If I were you KitKat, I would put your stage 1 off until you get your tooth sorted. You want to be on tip top condition and even if the pain is bearable, you don't need anything to give you grief.

Just my 2 cents and don't worry about the clothes, some guys were there on my stage 1 in jeans and t shirt AND I seen them at my stage 2!

Best of luck anyway!

THANKS guys... im going to defo go for it as already changed the interview date once... dont want them to think Im messing about!!
My tooth is ok now, its usually at night it hurts, so I think a few painkillers before bed and a few on the bedside cabinet will get me a semi decent sleep!
Men suck, just shows his personality if he's done it just before my S1... so Im well rid!
Thanks guys x

Hi everyone,

I sat stage 2 on the 12th but i still haven't heard anything back! I just wondered if anyone else who sat it that day had heard anything yet?

kitkat - I feel your pain, I sat my S2 with man flu. Don't worry about changing your assessment day, I changed mine 3 times because of my roster at work. They're very keen on you being fit an well for your assessment.

Very true student88, if you're not feeling well and fail, you will have to wait a year before resitting!

KitKat et al

The people running the Stage 1 days will state that you can choose not to sit the day and rebook if you dont feel 100%, but once you start the assessment there's no allowance made afterwards for illness/tiredness/lousy ex-boyfriends... just be honest with yourself, they want you at the best you can be, and they will understand that people can be ill on the day. If in doubt, go to the event and make the decision as you go in!

Best of luck whenever you do it :ok:

Indeed! but not what you want to hear when you've just paid £70 on a hotel. :p

Yeah, i'll grant you that! Went along to a Stage 1 day in March, there was this poor guy who looked so ill it was untrue, had to convince him he could rebook. Wonder if he got through...

I feel a sicky coming on.....

Youth is wasted on the young....think about it.... maybe even in a grown up way...This is not an application for a kindergarden. If you're not fit you'll blow it. This is serious job you're applying for and it requires a responsible approach.

These games are awesome! You guys may find them entertaining!

Air Traffic Control Simulations and Games

Enjoy!

hi all,
just booked my stage 3 today. given myself a few weeks time to prepare.

i'm curious though, the e-mails I've had haven't stated it as a requirement to visit control centres, which I thought it was?!? :confused:

I'd still like to visit an Area and Aerodrome even if it isn't required, so that I can experience what its like before the interview.

Does anyone know where I can get in contact with the appropriate people?
(would prefer centres in the North/Scotland, but I'm flexible)


Many thanks

-A

congrats on getting through stage 2 ad5x5! i booked my stage 3 today too! very nervous though as this was the stage i failed on last year! determined to get through this time!

well done ad5x5 and whitey83, i also passed s2. ive booked my stage 3 for nov 24, anyone else going on that day?

Out of interest, when did you guys/gals sit your S2?

I'm feeling very nervous waiting for my result :\ Not getting the hopes up though.

I sat my stage 2 on the 12th so this was the 14th working day! i was stressing too especially as last year they told me i was through on the day and then they forgot to email me!! try and last the 15 days and then maybe ring or email if you still haven't heard anything.

My stage 3 is booked for the 10th :)

God,

I've not read this thread in ages. Used to trawl thru this every day when I was applying and also whilst I was at the college. And its not changed a bit!!!

If anyone wants to ask any questions about college life or Bournemouth then gimme a shout, I just finished college in July and am now on live training at Swanwick.

Cheers
:ok:

ad5x5
 

I have arranged to go to an airport before my stage 3, because I thought it would be useful too. I thought it was going to be really tricky, but everyone seemed really helpful. Bristol airport is my nearest airport where NATS provide ATC services, so I emailed the Birstol airport general enquiries, because I couldn't figure out a better plan!

They got back to me that day telling me who to contact and they were all very helpful, giving me various dates to choose from and detailed instructions on what to do when I get there. I'm going on Tuesday and I'm very excited! I'm going to have to write down all my questions or I will definitely forget and look like a right eejit...

Hope you find somewhere to visit!

Hi there. Have decided to apply to try and be an ATCO and had a couple of questions on the way the application process is run.

Now, one of my eyes is nearly -7, the other nearly -6, apart from that, eyes are very healthy and corrected vision is pretty perfect.

My eyesight went when i was about 7, so the deterioration was quite constant at the beignning, tailed off, and has now been constant for years. When i've asked any optician, they have all said they would not expect somebody like me to deteriorate any further from what I am now.

After doing my initial research on the role i obviously saw one of the eligiblity requirements for the medical certificate was to be up to within range +5 to -6. But if just outside this range to call CAA medical for advice. So i did this, and was told that my current prescription wouldn't preclude me from applying for the ATCO job with NATS, and that their ophthalmologists would look to even tweak my prescription.

To be honest, this was better news than i was expecting(i think the fact i can provide proof of my stable prescription may have helped), but im not sure I can believe it. Does this ring true with anybody who had a similar eyesight prescription when they applied?

Other thing that is worrying me is that on the initial application form that needs to be sent before you are invited to any stages, it asks you to enter your full eyesight prescription. If i put down that i am -6 & -7, does that mean my application will just be put straight onto the 'No' pile without any further consideration by somebody in HR? Or is this just filed until the end of the stages for when I get my full medical?(assuming i get that far).

This is my dream job, and after being pretty down on my chances for eyesight, what my opticians and the CAA medical advisor told me has gave me some hope, but I wouldn't like to think my application will be junked straight away without the chance to take a look at me further.

Sorry for the long winded post, any advice or comments be much appreciated!

Write a note on the application or send an email/phone them with all your details (once sent off) explaing that you have contacted the CAA regarding your eyesight and that they see no why this should preclude you from the application process and then to be able to on to be an ATCO if successful.

Rokkala,

As far as I know, if there is information provided in the eye prescription box, NATS will consider it and may ask you to provide more details, see one of the company doctors, etc before progressing your application. It shouldn't just go straight in the no pile - the same system applies to those outside the height range - tall and small controllers are ok, but they need to measure certain things to make sure everyone can fit under the desks!

Rokkala, I would call HR if I was in your position. They are really friendly people and will be in a much better position to answer you than a rumours forum. Only they KNOW the facts.

ad5x5
 

Apparently its not officially a requirement to visit a NATS facility prior to stage 3, however I would say it is still definitely advisable. At interview they will be looking for you to demonstrate motivation for the job, this will be hard to show if you don't have quite a thorough understanding of what the day to day job entails (how can you show that you are motivated to do a job if you don't fully understand what that job entails?) and the best way to understand this is to go and see a real facility at work and talk to the ATCOs there.

I visited Southampton tower after my stage 1 and found this really helpful. To arrange this I contacted the airport help desk and got the number for the tower's admin office. Once I'd explained why I wanted to visit everyone I spoke to was really happy to help and it was a very informative and eye opening day.

I'm also visiting Heathrow tower (tomorrow!!), I arranged this in an alternative manner (on advice from the people I met at Southampton) - by getting contact details for the relevant personnel at Heathrow from NATS HR. (note: don't try asking HR to arrange a visit for you, apparently they aren't very receptive to this.... but if you exlpain that you want to arrange a visit and just ask who you should contact about it they seem more than happy to help).

hey, any1 doing there stage 1 in prestwick nov6th?

Yes, me!

I'm a bit concerned though- I got to stage 3 last year but I think I may have cocked up my online calculation test big time. With this being my third attempt I think I may have ruined my chances. Does anyone know what sort of weighting is placed on these online tests?

hi everyone
 

anyone doing there stage one at heathrow tomorrow? quite nervous because i've never done anything like this before, feeling a bit like i dont have enough life experience with things like this. I know i am capable of getting through but do you think being 18 i might be doing it to soon?

Hey,

Im doing my stage 1 at Prestwick on Friday 6th Nov at 1pm!!! Second time round for me and im about a million times more nervous this time round!! :\

Cheryl :)

Nickilook
 

Don't worry, i'm also 18 and have passed stage 1 and 2 and waiting to go for stage 3 (d-day 20th November!). As tim said life experience doesn't really have anything to do with it in stage 1 and 2, it's all about how good your brain is! age doesn't really matter. Obviously i can't speak for stage 3 because i haven't sat it yet, but i'm not too worried about my age, i'm sure i'll find examples to talk about for each of the competencies and will let you(and the rest of the forum) know how i get on. good luck to you!:ok:

thanks for your replies.

Also doing stage one at heathrow tomorrow at 10am, iam only 19 just look at it as something to put on your cv if you don't get through

Graeme

skibz check your pms

I'm in the same position as skibz if anyone has any recommended websites or books

Thanks

Stage 3
 

Don't know if it's of interest to anyone but I've just been having a look at the the document about stage 3 on the atcocareers website in prep for my interview tomorrow and noticed that NATS have modified it since I last looked at it. If anyone else is preparing for stage 3 it might be worth having a quick look.

The good news is that they only seem to have taken things out of it rather than adding anything new. They've removed the three really awkward competencies (numerical awareness, spatial awareness & information processing capacity), but otherwise it is unchanged as far as I can tell. :)

Hi Sam,

I'm in the same situation. Did my stage 1 last week, and had the personality questionnaire in my inbox before I got home! But also have not heard anything else. The lady conducting the tests last week said there had been some trouble recently with the online system so probably give it time.

I have been told though that receiving the questionnaire is a pretty sure response that stage one has gone well... how true this is still remains to be seen!

Don't worry about it, give it the full 15 working days as they ask and then if there is still nothing heard drop them a phone call.

Hope this helps, and good luck!

Skibz - PM

SimonSoton
 

I did my stage 1 last monday too, and also got the email about doing the online personality test. I did it last Thursday, and am still waiting to hear anything back...

online test
 

eh??? I sat my stage 1 on 22nd oct and have had nothing about online test afterwards!! had one to do before form shl but it wasnt a personality one, can someone shed some light as i am now suitably confused!! :confused:

Response times after each stage of selection can be highly variable. I think they process the results in batches so if you're lucky you'll be one of the last in your batch and it'll get marked pretty quickly, but if you are unlucky you could be the first in your batch and have to wait the full 15 days. It took just over a week to hear back from both stages 1 & 2 for me, but judging by many other peoples' experiences this was pretty fast (a fair few people have been waiting 10-15 working days).

I wouldn't worry about it too much, I know its annoying and you are probably checking your emails every 15mins all day, but they'll get back to you when they can and the length of wait you have to put up with has absolutely no bearing on whether or not you've passed. The whole thing is a pretty long term process so you'll have to get used to waiting for a bit.

Online Test
 

Hi Guys :)

Can anyone tell me if the online test that you need to sit before stage 1 selectino tests is at SHL?? As I went on last night to sit mine, and the link that hr sent me took me to that site, and you set up your username and password etc, then do 2 different tests, checking and calculation. Is this correct as I cant remember if it was the same site last year. I would have thought that the online tests would be direct through NATS so that they would recieve your results direct???? I just want to make sure, as my stage 1 is on Firday :uhoh:

Thanks very much

Cheryl :p

hey guys, ive my stage 1 exam on friday in prestwick and i just wondering what do i need to bring? pencil pen paper? starting to get nervous now!!!!!!!!!!

Bring yourself, pad, paper, pen and pencil and you should be fine!!

Cheryl :)