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TransPennine Trains - Trainee Driver Recruitment Discussion

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RailUK Forums

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Jordan1991

Member
Joined
25 Sep 2022
Messages
216
Location
Poynton
chalkijr said:
I can see both points here, and from experience in applying for a few of these roles and being in a talent pool myself, it does seem that this recruitment process was set up in an attempt to look at people's backgrounds and upbringings.

I have never been asked in an application what my parents highest qualifications are and what type of school I went to. It does seem like it was based on some sort of system to pick certain types of people, and I'm not just referring to ethnicity or sexual preferences.

I thought it was strange at the time but obviously the recruitment team have a certain system that differs to other companies. In my opinion anyway.

All that being said, a rejection is a rejection so no point in speculating... Just got to move on to the next application when it presents itself!
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Yes well put!
 
I

Irish Rail

Member
Joined
2 Sep 2019
Messages
50
Location
Newcastle
chalkijr said:
I can see both points here, and from experience in applying for a few of these roles and being in a talent pool myself, it does seem that this recruitment process was set up in an attempt to look at people's backgrounds and upbringings.

I have never been asked in an application what my parents highest qualifications are and what type of school I went to. It does seem like it was based on some sort of system to pick certain types of people, and I'm not just referring to ethnicity or sexual preferences.

I thought it was strange at the time but obviously the recruitment team have a certain system that differs to other companies. In my opinion anyway.

All that being said, a rejection is a rejection so no point in speculating... Just got to move on to the next application when it presents
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Jordan1991 said:
Yep I agree. It’s just my thoughts that’s all. I just feel like that’s the way things are going, a lot of them state they are after women etc so they will always take an advantage over males.

But we will never really know
Jordan1991 said:
Yep I agree. It’s just my thoughts that’s all. I just feel like that’s the way things are going, a lot of them state they are after women etc so they will always take an advantage over males.

But we will never really know for sure!
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Na, I see where you’re coming from but I know it’s not always the case where females get the roles. Best people usually get them over the course of the application. And I’m not a driver but have applied many a time, nothing but rejection unfortunately.
 
J

Jordan1991

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25 Sep 2022
Messages
216
Location
Poynton
Irish Rail said:
Na, I see where you’re coming from but I know it’s not always the case where females get the roles. Best people usually get them over the course of the application. And I’m not a driver but have applied many a time, nothing but rejection unfortunately.
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Yeah I was only speculating. This just seems to be a bit of a strange recruitment drive, like that other person mentioned.

Good luck with your future applications. Hopefully you get there eventually
 
O

omalleys

Member
Joined
30 Jun 2025
Messages
24
Location
Manchester
Jordan1991 said:
I have been in just over 2 years. TOCs will always be looking for the same traits of drivers, as that’s literally what you need to be a successful driver. So that won’t change. But I agree they will want different candidate profiles.

I work in healthcare and I know they take a lot from there, as well as police and fire service etc. maybe they are trying to move away from them people. Who knows
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The railway industry has had a history of hiring people with very strict roles where they have to stick to rules and structure. They have always loved ex military and police for this reason.

I work on the railway myself. Safety critical, you'd think I'd be the perfect candidate. I actually think it's a deterrent because I think they prefer to have brand new non railway people who they can train up from scratch.
 
T

TC12

Member
Joined
24 Sep 2018
Messages
16
Also a rejection email. Currently in a talent pool for a driver job for another TOC, so currently a little confused how I can’t make it past the paper sift considering I’ve passed all psychometric assessments.
 
A

Azzer88

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Joined
9 Mar 2023
Messages
93
Location
Liverpool
Has anyone even had a successful email yet then?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

Has anyone even had a successful email yet then?
 
N

NorthernTech

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Joined
12 Apr 2021
Messages
744
Location
Uk
ibz766 said:
I’m a guard atm lol thought it’d be a bit easier
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Coming from someone that joined the railway much later in life, you are in a great position at 19. No rush to get driving, you are in a perfect position to gain experience and still move up at a very young age. You could move up in 6 years for example, drive for 30 years and still retire at 55!

Does anyone have a DeLorean I can borrow?
 
KaneLeb

KaneLeb

Member
Joined
9 Jul 2025
Messages
60
Location
ECML
NorthernTech said:
Coming from someone that joined the railway much later in life, you are in a great position at 19. No rush to get driving, you are in a perfect position to gain experience and still move up at a very young age. You could move up in 6 years for example, drive for 30 years and still retire at 55!

Does anyone have a DeLorean I can borrow?
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Hahaha. I'm only 28 and I wish I could use that DeLorean to pursue a career in rail earlier on in life - if only I'd listened to my inner child sooner!
 
F

fabs

Member
Joined
22 Apr 2014
Messages
121
It may be fashionable to quote DEI (or whatever) as reasons for rejection.
But at this point each application is anonymised when presented to the hiring manager.
I wont go into detail but any rejections so far are nothing to do with any quotas or diversity figures. (No age, sex, race, where they live etc is visible).

The ones who end up with the position will be due to a combination of luck (unfortunately), effort put into the application form, performance on the AI written interview, the percentile you came out on the error checking test. To name a few.

Keep plugging away, it’s a tough gig to get.
 
M

MckA

Member
Joined
11 May 2025
Messages
6
Location
Preston
fabs said:
It may be fashionable to quote DEI (or whatever) as reasons for rejection.
But at this point each application is anonymised when presented to the hiring manager.
I wont go into detail but any rejections so far are nothing to do with any quotas or diversity figures. (No age, sex, race, where they live etc is visible).

The ones who end up with the position will be due to a combination of luck (unfortunately), effort put into the application form, performance on the AI written interview, the percentile you came out on the error checking test. To name a few.

Keep plugging away, it’s a tough gig to get.
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I get that they are busy and probably had 100’s off applications to go through but some form of feedback would have been nice! - then you would know where you went wrong and could work hard on that part for next time… if it ever come up again!
 
S

SCDR_WMR

Established Member
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17 Dec 2017
Messages
2,633
Location
Crewe
Sorry to hear so many have received rejection emails, I'm awaiting any kind of email
 
G

GPR

Member
Joined
16 Oct 2011
Messages
233
Location
Liverpool
fabs said:
It may be fashionable to quote DEI (or whatever) as reasons for rejection.
But at this point each application is anonymised when presented to the hiring manager.
I wont go into detail but any rejections so far are nothing to do with any quotas or diversity figures. (No age, sex, race, where they live etc is visible).

The ones who end up with the position will be due to a combination of luck (unfortunately), effort put into the application form, performance on the AI written interview, the percentile you came out on the error checking test. To name a few.

Keep plugging away, it’s a tough gig to get.
Click to expand...
I was under the assumption that this would be the case. A combination of everything.
People are saying ‘I’m exactly what the company want/ I’ve been doing the closest thing possible to a train driver for x amount of years’ but I assumed it was a combination of all the above which led to a score ultimately and say for Manchester, id assume only ~20 Will get sent for their psychometrics so you have to do pretty well in every category as there’d have been 1000s who applied whittled down to ~20 people.
Then that’d probably lead to 10 who pass to then be interviewed by the DTM’s for probably a hand ful of positions.
 
S

SCDR_WMR

Established Member
Joined
17 Dec 2017
Messages
2,633
Location
Crewe
GPR said:
I was under the assumption that this would be the case. A combination of everything.
People are saying ‘I’m exactly what the company want/ I’ve been doing the closest thing possible to a train driver for x amount of years’ but I assumed it was a combination of all the above which led to a score ultimately and say for Manchester, id assume only ~20 Will get sent for their psychometrics so you have to do pretty well in every category as there’d have been 1000s who applied whittled down to ~20 people.
Then that’d probably lead to 10 who pass to then be interviewed by the DTM’s for probably a hand ful of positions.
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The elephant in the room is always that we don't actually know how many positions (or talent pool positions) for each depot they are looking to take on. They may want 30 in the pool plus 6 to start in October. They may want just 5 in total and that affects just how competitive this becomes.
 
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fabs

Member
Joined
22 Apr 2014
Messages
121
MckA said:
I get that they are busy and probably had 100’s off applications to go through but some form of feedback would have been nice! - then you would know where you went wrong and could work hard on that part for next time… if it ever come up again! it’s just not practical
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1000’s not 100’s of applications.
It’s just not practical to give feedback to all those.
The automatic feedback from the AI will help.
 
K

Kems91

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Joined
30 Jun 2025
Messages
13
Location
Manchester, UK
rejection from Man Picc here too. Bit gutted, with i could have the DeLorean mentioned above go back 20 years when nobody really wanted to the job haha! easier to get in then well that what a family friend tells me who drives for crosscountry
 
I

iwasyoungonce

Member
Joined
15 Dec 2019
Messages
288
Location
uk
Kems91 said:
rejection from Man Picc here too. Bit gutted, with i could have the DeLorean mentioned above go back 20 years when nobody really wanted to the job haha! easier to get in then well that what a family friend tells me who drives for crosscountry
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Why didn't people want it 20 years ago ?
 
W

will1989

Member
Joined
29 Jun 2025
Messages
60
Location
Scarborough
No response from Scarborough either. I'm hoping the fact that a good chunk of the 60 minute commute radius is in the North Sea will work in my favour :lol:
 
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