I was just after a bit of advice from anyone who's taken and passed the criteria based (structured) interview, and also anyone who's taken the Safe Personality questionaire.
From my research, the structured interview is all about seeing if you have the 'right' personality for the role of train driver. You need to provide relevant experiences that will allow the interviewer to be able to test for those personality traits fully and correctly. You can therefore fail this interview if you don't show the personality traits they are looking for or if the examples you give aren't good enough for the interviewer to be able to test you for those personality traits.
My understanding is that during the questionaire you may be asked questions similar to:
Do you prefer to solve problems on your own ?
Do you prefer to solve problems within a team ?
Do you prefer to work alone ?
Do you prefer to work in a team ?
You should of course just answer these questions as honestly as you can which is what I intend to do. However, I know that there are some questions that I would find hard to answer as the answer is not so clear cut. For example, in my current role I sometime prefer and find it easier to solve problems on my own but sometimes (depending of the problem) I find it just as easy to solve it within a team.
So when faced with this type of question, as I have to choose one answer over the other. I may end up opting for the 'wrong' one.
I was therefore just wondering if anyone knew whether it is better to agree with the working alone / solving problems alone type of questions as opposed to agreeing with a preference for the 'team working' type questions ?.
The same applies to the interview itself as this is a personality trait looked for by the interview questions, so I was just wondering which types of answers did those people who were successful veer towards ?.
I find the answers a bit contradictory. You would think that they are looking for people who prefer to solve problems on their own as you will be working alone for long periods and need to have good fault finding skills to be able to resolve problems by yourself.
However, I know for a fact that they see strong team working skills as a good thing, as people who show a willingness to follow rules and procedures tend to like to work in teams and persuade colleagues they work with to follow rules & procedures. People who like working in teams tend to be better communicators, and are calmer people, again good things as far as what they are looking for. It's generally seen as a bad thing to be an 'individualist' who does their own thing, but I'm not sure if this means they want people who prefer working in teams, as this is not what you will be doing as a train driver as far as I can see.
Confused ?! .. any help/advice would be very much appreciated !
From my research, the structured interview is all about seeing if you have the 'right' personality for the role of train driver. You need to provide relevant experiences that will allow the interviewer to be able to test for those personality traits fully and correctly. You can therefore fail this interview if you don't show the personality traits they are looking for or if the examples you give aren't good enough for the interviewer to be able to test you for those personality traits.
My understanding is that during the questionaire you may be asked questions similar to:
Do you prefer to solve problems on your own ?
Do you prefer to solve problems within a team ?
Do you prefer to work alone ?
Do you prefer to work in a team ?
You should of course just answer these questions as honestly as you can which is what I intend to do. However, I know that there are some questions that I would find hard to answer as the answer is not so clear cut. For example, in my current role I sometime prefer and find it easier to solve problems on my own but sometimes (depending of the problem) I find it just as easy to solve it within a team.
So when faced with this type of question, as I have to choose one answer over the other. I may end up opting for the 'wrong' one.
I was therefore just wondering if anyone knew whether it is better to agree with the working alone / solving problems alone type of questions as opposed to agreeing with a preference for the 'team working' type questions ?.
The same applies to the interview itself as this is a personality trait looked for by the interview questions, so I was just wondering which types of answers did those people who were successful veer towards ?.
I find the answers a bit contradictory. You would think that they are looking for people who prefer to solve problems on their own as you will be working alone for long periods and need to have good fault finding skills to be able to resolve problems by yourself.
However, I know for a fact that they see strong team working skills as a good thing, as people who show a willingness to follow rules and procedures tend to like to work in teams and persuade colleagues they work with to follow rules & procedures. People who like working in teams tend to be better communicators, and are calmer people, again good things as far as what they are looking for. It's generally seen as a bad thing to be an 'individualist' who does their own thing, but I'm not sure if this means they want people who prefer working in teams, as this is not what you will be doing as a train driver as far as I can see.
Confused ?! .. any help/advice would be very much appreciated !