NATS interview process

[paperclip810]

santomotion,

NATS has an online thing called the Departure Lounge for the pre-course learning material - if you haven't been sent the link already, I'm sure HR will send you it soon!

[FantasticJack87]

Stage 3

Hey, was just wondering: What is the usual waiting time for the email regarding the results of Stage 3?

I checked back and saw that some people got it extremely quickly, but I'd be interested to hear from people who've taken their S3 in the last couple of weeks.

[phil5556]

I'm a bit confused and hope someone can help...

I did my S1 on Wednesday at Fareham and I've just had an email saying "Following your recent visit to our test centre we would now like to invite you to complete a Bio-data Personality Questionnaire."

Does this mean I passed??!

[Pat42]

I took my stage 3 just over a month ago and it took about 2 weeks to hear back. It seems to be highly variable, with some people hearing almost straight away and others waiting the full three weeks. How long they take to get back to you seems to bare no relation to whether or not you pass though so I wouldn't worry about it (though I know the wait is frustrating).

[phil5556]

Cheers menthol, although that's not really what I wanted to hear! She said she'd let us know before Christmas, I thought 2 days after was bit quick.

[menthol]

Yay! Just got an email through to say I passed stage 3. For the benefit of FantasticJack I sat it on Tuesday, so just 3 days of worrying for me!

[Pat42]

congrats

Good luck with medicals...mine are not going so well

[Moravcik25]

Pat42

Just a wee note on the medical, I didn't pass my Nats Medical becuase of one of the eye tests, I think it had recently changed and they asked me to do one of the tests without my glasses which made it impossible, when I went for my CAA medical the guy doing the exact same test confirmed that it would have been impossible to do without my glasses on.
Obviously I don't know the issues you're having but I wouldn't worry about it, as long as you pass CAA medical you are in
Good luck

[ILS RWY27L]

Moravcik25,

Are you sure? I'm pretty certain that the NATS Medical is more stringent than the CAA Medical. Having sat both, it would certainly appear that way from the outset merely in terms of the additional tests such as strength testing etc required for the NATS Medical at Swanwick.

When I spoke to NATS OHS on the phone they also told me their own Medical was a stricter procedure than the CAA. The idea being, that candidates need to be 'NATS fit' in order to begin training with NATS. Candidates may fail a NATS Medical, pass a CAA Medical and be eligible for ATM training with another company.

I'm returning to Gatwick on the 15th to do an additional test regarding my ECG. Treadmill by the sounds of it. Fingers crossed things will be fine and I'll get my certificate at long last but it's an anxious wait at the same time!


Best of luck to everyone going through the process, regardless of stage.

[Pat42]

Thanks Moravcik, though its not the medical exam itself that is the problem at the minute, I passed the examination at Swanwick no problem... but I've got a history of conditions involving chronic headache (possibly migrainous, but can't say for sure, almost every doctor I've seen has told me it is something different).

The guys at NATS said that they themselves aren't bothered by it - the symptoms are very stable and consistent and as far as they are concerned I passed selection despite the condition so it obviously doesn't hinder me in a way that should present any significant issues - but they don't think that the CAA are going to be quite so accommodating.

At the moment I'm waiting for the CAA to revue my notes and make a decision on it, but I'm not feeling very confident it's going to be good news Bit gutting really as I'd looked at the medical requirements that are on the NATS website quite thoroughly before I applied and really didn't think I was going to have a problem.

[ailzo]

menthol....
i sat my stage 3 last friday and i stil have yet to hear! does any1 think i should get in touch with them??
x

[SL1987]

Hay all... Can I just get a quick straw pole of how much experience in the aviation industry people have who are applying for NATS?

I for instance have a PPL, which i attained at university (my degree is in Aviation Technology with Pilot Studies) so i've got quite a bit of experience on the other side of the VHF radio. I'm just curious to how much exposure to the industry people have?!

Thanks!!

Sam

PS, i've got my stage 1 on friday (18th Dec) if anyone else is there too good luck, and i'll see you there! I'll be the one wearing a grey suit (I'd rather be too smart than too scruffy)

[Moravcik25]

Ils Rwy27l

Hi
I'm only speaking from my own personal experiance, both medicals were pretty much the same, and as I said I didn't get my start date until after the CAA medical as I didn't get a green pass in my nats medical, I'm sure the doc told me it was graded green, amber or red and mine was amber.
I shouldn't have said as long as you pass CAA medical you are fine as I don't know that! Sorry for the confusion.
I've got my start date and contract now, so I know for sure I'm in, I can only tell you what happened to me, can't speak for anyone else.
Pat42, fingers crossed for you mate, I can relate to you as I was panicking after my Nats medical but hopefully as I was you'll be fine.

[Juffled]

just had the 'you passed stage 1 email'

many thank to all the reassuring tips on this thread, a couple of points that i would like to re-affirm for other is

1/ motivation paper, for me this focusses alot on the technicalities rather than the process....e.g. what does xxxx stand for, so dont get caught out on this, i thought i had which really annoyed me. also on the airplanes if you spend a few mins working out what they can ask you then these are not a problem

2/ cubes, whatever you do dont think that its easy after after the first 14 cubes (like i did), there is a reason people get to about 32-35, its because it gets silly hard, those who finish this paper deserve alot of credit. Also practice non standard cube layouts, i got to 33, spent the last 3-4 mins struggling on 33-35, dont guess i dont think it really helps.

3/ diagramming, i thought this was fairly easy, i think its about spotting the key bits of information and not going through each sequence step by step, i reckon if you go through each one step by step you will run out of time.

4/ sdt, if you cant do this then you probably should not really be there, finished it in about 10 mins and checked it through, only thing to note is that i think the compass degrees for aviation go the other way (clockwise starting at north) compared to the standard maths (counter clockwise, start at east)...dropped a few questions on this as i only looked at it afterwards when looking at this sim, last questions was fairly odd as well, makes you think!

ATC-SIM: a web-based air traffic control simulator

For anyone wandering, ABC Air traffic by Graham Duke was not useful at all in answering any questions, it was very useful in giving me some confidence in the subject though, most of the information in the first 50 pages is contained within the test document and its another style of writing which really cant hurt, for £8? its worth it if your actually wanting to do this career.

good luck to everyone

[TCTotty]

Juffled,

At ya stage 1 did the cubes and diagramming tests come from an old looking SHL booklet?

[SL1987]

Juffled RE: Diagraming test

i think its about spotting the key bits of information and not going through each sequence step by step

Could you explain to me what you mean by this? I've been stressing about running out of time on this one, and any tips would be greatly appreciated!

[Pat42]

Re: SL1987

Sounds to me like you've far more experience of the industry than most, so I really wouldn't worry about that

To be honest I'm not sure NATS are really looking for much in this area beyond a little background interest anyway - I've no experience of the aviation industry except as a passenger and this didn't hold me back in any way.

With respect to the diagramming test, I think what Juffled is getting at is that you don't need to work every example out in its entirety. As the answers are multiple choice I generally found (particularly towards the beginning of the test) that once I'd done the first few operations this narrowed the selection of possible answers down enough that I already knew the answer. (Caution - it is worth checking none of the final operators re-arrange the earlier boxes though, or this could catch you out big time).

Time is tight on the diagramming.. this was the only one I didn't manage to finish. But if you get your head down and don't let it fluster you then you'll do fine.

Best of luck

Pat

[SL1987]

Thanks Pat, i feel a lot better about friday now! Congrats on getting through to the college by the way!! Fingers crossed i'll be seeing you there! haha

[Juffled]

At ya stage 1 did the cubes and diagramming tests come from an old looking SHL booklet?

they came in a nats booklet, i would not try and second guess them if you think you have a similar one, the first 30 or ok and you should be able to do these in the time easily enough

Could you explain to me what you mean by this? I've been stressing about running out of time on this one, and any tips would be greatly appreciated!

for the later questions dont just go through each modifier seeing what it does, i picked a couple of key modifiers and matched the answer to them rather than seeing if all 4 would match, the trick is picking the right ones, for some of them the 2nd symbol of the answers would be identical for all 4 options so obviously the 5-10 seconds used working that out is fairly useless (12x10 seconds is 2 mins which is another couple of questions) , where as the 4th symbol might be different for each answer, clearly thats the one to work out, note that this worked for me and people are all different, some people may be better at quickly sorting the diagrams where as i had to draw key info out of each bit, you might find you spend more time trying to work out which info to look at rather than just deciphering all the modifiers.

Also people have passed when only answering 33 ish of these as well.

edit - basically what pat42 said but he was more eloquent than me

[Tom1984]

Hi everyone,

Just to update people on the backlog of candidates starting the college....

I completed my CAA medical last week and spoke to Nikki on the phone yesterday in HR.. I am penciled in for the AUG college start date for Area. The May start was already full which I was hoping to get. If memory serves me correctly, I started appling in June of this year so its quite a lengthy process!

Nevermind, gives me a good chance to start saving the pennies !

Just thought I'd pass on my info as I know this was one of the points I was eager to find out when I was applying.

Good Luck to everyone who is applying

Tom