one of the hardest days I've ever worked, I came away from it feeling exhausted and 'frazzled', for want of a better word, mostly due to an hour's session of Ground Movement Control that I was only just hanging on to. But please do come in to work with me next time and tell me where I was going wrong. My
personality is such that I actually welcome criticism, constantly strive for improvement in my own technique, and will not think twice about having another go at the same situation to test myself again.
But surely the best way to gain a profile about someone is to meet him or her face to face, nothing more nothing less. Why not do that? Money and time I think is the answer!
As with any selection process, the first few hurdles are more blunt than the last few. Last I heard there were 18,000 applicants at various stages of the process (including those that had just failed...I have to be honest and say I'm not sure how far back those figures go..). It is just impossible to see every one of them face to face. To do so would mean there would be no ATCOs doing their day job, they'd all be pulling days for Recruitment! Not to mention we'd go bust within a week!
As regards the police, perhaps it varies from force to force, but the constabulary selection process I'm aware of certainly does make use of psychometric evaluation, and most certainly within the force for candidates wanting to transfer to certain branches. I don't mean they use the same test as us, but a similar profile will be built up on each applicant.