Hi tk1412,
I passed the 2nd stage in 2001, so I don’t know if there have been any changes since then but I can tell you about my experience.
I was in a group of 4 for the 2 days of tests. From what I recall, the first day was spent doing individual and group tests, and the second day was medicals and a panel interview.
One of the tests involved working out a plan to fly a few aircraft around a simple airspace that was arranged like a grid, and you had to follow a few simple rules. As we all individually worked out our solutions to the problem, we were periodically interrupted and given new information that directly affected the most obvious plan and meant that we had to re-plan our solutions. At the end of the time allocated to devise a plan, we were separated and brought into a room individually to explain our plan to the test supervisors, by standing at a whiteboard and using an OHP. We weren’t allowed access to any of our notes, so if you get the same test make sure you remember the key details of the scenario and your plan (you are asked questions)! After we had presented our individual solutions, we were brought together and formulated a plan as a group. During this phase the test supervisors sat around us and generally made notes about our discussions, and at the end of the allocated time we all took turns to explain various parts of the group plan.
The panel interview was a different experience for each of us, and seemed to be well tailored to our individual backgrounds. There seemed to be two distinct phases for this interview. In the first it was a general discussion about me as a person, my motivations, why ATC, why Maastricht, why not NATS, my family, how I got on at school, how I got on at work, with other people, etc. The second part was questions of a ‘technical’ nature that required working out a solution of some kind.
One of the guys in my group had previously started an ATC training course, and he told me that his ‘technical’ questions involved him creating a flight plan from Scotland to somewhere in southern Europe. He was under the impression that they expected him to know a good number of the airport identifiers, understand cruising levels, etc. My background was as a pilot, and I got a very different set of technical questions. I was asked to design an instrument approach to a fictitious airport, so I had to draw an airport and the surrounding navaids and explain how an aircraft would transition from an enroute phase of flight into the approach I had designed. As I explained my approach, I was interrupted frequently and asked questions like “what height would the aircraft be at when it intercepted the glidepath at the distance you’ve just said”, etc. I was also given a few questions that I think the other guys got, which were like “an aircraft departs X at 240 kts. A second aircraft departs X at 360 kts 10 minutes later. How long before the aircraft separation is reduced to 10nm”. Other questions were like “an aircraft leaves FL100 at 1510 climbing to FL310. Its rate of climb is 1,500 fpm. What time will it lose separation with an aircraft flying at FL290 if 2,000' separation is required?”.
The panel consisted of 2 controllers from the training section, one operational controller, an HR person and a psychologist (who headed the panel). There was a flip-pad and marker pens near the interview chair that could be used to make any drawings or calculations as you worked out and then explained your answers to their technical questions.
Hope this is of some help, and I wish you the best of luck.