Philontour,

Response time after stage 1 seems to be highly variable. I took just over a week to get mine, which is about the fastest anyone seems to get them (don't think I've heard anyone get stage 1 results in only a few days, but I'm prepared to be corrected...), but on the other hand quite a number of people have had to wait up to the full 15 working days (3 weeks).

As you say, the wait is horrible (I'm currently itching for the results of my stage 2) and I feel for you, but I suspect that after only a couple of days you're going to have to hang in there for a while yet.

I don't think you have to wait shorter or longer depending on whether you pass or fail, generally at stage 1 most people from the same dates seem to get them at the same time regardless of the result. It might be that if you are borderline it could take them a little longer to get back to you, but that's just speculation.

ok thanks for that pat...the waiting game continues, though i'm not too confident after reading they're taking less intake in this year, haha

I'm very confident that I passed the 'motivational' paper, as I anwsered all 20 in good time and had time to double check everything, sadly the same couldn't be said about the dreaded cubes, only managed to get 35/40 anwsered and of those probably only halve correct :(

The diagrammatical I managed 49/50 and fairly confident most of them are alright, but again the SDT maths paper I feel might have let me down, I manage to anwser all 20 but not too confident on whether there right or not! I'll let you all know either way soon hopefully, cheers

I wouldn't read too much into speculative comments about intake....

If the courses are looking quite booked then you may have to wait longer to start at the college if you get through, but I'd be suprised if they'd start cutting back on intake based upon a very short term increase in selection passes.

NATS are going to be looking at the long term; if there is a short term increase in suitable applicants right now this is likely to be balanced out by a decrease at some point in the future (assuming that there has been no net increase in the number of applicants - which isn't necessarily entirely out of the question, but I've heard no suggestion of this so far) so making hasty decisions about cutting back on intake is unlikely to prove sensible long term.

Regarding your performance on the tests, don't worry yourself too much! A lot of people really struggle with the cubes in particular and I've read posts by people here who recon they've got well below 50% on this paper and still get through to stage 2. At the end of the day you did your best and that's all anyone can ask of you.

Regarding Stage 2, try not to worry too much, I did not get cubes one bit, and i'm not even exagerating. There is no point analysing how many you answered etc, as we don't know how they mark it all.

Ive been waiting for my Stage 3 results for 2 weeks now, so try not to worry about it, you do sort of forget about it after about a week or so. Ive stopped waiting by the phone and checking my emails every second, it's now every hour, lol.

Good Luck! xx

leanne
 

I just did my stage 3 yesterday and they said that the email system has been broken and was due to be fixed today. So you may hear tomorrow.

Seb

Hey, just called them up and I passed stage 3! They haven't called as everything is down, as u said Sebby, but I don't think its sunk in yet! I'm just panicking about this crash diet!!!

Hi, when did you go to the Stage 3 interview. I'm still waiting results (for 3 weeks now...).

Philontour, took my stage 1 two weeks ago today and only just heard that I passed, this was longer than they took to contact me when I applied last year so it does seem to vary. Just wait out the 15 days, good luck!

Congratulations!!!!! You've made it through the toughest part. Now it's on to the medical. Really nothing to worry about unless you have a big health issue.

I've just called but they didn't want to tell me anything by phone, they've said the system had delays and they'll send out emails soon...

Just got the email from NATS -failed stage 1 that I took on 25/9.
I'm gutted. I didn't have any problems with the first paper and knew the answer to every question, but I bombed on S/D/T, which is probably the most important, so fair enough that I didn't get through really. I wouldn't want me controlling me, knowing I can't get the basics right.

Will just have to work harder on them for next year.
I hope anyone on here that have had their stage 1 around the same time get better luck, and good luck to anyone waiting their next stage.

santamotion
 

I had my stage 3 21st sept, what about u? Good luck x x

18th.... so it's not good news for me...

Which phone nr. have you called to?

cheers for that wazza..I took stage 1 on the 1st October so hopefully hear by this time next week

chris, i've got a feeling I did exactly what you thought you did

what's that Phil, the S/D/T?

santamotion
 

I just called the HR one on the website. Try that if you havent already, woman was really helpful x

santamotion
 

I am gonna call up on mon, someone i did my interview with has found out that he passed today. So your results are in just try again, maybe a different lady will help you (either that or they don't like giving bad news over the phone :/ just winding you up mate :D). Best of luck and keep us posted. I'm so nervous and i did it on wed, i can only imagine how you feel.

I´ve just had an email from nats and I have passed stage 1.Thanks for your help people.

congrats noroll. seems like it was so long ago i had stage 1. This process is harsh!

Congratulations, 'leanne1987'!! Great news!

I just really hope I get the same result. You must be absolutely ecstatic, well done! :ok:

Would have been nice to hear today as I'm off to Australia on Sunday so I'll now find out S2 results on my holiday. Well done to everyone who got good news today! Good luck to everyone! Xx

yeah chris, the SDT...I answered all 20 but im only really confident on halve those, the others are educated guesses, haha!

its a shame they don't give you your individual marks back in the email pass or fail as im sure that would be a great help to build peoples skills in there weakest area, oh well

and congratulations leanne, must be great to hear news like that after the whole process!

congrats leanne, you must be stoked.

i'm having my S2 tests on monday (12th) in Fareham.
Anyone else from here going then?

Tim,

It's all pretty basic mental arithmatic. Sometimes the numbers involved aren't very pretty, but on the whole the maths itself isn't the challenge, given enough time most people would be able to answer all the questions without much of a problem. The difficulty comes in that they don't give you a whole lot of time, you have to work fast and are under quite a lot of pressure.

The questions themselves are generally all SDT questions, think there may have been one or two others in there, like basic addition or subtraction of degrees to work out compass headings and the like.

Hi everyoneI've got my stage 1 this Friday in Swanwick (anyone else going) and this forum has been a huge help! I will be travelling by train to Fareham. Has anyone any ideas how much a taxi would cost from the station to the NATS centre. Also, from the sounds of previous posts stage 1 is pen and paper so is it frowned upon to make notes and scribbles for workings for the maths test? Finally(!) there are 4 tests roughly 20 minutes each (= 1hr 20min total) yet the afternoon runs from 12.30 - 3.00 so are there many breaks or other happenings?Many thanks for your help in my preparations so far!David

globemaster,

When I was last at the CTC, I got a train to Swanwick rather than Fareham (it's closer) and then got a taxi. I think it was about £6 ish. There's a free minibus that runs between the CTC and Swanwick rail station, but I don't know the times - the receptionists at CTC do though!

Scrap paper is provided for making notes/rough working during some of the tests. If I recall correctly it was provided for the diagramming and maths tests, but not the cubes or the motivation paper.

I got a taxi from Fareham station to NATS and it cost me about 12 quid I think

Cube Practice
 

Heya all,

I know some people were finding it difficult to find practice cube tests (me included) and I just found this game so I thought I'd share :) It's not quite cubes, but it is spacial reasoning. The website has lots of other interesting games too. You have to register to play, but it only takes a couple of seconds.

http://www.lumosity.com/brain-games/...otation-matrix

Hope it helps!

non-english
 

hey guys,

i got a few questions: unfortunately i failed at my country's ATS provider so i'm heading to England in 2011/2012. And yeah, that seems pretty far in time from now, but do you think there is a real chance for a non-English guy who failed at his country's provider? i mean 1) i am not a native English speaker and being frankly, i don't think that i'll ever speak like a real gentleman 2) maybe (if i pass the first two stages) the interviewers will find that pretty interesting why i'd like to be an atco if i'm failed once 3) i'm not a polish guy (but i'm from Eastern-Europe), and from what i've heard the English people don't like them too much and maybe they will think (do you?) that eastern-european is eastern-european...

finally, i hope that some of you will reply for me. thanks, cheers and out.

piqla,

How far did you get in your own country? Failed selection or failed training or validation? I would guess that will affect your chances with NATS more than anything else if you get to the final stage of selection.

ats
 

i failed at the strip management, so failed on selection.

what do you think what will make an affect on my chances? honestly, i do not think so that i would be the only one who's going to try it again at nats cause he/she failed at home...

Hi Piqla,

NATS, like all Air Traffic Services, require a certain level of English as I believe is stipulated by the ICAO. I can't tell you if you can meet that or not, but you certainly seem reasonably proficient (OK your post has a few typos and some grammatical mistakes... but generally I find it easier to speak another language than write in it). I'd recommend doing some homework regarding what is required.

In your own country you failed at selection. I'm not sure I'd describe this as having 'failed at being an atco' and I don't think NATS would have a problem with this. NATS themselves will let applicants who have failed at selection apply again once a year up to three times, and it is not unheard of for someone to pass on the second or third attempt. I don't see how they would treat someone who has failed selection in another country as any different. This shouldn't be an issue, but I would advise that at interview (if you get that far) that you are clear with them that you failed at selection, not training or validation (I would imagine that someone who has failed at these later stages may need to be dealt with differently).

Out of interest, do your own country's ATS not allow you to reapply if you fail selection as we are allowed to here? This would seem like a far easier option than uprooting yourself to the UK if possible.

With regards to your country of origin. Yes it is true some British people are not very friendly towards Eastern Europeans... this is called racism, and whilst it is permissible in the UK for an individual to hold racist views or opinions it is illegal for a company to descriminate on these grounds. If you have a legal right to work in the UK then NATS will consider your application in exactly the same way they do everybody else's, your ethnicity will not be a factor.

Finally, just to point out in case you hadn't realised, NATS use the Strip Display test in their selection too, so you will have to pass it to work here as well.

thanks
 

hey there,

thanks for the detailed answer.

let me start with your last sentence: yeah, i know that there's the SMD test at the NATS too, but believe me, i learned a lot about that failing (paid too much attention for the conflicts, but as the HR guy told me (fly in the oitment) i found all of them, yeah) and i have a good software for training.
sorry for the mistakes and typos, and that was the thing i tried to point at: if i do some grammatic mistakes when i speak with the HR-ers, won't they think "omg, he can't be a trainee, he will not understand the books" etc.
Of course, i will take a lots of English lessons, yeah; as i wrote, i'll try it in '11-12.

Sadly, the provider here doesn't allow to re-apply ("we need gifted people, not good testwriters", lol), so... :(

Just wrote a PM, please check that.

And about the eastern-european thingy... i didn't think that the HR guys at NATS are racists. just... everybody has his own prejudice. or something like that.

Regarding the racism thing:

I didn't think you meant that they were racists, I just meant to say that it wouldn't really matter even if they were - from a legal perspective they cannot descriminate against an applicant on racial grounds. A big company like NATS will have very detailed procedures in place to ensure that they are fulfilling their legal obligations and that racial prejudice is not effecting their selection process.

See your PMs ;)

Pat

:(
 

Well i guess i was hoping for too much getting through first time lol. Found out i failed Stage 3 today. Devastated! Didn't think that news would hurt so much. It is a long process just to get turned away so quickly.
It will be a long year waiting to try again.
I have the RAF on the go at the moment but part of me hopes that i don't get that as i don't want to get stuck there with another shot with NATS available to me (plus 1 more if need be).

Oh well, with this experience under my belt i'd expect to get through second time of asking, but that won't stop me working hard in preparation. Already made a note of the questions i was asked at the interview.

Good luck to you all and i'll be back in a year :)

Seb

Ahh SebbyK, I am devistated for you! Have you been given any feedback yet? And any advice to anybody about to take their stage 3?

:( Sad news Sebby, for some reason I always thought you were going to make it. Better luck next time.

Just got the email telling me that I passed stage 2 :) major relief! Anyone else from October 2nd heard how they did?

I've also been asked to do an online personality questionaire, has anyone else had this? Not sure I've seen any posts about it and I already did the big long questionaire at stage 1...