Apprentice Train Driver - Crosscountry - Multiple Locations (09/02/2021)

[PickleTree]

Sorry to read that, I’m very surprised though as you sounded very positive about it. Did you get the feeling that it had all gone smoothly or did they surprise you with any questions you weren’t expecting? Sorry to ask if it is a bit soon but always good to evaluate when it’s fresh in the mind as you never know what new advert may pop up.
Regards

Difficult to say, I have asked for feedback to see where I went wrong. The questions were what I expected and felt as though I built a great rapport with the interviewers so without the official feedback it is hard to put my finger on anything.

 

[jonge88]

I’ve just had a call inviting me to the assessment centre for this position which is great! Xc have sent me an 80-page practice booklet which I am going to study, but are there any other resources I can use to try to give myself a good chance?

I have previously completed a SCAAT test for a guards job with GWR (July 2019), does this test also fall into the drivers exams?

good luck to everybody else still waiting, I did not expect to get this far!

 

[paepo]

I’ve just had a call inviting me to the assessment centre for this position which is great! Xc have sent me an 80-page practice booklet which I am going to study, but are there any other resources I can use to try to give myself a good chance?

I have previously completed a SCAAT test for a guards job with GWR (July 2019), does this test also fall into the drivers exams?

good luck to everybody else still waiting, I did not expect to get this far!

Use the group bourdon tool on here and the practice material provided by the TOC and that's all you'll need. Don't waste your money on websites that claim they'll prepare you for it as the practice material provided is plenty good enough. No, SCAAT isn't used for driver psychometrics. Where have you applied for? A few in for Edinburgh positions at assessment centre today.

 

[Edinburgh1987]

I've done my tests today, passed them and awaiting the results of the MMI, don't feel confident though. I think I got a vibe that I hadn't done enough but won't find out till later which is torture.

Happy I've passed everything else though.

 

[jonge88]

Use the group bourdon tool on here and the practice material provided by the TOC and that's all you'll need. Don't waste your money on websites that claim they'll prepare you for it as the practice material provided is plenty good enough. No, SCAAT isn't used for driver psychometrics. Where have you applied for? A few in for Edinburgh positions at assessment centre today.

Thank you, I must admit I was tempted by some of those websites. Now I just have to somehow sneak the practice material into the print queue at work, ha! I've applied for Plymouth.

 

[NorthernTech]

I've done my tests today, passed them and awaiting the results of the MMI, don't feel confident though. I think I got a vibe that I hadn't done enough but won't find out till later which is torture.

Happy I've passed everything else though.

Well done for getting to the MMI at least, I know the feeling but unfortunately failed mine (last year, different toc). How many were there today and do you know which depot they were applying for? Did they say how many groups were in for assessment? Seems like they may be doing batches, but I suppose that depends how many are going through the tests this time, this may be it!

 

[bcfc171081]

Anyone remember if Bristol have advertised lately? If not likely to soon?

 

[jonge88]

I've done my tests today, passed them and awaiting the results of the MMI, don't feel confident though. I think I got a vibe that I hadn't done enough but won't find out till later which is torture.

Happy I've passed everything else though.

Hi mate, was the MMI done at the test centre after your tests, face-to-face?

 

[221129]

Anyone remember if Bristol have advertised lately? If not likely to soon?

No and no.

Hi mate, was the MMI done at the test centre after your tests, face-to-face?

Yes. It is part of the assessment day.

 

[Edinburgh1987]

Well done for getting to the MMI at least, I know the feeling but unfortunately failed mine (last year, different toc). How many were there today and do you know which depot they were applying for? Did they say how many groups were in for assessment? Seems like they may be doing batches, but I suppose that depends how many are going through the tests this time, this may be it!

Cheers, were 7 people there today. 4 for Birmingham and 3 for Edinburgh. Think that was them at covid capacity tbh.

Hi mate, was the MMI done at the test centre after your tests, face-to-face?

You do the mmi of you pass the tests, if you don't pass the tests they let you away first.

 

[Glawsrfc]

Difficult to say, I have asked for feedback to see where I went wrong. The questions were what I expected and felt as though I built a great rapport with the interviewers so without the official feedback it is hard to put my finger on anything.

Felt the same after my DMI with WMT...They even told me my possible start date and then binned me off.
Railway recruitment is a very strange beast I’ve found.

 

[jonge88]

Regarding the MMI, I often see people referring to "passing" or "failing" it - hypothetically, if all the people who are on the course were to "pass" the MMI, would they all receive a job offer, or do the recruitment team then choose who they want? It seems a very different set up to conventional recruitment!

 

[iwasyoungonce]

Your psychometrics will give an individual score for each test and then the company can place you in the order they want.

 

[paepo]

Regarding the MMI, I often see people referring to "passing" or "failing" it - hypothetically, if all the people who are on the course were to "pass" the MMI, would they all receive a job offer, or do the recruitment team then choose who they want? It seems a very different set up to conventional recruitment!

It's deemed as a pass or a fail as if you perform poorly you'll fail to pass the stage 2 psychometrics and progress no further.

If all candidates passed psychometrics then HR will collate their assessment scores along with interview scores/feedback and select the best performing candidates and offer them employment. The other candidates who passed but were unsuccessful may be put in a talent pool and kept on file incase any other positions arise or if any of the chosen candidates fail their medical/criminal database check/disclosure Scotland.

 

[Edinburgh1987]

Regarding the MMI, I often see people referring to "passing" or "failing" it - hypothetically, if all the people who are on the course were to "pass" the MMI, would they all receive a job offer, or do the recruitment team then choose who they want? It seems a very different set up to conventional recruitment!

We were told if we passed then the best scoring DMI interviewees would get the jobs, the rest would be held until the next time and put through training then.

 

[D Rivers]

Have any of you who’ve been tested this week had any clue off xc when your course will start??? I’m presuming June now!

 

[377390]

I had a DMI for this role just over 2 weeks ago and not heard anything since. I sent an email to the HR contact who set up the Teams interview and had no reply.
I know railway recruitment is slow but I’ve seen others on this thread had an invite to assessment or a No after a few days.
The online portal still just shows “Assessment”

 

[carl123uk]

Nothing since the online test my end and just checked again an still says Application in process

 

[NorthernTech]

Painfully slow, but seems to be par for the course and with all-things-Covid still affecting railway transport you’d have to give them longer still I’d say.. With so much of railway recruitment and its testing shrouded in secrecy, who knows where they are up to, how many they need, and when they will actually run the courses?? Only time will tell

 

[TEK2021]

Hi all

I had my assessments last week at Watford OPC too. Do we know if anyone has had any feedback from XC or if there are still anymore test dates? The OPC said they would feed back the results within a day or two. Are there any existing XC employees who would know how long it usually takes for them to get in touch?

Cheers

 

[NorthernTech]

Hi all

I had my assessments last week at Watford OPC too. Do we know if anyone has had any feedback from XC or if there are still anymore test dates? The OPC said they would feed back the results within a day or two. Are there any existing XC employees who would know how long it usually takes for them to get in touch?

Cheers

I presume you went through to do your MMI also whilst there? How did it all go? Scary or straight forward? Which location are you applying for if you don’t mind me asking?

 

[TEK2021]

I presume you went through to do your MMI also whilst there? How did it all go? Scary or straight forward? Which location are you applying for if you don’t mind me asking?

Yeah I done both assessments and then MMI. Paper half was fine I thought, I really felt I failed the street picture test on the computer as I was lost with a lot of them but turns out I was ok. The MMI I really have no idea, the interviewer was great but I feel like I hadn’t said whatever they needed me to but I might just be overthinking it. They spent little time on 4 questions so I thought I’d covered whatever they needed but there were 2 that we went over and over. Just hoping for the best but don’t really know when I will find out.

I’m for Edinburgh and from this I believe there were 7 down for Edinburgh over the course of the week, unsure about other depots.

 

[D Rivers]

Took about 4/5 days last year to tell us we’d passed.

 

[jonge88]

Is anybody headed to Watford this week coming? I was given a choice of this week or next, I thought it’d be best to wait it out to make more time for practicing. I’m getting reasonably comfortable with the group bourdon now but I’m dreading the tones test.

 

[TEK2021]

Took about 4/5 days last year to tell us we’d passed.

Oh really? That soon. Thanks for your response

 

[D Rivers]

Is anybody headed to Watford this week coming? I was given a choice of this week or next, I thought it’d be best to wait it out to make more time for practicing. I’m getting reasonably comfortable with the group bourdon now but I’m dreading the tones test.

I found the tones test (tea-occ) the easiest. Just count the beeps and remember they’re all plumbers and they’re all restaurants!!

 

[se99db]

Other thing is most of the practice material you use will be made for A4 printing. The actual directories you will have to search are usually A3 sized with quite a large font, so I definitely found the real test easier then the practices.

A good way to practice is to get someone to make beeps using a keyboard, computer etc that you can count while you read a paragraph of text (magazine, book etc) and search for certain words in that text you know will appear frequently.

 

[jonge88]

Other thing is most of the practice material you use will be made for A4 printing. The actual directories you will have to search are usually A3 sized with quite a large font, so I definitely found the real test easier then the practices.

A good way to practice is to get someone to make beeps using a keyboard, computer etc that you can count while you read a paragraph of text (magazine, book etc) and search for certain words in that text you know will appear frequently.

Thank you, I'll give that a go!

I found the tones test (tea-occ) the easiest. Just count the beeps and remember they’re all plumbers and they’re all restaurants!!

That's reassuring - it's just the lack of practice material that's getting me a bit edgy about that one! I did something vaguely similar for Network Rail about 10 years ago, where you had to imagine you were in a lift and a high note was going up a floor and a low note was going down, and you had to write what floor you finished on (or something like that) and I messed it up, so anything "tone" related now worries me!

 

[TEK2021]

Thank you, I'll give that a go!



That's reassuring - it's just the lack of practice material that's getting me a bit edgy about that one! I did something vaguely similar for Network Rail about 10 years ago, where you had to imagine you were in a lift and a high note was going up a floor and a low note was going down, and you had to write what floor you finished on (or something like that) and I messed it up, so anything "tone" related now worries me!

Just ignore the written names and focus on matching the symbols beside them I believe it’s triangles, squares, stars and circles... there might be a 5th. But just focus on circling the ones with a matching pair. You get practice examples so you’ll get a shot before hand

 

[jonge88]

Just ignore the written names and focus on matching the symbols beside them I believe it’s triangles, squares, stars and circles... there might be a 5th. But just focus on circling the ones with a matching pair. You get practice examples so you’ll get a shot before hand

Thanks very much! Fingers crossed I'll get by on the day. What depot are you going for?