Northern - Trainee Train Driver - Recruitment Discussion

[MWhit620]

Got an email this morning to say that even though I passed the maki assessment with 77%, they’re only progressing people with the highest scores. So it’s a no for me this time

Which depot did you apply for?

 

[futuremrskerr]

Basically got the same thing; no idea what they want. Spoke to people I know at Northern, and they keep saying even the recruitment teams don't have a clue what's going on in terms of what direction they are going. If you passed the score needed, hopefully they don't make you wait a year until you can reapply

Email says to look out for future vacancies, doesn’t give a time limit on reapplying

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Which depot did you apply for?

Manchester Piccadilly

 

[MWhit620]

Email says to look out for future vacancies, doesn’t give a time limit on reapplying

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Sep 2026 ==


Manchester Piccadilly

Thanks for your reply, sorry to hear about that and hopefully you can get the next one!

I'm waiting for my response from the sheffield depot, I got 76% overall with 85% 95% and 50% . Im hoping that they learn towards the first 2 categories obviously more! Fingers crossed

 

[mg1998]

Got an email this morning to say that even though I passed the maki assessment with 77%, they’re only progressing people with the highest scores. So it’s a no for me this time

I got the same for Piccadilly with 76% - need to brush up on my situational judgement multiple option answers. Not bad for my first attempt I guess.

 

[PBOC0000]

Basically got the same thing; no idea what they want. Spoke to people I know at Northern, and they keep saying even the recruitment teams don't have a clue what's going on in terms of what direction they are going. If you passed the score needed, hopefully they don't make you wait a year until you can reapply

A year i was told 6 months?

 

[ChooChoo95]

Just had an email to say I’d passed the minimum benchmark required for this role but they’re only progressing those with the very highest scores. I scored 83% and have seen others scoring less than this who have been progressed, so definitely feel a bit hard done to but I guess that’s the nature of applying for this role. I applied to Sheffield - good luck to those who are through to the next stage.

 

[MWhit620]

Just had an email to say I’d passed the minimum benchmark required for this role but they’re only progressing those with the very highest scores. I scored 83% and have seen others scoring less than this who have been progressed, so definitely feel a bit hard done to but I guess that’s the nature of applying for this role. I applied to Sheffield - good luck to those who are through to the next stage.

That's unfortunate, thats higher than what ive got so ill keep an eye out for the dreaded email! At least thats a good score for the next application? Well done either way and hopefully next time is the one!

 

[Manda2194]

I was just thinking some of the maki thresholds are incredibly high. Logically they must score the application itself and the questions we answers. When they say highest scoring applicants they must mean that too

 

[jstan89]

Has anyone got any good links to maki online assessment ? Preferably something very close to the real thing as I’ve heard a few times that it wasn’t the same on the practice paper as it was for the real thing ! Any help would be fantastic

Train4trains.co.uk

 

[MWhit620]

Just had an email to say I’d passed the minimum benchmark required for this role but they’re only progressing those with the very highest scores. I scored 83% and have seen others scoring less than this who have been progressed, so definitely feel a bit hard done to but I guess that’s the nature of applying for this role. I applied to Sheffield - good luck to those who are through to the next stage.

Do you know whether the people who have progressed are from the sheffield applications? I still haven't had any update yet!