Xinebessa,

I'd try and use a mixture of examples from both your previous roles (and any other roles you've worked in, possibly including non-work related examples). If your examples are from a range of situations that will help show the breadth of your experience. You may also find that examples from the different roles you have worked in will be more suited to the different questions they ask you, so choosing to stick to only one previous role would limit you a little.

It's a mixture. I knew how to tackle them but just didn't have enough time to do it the way I knew how. If you are good at mental arithmetic you'll have more confidence with them I'd assume.

Awra best.
Liam

Centre visit before stage 3
 

I was wondering if anyone has recently been able to visit Manchester before they sat their stage 3? Manchester would be the closest for me to visit and i emailed HR to ask for the right people to contact but im unsure if they will be able to take visits due to the relocation to Prestwick.
Cheers.

Hi, just got through the pain of stage 2 and am trying to plan trips to centres. Does anyone know the easiest way of organising a visit at Prestwick and Edinburgh??

Also, is it true that the interviews are 90 min long at stage 3?? Sounds terrible!

Cheers!

Good luck to everyone else

im sitting in my hotel now for my stage 3 tomorrow!
feeling a bit nervous but other wise ok :)

any last minute tips from any1?
x

Be cool :}

Xinebessa - congratulations on passing stage 2! What date have you booked stage 3 for? Mine is January 14th.

I've had to change my interview date from mid December to a date in January to give me more time to prepare for my exams at college and my interview.

Good luck Ailzo!

The interview is only as terrible as you make it. Mine was 2 hours and I had a good time with it.

Agree with this, I made a complete hash of it and it turned out to be an hour and a half of hell. But it's down to you to make sure you're fully prepared and it wont be so bad. If you are prepared well then it will fly by.

Sounds like I'm going to have a fair bit to prepare over christmas.

So then I sat the Stage 1 tests last year and have just re-done them. I've noticed quite a few changes since last year.

This year there was no presentation, no talk from an ATCO, no DVD, no coffee and biscuits etc... it was just get in, sit down, do 4 papers and then leave.

I think I did quite well but I don't want to jinx myself. There was nothing more I could have done to prepare anyway.

The Motivational paper was about the same as was the cubes and the diagramming. they did however introduce a maths based paper which duplicated many questions from the motivational paper and introduced a few new ones. Don't think I messed that one up. All in all it was a very different experince for me compared to last year.

Good luck to anyone else who was at Heathrow house today.

thanks basilsauce
 

thanks basilsauce :)

Got my interview just before xmas, really nervous though, going to either be an awesome xmas this year or a pants one lol :(

Good luck in Jan :)

Stage 2 Question
 

Hi guys-

Could anybody that has recently done Stage 2 tell me if you have to do a personality test- or if the whole day is just computerised aptitude tests? My stage 2 is on Jan 11th and i'm really nervous.:confused:

Thanks so much- you've really put my mind at rest. Good luck for Thursday!! ;)

Evening all.

Approx 14 months ago, i applied and failed at stage 1

Well, I have my second attempt on the 18th at Prestwick!!!!!

Going through the motivational paper now, and practising those horrible cubes, although saying that they seem easier now

If i remember rightly, someone approx 20months back posted a link to many more examples of these cubes. DOes anyone know where I can find more of these so i can practice, either online or a book. Its the cubes I am specifically after!

Cheers.

If you're on FACEBOOK then check out the link on the NATS 220 group. There is a PDF and a word doc with all fifty on there.

Hi all,

Throughout the selection process I heard people making reference to salaries of approx. £85kpa at Swanwick however the NATS website has salary data at closer to £55kpa.

Where does the 85 grand come from?!

The salary depends on a number of factors. Once you're a fully licenced ATCO (about three years after you begin training) you earn about £40-50k depending on the pay band of your unit (Swanwick and Heathrow are both the top band). After this I believe there is a payscale you work your way up each year of service for about 15 years, you can also work your way up it faster by taking on additional roles (OJTI, watch manager etc). According to the ATCO careers website you can end up on over £90K at Swanwick.

Stage 1
 

Anyone sitting their Stage 1 on Friday morning, 9am in Fareham?

I'm there!

Just trying to learn the ATC motivation document, loads of info, anyone got any pointers on what specific questions there may or may not be?? Help!

Jas

Whats the point in the test if you know the questions? The questions are based on the motivational paper. End of. :cool:

Surely if you had stage 1 last year you can recall at least some of the questions?! :oh:

So you'd like someone to come on here, provide you with all the questions so you can just learn answers to the test questions, compensating for you not learning the motivational document material properly and applying your knowledge accordingly to the questions asked?

If you got to the college, would you like the questions to your exams there so you could just learn the specific answers, providing you with a narrow knowledge based purely on answering the test but not giving an overall sound knowledge and understanding?

It undermines the logic of the test! Why don't you email HR and ask for the questions? See what they say :hmm:
Why should you be at an advantage if someone was to give you the questions? :\

amazing how this (apparent) ethical disruption can hurt your value´s piramid..or your feelings... I believe it´s cultural.

There is no just one way to come up with knowledge. Specially when you have a wide expertise in the aviation field at both ends of the R/T. (Don´t worry about my knowledge method, worry about yours...)
Again, knowledge absortion depends upon your responsability as student and professional, and I truly believe that theirs training HR´s know who´s valid or not for a position at college and thus an ATC chair...but, again, don´t miss sleep, I will look after it; but thank you for remaining it to me..:ok:;)

open your mind, my friend :), and thank you, again.
end of the question...:}

Pd: the questions change every exam!!can´t we have some reference questions?? that´s not cheating!...
amazing...

I don't think getting the questions so you can essentially cheat is right. However I would imagine that it works quite well. You will be hard pushed to find someone on here who believes that cheating is ok for ATC though so if you want the questions I would maybe look elsewhere.

You implied in your initial post which I first responded to, that you did not intend or at least do not wish to, rely upon any of your knowledge at all, you simply want to know the questions and learn the answers to the questions not learn towards the test as a whole, which is the objective of the whole exercise.

I have no idea what you're attempting to imply attacking my upbringing or my cultural background given that this is an anonymous forum and I resent such assumptions.

I'm perfectly comfortable and happy with my knowledge given that I was able to demonstrate it and pass the motivation paper through learning the material giving me a broad understanding rather than learning questions and answers.

I'll second what lizplt has just said, if you want the questions look elsewhere! :=:bored:

Just a point of interest, the questions don't change. Would kind of defeat the object of everyone sitting an exam which is the same level of difficulty.
You also change your posts quite a lot and even delete some. You said earlier you wanted the questions to pass which would imply cheating. Hence why I mentioned it.
If you've done as HR have instructed in learning the motivational document you'll be fine.

Anyone here hoping to sit their S3 at the end of January?

p.s. - I passed the motivation paper without much studying of the document. A fair amount is common sense. You'll never see a 733 crossing the pond.

How do you think it got to this side of the pond to start with then? Unless Boeing are in the habit of sending their planes in bits to where it needs to be and then building I'm guessing it crossed the pond.

That's good. But keep in mind not everyone applying will have a pre-existing general knowledge of aviation and it's operations.

Having taken the motivation paper myself, if you are outwith the industry and have little aviation knowledge - the test notes are an absolute must or you will have no chance!

This has all got a little ridiculous. learn the information you have been given. End of.

Hey S88

I'm sitting Stage 3 on 29th January. Just did the huge set of personality questions after stage 2 and feel a bit worried about what my answers say about me. :confused:

A wee update from me folks.

I've just got the bad news email from NATS after Stage One. Never held out much hope after realising just how rusty my arithmetic is. I'm confident this is where I've failed but I'd urge anyone going for Stage One to brush up on Distance/Speed/Time calculations as it caught me out at short notice.

Good luck to all! :ok: Back to mixing records then........

Well I got the email this morning or rather I should say 2 emails. One inviting me to do the online personality test and one inviting me for a stage 2 selection in Fareham.

A couple of questions about this if I may:

Firstly, last time I was invited to do the personailty test last year but got rejected (does that mean I have no personality?:8), however this year they have also invited me for a stage 2 as well so is it at all possible that I can get rejected from the personality test again?

Secondly, can someone point me in the right direction of what to expect from the Stage 2 day and whether there is anything I can do to prepare for it. I'm well aware that there probably is some info in this thread but reading over 255 pages on the offchance of finding some relevant info does not appeal to me. If that's what I have to do then I will but I was wondering if there was a more consolidated overview that I could look at?

Thanks very much people. Congratulations to those that also passed and to those that didn't I say try again next year.

Murphy23
 

Sorry for being offtopic, but would you mind telling a few words/thoughts about what do you think why did you fail on personality test at last year?
Thanks.

Nottingham?
 

Afternoon skibz

My name is Andrew and I am starting college in Feb 2010 – am I correct in saying you are too?

I have not received any information regarding the distance leaning package either. I have e-mailed NATS HR though so hopefully they will e-mail me some info so I can get cracking.

I see you are from Notts – whereabouts? I am living in Castle Marina until I leave but my wife will stay up here until I finish College.

Probably easier to e-mail me on [email protected] if you want to chat.

Speak soon hopefully.

Regards

Andrew Winter

Last years personality test.
 

Tbh I have no idea why I didn't pass last year. I only remember that I wasn't also invited to a S2 at the same time so I'm hoping that's slightly better news.

All I remember about the test was that there were a series of questions comprising of 4 statements and you had to pick the one that was most like you and the one that was least like you. It seemed to me as if there were only about 10 statements that got reversed a lot (I like meeting new people > I don't like meeting new people etc..) and so I found it was almost impossible not to contradict yourself at some stage. I tried to answer them as accurately as possible but to no avail it would seem. There was nothing I could have done more. The test was not timed so I think I overthought some of the questions and took slightly too long to answer some questions...probably not a good thing in a job that involves quick reactions and instant decisiveness.

I'm hoping that this years test is slightly different although somehow I doubt it.

Is this any good?
 

Sorry for the double post....

I found this company and was wondering if anyone had used their software or had any experience with them and if so which package you would recommend?

SkyTest® - Trainingssoftware für: DLR-Test (Lufthansa, AUA, DFS), Swiss, Air Berlin, FEAST (Eurocontrol), Austro Control, Skyguide is the Nats package and

SkyTest® - Trainingssoftware für: DLR-Test (Lufthansa, AUA, DFS), Swiss, Air Berlin, FEAST (Eurocontrol), Austro Control, Skyguide is the FEAST package which seems to have been mentioned a bit....

Any thoughts on this?

Murphy23 - look at Pat42's post (post number 4625, can't remember which page, sorry) - I found this very helpful in explaining what stage 2 is all about.

Sauce

Also, if you're on FB there is a NATS 222 area group

Hi pugwash4x4,

What is this "Lounge section" thing? I'm on 223-Area and have 0 info.

Thanks!