PPRuNe Forums - NATS interview process

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Al.bundy uberhesch

Al.bundy - if you pass first and second parts of stage 1 I would say you will be finished by 12.30. It's about a 25 min walk so you should be good. They are fairly rapid with the tests.
Uberhesch - the posts regarding stage 2 interviews must be over a year old as I took new stage 2 last year and just taken it for a second time this year and I can confirm that there are no interviews at that stage. Only at stage 3.
Good luck to you both

Hi Guys,

I'm new to this website and I've found this thread incredibly useful over the last few days! i have my Stage 1 next week 25th at whitely and was wondering about the numerical test - how difficult are they going to make the s/d/t questions (any examples?) and is it just a paper of s/d/t or are there other questions as well?

thanks guys

jimmy, thanks for the answer.

clary, you have examples and links on page 283(or 282)

To anyone who's thinking of pm-ing me to ask for what questions they ask, this is the response you'll get - the same as the others who've asked already. I'm all for giving advice (and I've found some useful help on here - Cheers!) but I'm not going to tell anyone how to get through their interview....

Quote:

I'm afraid I'm not going to tell you (or anyone else) what questions they asked or what the group excercise is, apart from saying that it's an excercise to see how you work together and there's nothing you can do to prepare for it.

Regarding the questions in the interview, they all based around the topics given to you in the Stage 3 PDF - read that and have a think about some situations you've been in.

Good luck!

And also the fact that we were asked not to post anything about the selection processes on-line so as to give others an unfair advantage. It's all about how well you perform in unfamiliar and potentially stressful situations. Although to prepare did I apply for as many jobs as I could with no intention of taking them just for interview experience.

Good luck to all going through selection now

Hi folks sorry if this has been covered already but I don´t have time to cover the whole thread! assuming one gets to stage 3/ security clearance, what does the clearance entail? I´m assuming CRB (basic or full?) and what else? cheers in advance

Thanks al - can't believe i missed that! :ugh:

and R i don't know personally but I'm assuming it will be the most strictest and highest security clearance that can be done - including secret service because of all the terrorists and the countries current threat level

Mike

For a start we were asked specifically, by one of the interviewers, not to post on here about the group exercise or interview questions. There's a PDF on NATS website that contains all the info you need to know about Stage 3 - http://atcocareers.co.uk/pdf/Hints-a...Three-Days.pdf

Quote:

Assessment Day Three

If you’re successful at Stages 1 and 2, you‘ll be asked to attend the final assessment day, Stage 3. This assessment day consists of a group exercise and a competency based structured interview. NATS will provide lunch, and if your Stage 3 assessment day is at an operational unit, you may also be able to take a tour. There may be some periods of waiting around, so you might like to bring some reading material with you.
The group exercise has been designed to allow all applicants a chance to work together on a transportation scenario. Throughout the exercise, you’ll be observed by trained assessors. There is no one ‘correct’ solution to the exercise; we’re just interested in how individuals within the group work together to complete the task.

The interview is competency based and will be conducted by two assessors. During the interview, you‘ll be asked to think of situations when you previously behaved in a particular way, and to describe your specific actions in detail. The questions are all based on the following areas:

ATC Motivation
Conscientiousness and Rule Adherence
Decisiveness and Confidence
Emotional Stability
Error Awareness
Openness to Learning and Development
Planning, Decision Making and Problem Solving
Team Working.

To prepare for the interview, it might help to think of situations where you have demonstrated behaviours in these areas. You can use examples from any area of life, including college and/or university, previous paid and voluntary work, family and/or personal life, and clubs, hobbies and/or societies. What is important is that you can talk about situations that provide good examples of your behaviour in these areas.

Of course I don't know that I gave all the "right" answers, but if people knew the questions before hand then they'd have time to prepare (& fabricate?) responses, which I don't really think is what the interview is trying to test.

It's a competency based interview, they ask you to think of different situations you've been in and how you handled them, based on the topics up there ^^^.

I'd recommend going to visit somewhere before you go to the interview though, it helped me and was really interesting.

For a given mach number in still air,the higher aircraft will be slower.The highest aircraft of a given type will want to descend later cos its probably lighter.mach0.8=8miles per minute,0.7=7miles per minute.At these speeds the folk in the airplane would appreciate if you would pause for breath between transmissions,so they can get a request in before overflying the destination.If you want to get on in Air Traffic Control please ignore the above;It's worked for all your predecessors.:)Good luck guys. (It might be the second best job in aviation.)

Hi, how's everyone doing?

I have my Stage 3 soon and I was wondering if anyone had any advice for me?

I have read this thread extensively, been on a site visit and bought the ATC book.

I'm also planning on trying to demonstate the core competencies they outline.

Please note that I am asking for advice not the questions, so we don't need to run the "cheating" discourse again.

Cheers!

You may want to read this

Hi all,

If you havent read it in another post on here then i suggest you read this, very interesting article from behind the scenes at Heathrow Tower :-

Volcanic ash at 10 o'clock: The world's most stressful job - inside the control tower at Heathrow Airport | Mail Online

Enjoy

CJ

It seems like you have things pretty sorted to be honest and there isnt really much more advice to give. Just look up competency based interviews as this is what they use.
Nothing technical in there either so don't worry about trying to learn anything from the book before hand as they won't ask about it, would be useful when you get past this point I guess to prep for college, do mention it though if asked.

Hi all, Long time lurker, first time poster. Have read most of the recent posts and feel as though i have a good understanding of the selection process, however one thing i was wondering about in stage 1, the motivation paper; do i need to learn all the aircraft data in the paper NATS sent me? I have learned most of the doc pretty well but just cant remember any of the aircraft specific data.

Cheers in advance.

Stage 3 interview prep

If anyone fancies downloading a small document ive made up with sample questions to prepare for stage 3 interview please clivk on the link below :-

Free File Hosting Made Simple - MediaFire

Scremaingcobra - This has been answered in several posts, myself included, you need a basic understanding of speeds, destinations etc... they wont ask numerous questions on specific details, but you will need to know them later on, so learn as much as you can. Also if you follow the link above there are some handy files ive uploaded that may help.
Good luck

Yep learn everything in that booklet and then you've got it cracked.

Stage 2 for me on Friday, staying over down there tomorrow night, not sure whether to be excited or nervous. Bit of both really, I'll give it my best shot that's all I can. Anyone else there on Friday?

Hi there

A question for those who have passed or been in the job a while it says on the nats website that after three years you are fully qual is this from your intial training start date or from you intail date of your first post at a unit ?

Thanks

Hi guys.

One more question. The distances they ask us in motivational exam, are they in NM or km?

Thank you.

Stage 2 yesterday wasn't really easy. Not overly confident as it is so easy to make mistakes on things that normally you wouldn't think you'd make mistakes on. The time pressure in some of those tests is immense (especially at 830 in the morning).

Wait and see from now on, but I'm not overly confident, might have made just too many mistakes on the simple stuff (although pretty much all of us said the same so maybe it is expected). Who knows what they're looking for? I'll just have to wait and see.

If you can feel any better almost everyone thinks they did bad on FEAST test, and then they pass.

You can't do anything more now. The best use of your time is to prepare for a interview.

Good luck.