That's me
I called the HR team to get confirmation as I've heard of cases where people were sent a rejection email by mistake. They did indeed confirm it...drat.
Cheekily, I asked if they could give some form of feedback so I knew which area(s) of the selection I had let myself down on. They told me that
overall I performed very well however my
diagramming and
basic checking need slight improvement.
My first reason for posting is to see if anyone can remind me which tests these were. I'm sure the basic checking test was the one where you have to find the matching number or group of letters in a list. Well, I remember answering a high number of questions here and being very careful to double check answers. I'd be surprised if I got more than one or two wrong out of those I answered. Same goes for diagramming. That was a test with symbols and some instructions for what to do (ie inverse, omit, reverse order etc). Again, I'm pretty sure I answered most of the questions and was very careful to get the right answers.
Of course, maybe the required grade is even higher than what I thought was a high standard. In which case I need to get some practise in for next time.
I'm disappointed that the results aren't considered in an overall manner rather than individual tests. It's never nice to hear that you did really well overall, but still didn't make the grade. However, that does prove that NATS are committed to high standards and won't lower their requirements just because of lack of candidates for the January course.
The email states that I must leave 12 months between tests. At least I have plenty of time to prepare. Does anyone know why they are so strict about this? I can understand a few months so they can change the papers. Is there another reason?
It forces me to take stock of the situation. I am still determined to become an ATCO so I will consider all the entry routes. Over the forthcoming 12 months I will continue to build on my knowledge of ATC and aviation. I may even attempt to move into an aviation job to get some experience.
I'm not looking for sympathy or condolences. Advice would be appreciated. Including advice to "give up hope" if it can be justified.