and for the nerves? any suggestions?

Kalms?

works for some people during their driving tests

Yeh works for some people not me though!!! I took them last year in the morning before my structured interview at Southampton and they made me really agitated :\

I would get a good nights sleep and rest your brain....if you have prepared and are in the mind set and fresh you will do fine!

Can anyone let me know if your online test was on the SHL website yet???

Thanks

Cheryl :p

Cheryl
 

It is on hte SHL site.
I never heard anything about how well (or not) I did on the pre-S1 tests on the SHL website.

I wouldn't worry about them too much once you've done them - you can't go back and change your answers anyway - just concentrate on doing as well as you can at the S1 day.

Good Luck!

-A

On another point...

I e-mailed a contact address I was sent by HR on monday to arrange a visit to Edinburgh Airport Tower.
I haven't heard anything back yet (wednesday).
Am I just being impatient or should I phone the number they sent me as well?
It's just that I need to get the visit sorted for next week, or this week as my S3 interview is on the 18th....


-A

think i might avoid the tablets if thats the case, i suppose a night out in prestwick should be avoided too?

Yeh if I were you I would call the number and see if you can organise the visit yourself, HR might be really busy and not realise you need the visit sorted sharpish!

I done my online test last night and thought I done really well, but just felt it was a bit weird as it wasnt a NATS website, so I dont even know if NATS get sent your results as how would they know to pass onto NATS??

Hi Guys

Just doing some reading for my stage 1. Looking through the test materials document produced by NATs. How much of this do I need to learn, do I need to know the all the different planes passenger capacity, height ranges and max speeds??

Cheers
Jim

MOST DEFINITELY!!!

Good luck :)

I heard that I got through to STage 3 today.
I am so happy! just trying to work out dates now!

Hey! I sat my stage 2 on the 2nd oct (I was the girl going to Australia the next day!) and I found out while I was away that I passed! Which I personally think is a miracle so anyone who thinks they have failed stage 2 don't give up hope! Anyway I emailed HR while I was away to let them know I couldnt do the SHL tests or book my stage 3 as I had limited internet access and they said that was fine. So I'm back now and am about to book my stage 3 and try and organise a tower visit. Does anyone have any advice about this? For example did you go to a particularly good place? Stansted is closest to me but Heathrow seems more appealling as its a bigger airport. Also how long did you have to wait to go on one?

I think Pat42 was at my stage 2 and Ive seen that you passed - well done! Anybody else from the 2nd oct? Do you have your stage 3 booked?

Hello everyone,

I am a student from Lithuania. I sent an application to NATS, and I was wondering how long does it take for them to invite me to participate in 1 stage of joining "Trainee Air Traffic Controler"?

LOUDSPEAKER.......full marks for tracking me down ..:) sorry at this late notice I cannot help with visit as am days off....good luck with stage 1 and should you get through you now have my email, let me know and I will try and sort out a visit for you....once again good look and take care..:cool::cool::cool::cool:

Hey Chippy,

Good to hear you passed. I think quite a few of us did. I just sat my stage 3 today with Emma, Dannielle and Michael. I know Mark passed as well. I'll PM you about tower visits. Good luck.

Pat

hey no worries, thanks again, would nats take into account my tracking down skills?:)

And I just recieved mine to stage 1.
I am almost as thrilled as I was when I had to take these kind of tests back here in Lithuania, when I was joining to Air Traffic Control :)

Chippy5687
 

I found out I got through to Stage 3 while in Australia too! ...Correlation??

I'm visiting the Heathrow tower on Monday night actually (can't wait!!) and going to Swanick on Sunday so it's going to be a busy weekend.

We were lucky enough to meet an ATCO at our stage 2 so she's the one who organised the Swanick visit and I emailed HR to see who I would need to speak to about getting a Heathrow tower visit so that's probably the best way to go. I called up on Monday and they booked me in for the following monday which was really speedy. Especially considering my stage 3 is on the 10th so I'm running out of time. Made it more difficult being in Australia and trying to organise the Swanick visit which I organised about 3 weeks ago now.

Really can't wait for my stage 3, I know that sounds crazy but I've been waiting a year for this opportunity and getting to go to Swanick and Heathrow within 24 hours of each other has really topped it all off.:)

Stage 2
 

Hey guys, just passed Stage 1 and been up to the heathrow tower, was amazing.

I just received the invitation to stage 2, seems a lot different to last time, is it just computer tests now? No interview, no motivation paper as last time they gave me a second lot of test materials to learn etc

Anyone just sit stage 2

Thanks

Scott

http://www.pprune.org/atc-issues/394...eparation.html

S88

hey good luck to everyone doing stage 1 tomorrow in prestwick!!! hope it goes well for us!!!

Found out yesterday that I didn't pass Stage 1. Not sure how I feel about it, part just accepts it, the other part wants to try and bounce back next year.

Trouble is, as they don't give feedback, I do t know whether it's worth trying next year. On one hand I may have just missed out, on the other hand, I may have been kidding myself and been well short if the required standard...

I'm pretty sure I would have passed all the sections, apart from the dreaded cubes, which I probably got less than half right..

Pat and Liz - thanks for your help on booking a tower visit. I might see if I can arrange something for Swanwick as well maybe - let me know how yours goes Liz. Did you have a good time in Oz?

Thanks for that very detailed post Pat! Was a great help although has now slightly scared me! Haven't picked a date for mine but think I will give myself as much time as possible to prepare. Did you get an impression from the interviewers as to how it went? Glad that a lot of our stage 2 people got through too!

Unfortunately not, they were very professional and didn't give anything away. I felt I did quite well for myself and did the best I could, if I don't get it then its because their standard is extremely high and I don't think I'll feel too bad about myself (though will be sad that I don't get it of course).

Its not really that scary, just prepare well and you'll do fine :)

Crikey. They have changed things significantly from when I completed S3. Good post.

I passed stage 1 too! Congratulations SimonSoton for passing - stage 2, here we come!:)

basil, when did u sit your stage 1? mine was 2 weeks ago today and im chomping at the bit to know my results!! :confused:

I did stage 1 last monday - 26th, at CTC. I know SimonSoton did his on the same day, and it looks like both he and I heard yesterday that we had passed. Maybe you should give HR a ring, just to politely enquire about results - keeping my fingers crossed for you!

Hmm, I did my S2 on the 27th, maybe I'll hear tomorrow then!

Just filling in the application, but I'm confused about the Skills part. Is it correct that the skills you choose have to match a skill on their list?

For example, I type in "mu..." and find that "Multi-Tasking" is available on the list. I choose Multi-Tasking, but then I have to specify how many years experience I have and at what level. Hmm, I have 3 years experience of multi-tasking at an expert level? :ugh:

Anyone know what they want here? Should I include just obvious things, like Pilot because I have a pilot's licence, or personality traits as well (multi-tasking, teamwork etc...)?

LMX,

When I was filling in that application I found it a bit frustrating that I couldn't type in the skills I wanted to put in and had to choose off the list, but there's no way around it. You don't have to fill in how long you've had the skill for I think, so for the things like multi-tasking I simply didn't put int he time span for my experience. I included personality traits and skills and they accepted it.

* * *

And... is anyone here going to Swanwick on Wednesday the 11th for a visit? When I emailed them to ask they said there was a visit happening then so I'm going along and I was wondering if there was just going to be two of us or a few people. And if there is anyone here going then I thought I'd just say hello :ok:

Thankfully I received good news about my S2 assessment and I have my S3 booked for December. I'm looking to get a tower visit scheduled soon. Would be nice to get an area visit booked too. Do you think NATS will have any objection to me looking to book a visit at both establishments?

S88

Having just sat S3 I would say the more visits you can fit in the better, it definitely helped at interview. With towers it's worth visiting some at different sized airports as well, I went to Southampton and Heathrow and they were VERY different.

I don't think NATS will have a problem with you visiting several establishments. Whether or not each facility is able to accomodate you is down to the staff at each location so it isn't like you'd be taking up lots of one person's time by going to several places or anything like that, and in my experience staff at most facilities or more than happy to show you around provided it's not too busy.

Student 88,
What day in Dec are you going?
xx

Was very lucky today to have been able to sit with ATCO's in both Area control and Terminal at the Swanwick en-route center. It was incredible. If you ever get the oppotunity to spend a good part of your day in Swanwick do it. Heathrow tower tomorrow then Stage 3 on tuesday!! Wish me luck!

ailzo - I will PM you my date, I'd like to retain some level of anonymity on these forums!

Yeah, that's a good idea, I'm hoping to arrange the area visit for the day before my interview as driving down there on two separate occasions will be very expensive.

I must admit, I've already visited Stansted and Luton in the past with my previous employer. It's just I see LHR tower as the holy grail of towers, I'd love to tick it off!

Thanks for the feedback. It's nice to have lots of support from this thread.

S88

Pat42 - wow, quite a post there, lots of information that will be useful to me in my stage 3 so thanks very much for that.
Lizplt - sorry I've taken a while, I've sent you a pm now. Good luck with your stage 3!

Regarding airport visits, I had an excellent tour around Manchester tower and ops room recently and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'd also like the opportunity to see the Liverpool tower if possible so does anyone have any contact details I might be able to try? Is it worth starting a new topic to ask?

Any help would be much appreciated,
Thanks
Peter.

Just applied for my second run at the selection process. Applied Nov 9 last year and i got to stage 3. From the feedback i got from the ATCO who interviewed me it was a case of just improving a few small things and he thought i'd make it.

Just spent about an hour doing the application. It seems a lot more complicated than before. I'm sure i didn't have to put my education and employment stuff until after stage 1 last year. Also, i'm sure i actually chose a date for stage 1 at the time of applying.

Have there been any major changes to any of the stages in the last 9 months or so? I remember seeing that stage 1 is only done at CTC a while back. Will be a bit of pain as the Hilton i went to before in London was only 30 mins away. Oh well. Here's hoping i can go all the way this time.

Hi Dave,

I've not had prior experience of the selection process myself, but my understanding is that it has changed quite a bit over the past year. I've recently finished all three stages (just waiting to hear the outcome now). You can find posts I put up about all three stages on pages 214 (post #4272), 232 (#4625) & 244 (#4867). I believe that the descriptions of each stage found in those posts are still current and accurate. There are also some online tests you are asked to do before stage 1, but I don't think anyone is entirely sure of the relevance of these or whether or not the marks have any bearing on whether or not you pass stage 1.

Hope that helps

Pat

Thanks Pat. Seems like stage 2 in particular is much more lengthy and complicated than when i did mine in Feb this year. Also the 'structured' interview in stage 3 sounds ominous. I don't think i'd describe the interview i had in stage 3 as structured. Seems a bit daunting. That said, i never thought i'd make it past stage 1 last time and it was probably only once i heard i passed stage 2 that i really started taking it seriously.

I'm surprised that so much seems to have changed in such a short time, but i guess NATS wants to improve it's success rate in the college.

Hi Dave Z

I sat my stage 1 last Friday at Prestwick, and this is my second attempt, I made it to Stage 2 last November, I passed the Computer test and NATS test and failed on the structured interview :( But I was very surprised on Friday there at how much the stage 1 tests have changed, I found them to be quite a bit harder!! Last year at stage 1, there was a spacial reasoning test, Nats test, diagraming test and a checking test. This time there was a Nats test, a spacial reasoning test, diagramming test and a VDT test.

Hopefully I will hear soon, as I think the layout of the tests this year is to our advantage. Satage 2 being no structured interview to worry about, just computer tests.

Anyone else at Prestwick on Friday that has applied before, think they were harder???

Cheryl :p