My congrats to eu-training for being the first ones on the internet to jump on the business of facilitating candidates to delude themselves. It's surely lucrative, and you deserve it, for being the first ones selling AD level e-tray exercises. I have paid your fabulous price and I'm exercising... So far I'm right at the middle of the gaussian curve judging the stats. Not too shabby considering that eutraining audience is probably better prepared than the norm, right?
Nope. I'd be out.
The problem is not eu-training but within EPSO's e-trays. The AD e-trays are for selecting approx 300 (no more than 372) out of 1355. Let's say 338: that simplifies the idea, it's 25% of the e-tray participants. The problem is that the format, with 3 picks out of 5 options (--/-/=/+/++) is even more prone to interpretation and randomness than the SJTs where the possibilities are basically 3 (most effective/least effective/ignore 2 out of 4), and where therefore logics count a lot more!
Most of the 1355 who have made it so far have probably already made a score of 35/40 in the previous SJT, meaning that either:
a) they had a LOT Of luck - unlikely, but possible given that there were 30k participants. These will be a minority and will almost all be filtered out in the e-tray;
b) or they have prepared for the SJTs and know the EPSO skills, and the few rules you should know with SJTs. They also have passed abstract reasoning and the other tests, so they're fairly quick and probably can acquire all the needed knowledge out of the 15 simulated emails. Given the difficulty of the first turn of tests this should be the majority - also because otherwise, the first CBTs are totally random too...
Keep in mind that this selects 1/4 of the participants. Any one who passed by luck so far will score badly, below average (let's say the lower 1/4 of the scorers). Anyone who knows the skills required and has prepared will score close to average at least. Furthermore, with the e-trays you don't need to be quick anymore, 50' for 15 q is what? 3 times the time of the SJT? Meaning that even if time is limited, you have some time to reason, it's not a race against the ticker like in the SJTs.
So you should be able to make a good score. But that's the same for all those who have passed so far! Average ain't enough - you need to be in the top 1/4 of a lot of people of similar good preparation. Therefore, the scores will be really close, and the selection is not of those who know the required skills but simply of those whose interpretation of a described situation is the same as the test writer's. Note that as so many will have very similar scores, checking "mostly good" or "mostly wrong" instead of "equally good/wrong" can make or break the deal! Obviously, when such little changes effect the score, it becomes a matter of slightly different cultural sensitivities and knowledge of the language... Both of the participant and of the test writer! You'd be advantaged if your test was written from someone from your country for example, or of your age, or of your gender... But mostly, if you're luckier than the others!
So, the e-tray selects the luckiest quarter out of 1355. At this point wasn't it cheaper to just roll a dice?!
If only EPSO was more transparent and published the statistics. We'd be able to compare the stats with the theoric curve and see how distant they are from pure randomness. But, that would put them at danger as it would expose how much added value they really bring...
Realistic message! Congratulations! .....but regarding the time....indeed we will have 50 min for 15 emails but also 17 questions * 3 = 51 finally responses. So let assume that u need 10 min for emails , 5 min for a final overview . This means that u will have 35 min for 51responses =41.17 sec for a response. So it is possible to be lucky for this short time?
If you make that calculation then you need to do the same for SJTs: 20'/(20x4) responses=15"/r. That's relatively even more relaxed.
But, to clarify: I'm not saying that anybody can make it through luck only. Quite the contrary: most of those who only relied on luck were surely screened out already: most of the participants do know their stuff after the first round, and the few who got lucky will be screened out now.
But as most of the 1355 left know their stuff... Now to make the difference you ALSO need to be lucky!
I think it's over-simplistic to think that culture, age and gender will be the reason for score differences between the 1355 candidates.
Sure there is luck and somehow a mindset. Call it culture if you will, but an EU culture rather that a culture per se. The ultimate goal being that they are trying to recruit "clones" capable of integrating EU institutions smoothly.
Are you good enough to understand how their mind works? Good for you then you should know how to deliver quality and results.
Lucky or mistakes aside, the vast majority of the E-tray candidates will compete on who's getting the right mindset to answer properly the questions.
I agree with you arnuz that EPSO tests are more than questionable. I scored 36/40 in the STJ for AD15 this year not because I learnt anything from the competencies EU is requiring (I had 35/40 last year). But because I understood how their STJ works and I just put myself in this autistic mindset to crack their pattern every time.
I haven't started to prepare the e-tray yet. I just spent enough time to know that free sample are scarce or not applicable to EU e-tray. (training from a Deloitte/KPMG sample would be, I believe, a big mistake). And I'm also too stingy to put a dime on an online test (sorry Eutraining), especially since there is no guarantee to have something fairly similar.
One final note I wish you guys to reflect on this:
ENA claims that they trained 10% of successful candidates in 2014 (and half of the French candidates trained by ENA have been successful) (source: http://www.ena.fr/index.php?/fr/actualites/Felicitations-aux-laureats-de...).
Half !? 10%!????
If that is true. It means that 15 people (out of 149 recruited this year) are attending their 50 spots (150€) half a day seminar taken place today (2/09).
What do you think? Again, if that's correct I think
1- EPSO tests are mostly rubbish and actually select ultra-modeled-puppets
2- EPSO tests are mostly selecting people ready to pay their entry.
3- Oh yes sure those guys are motivated.
Good point arnuz! I was just wondering whether it actually pays off to buy AD level e-tray exercises given the fact that it seems quite expensive and you don't get to practise that much anyway. I guess it's just another tool for them to select among those who have already passed the first phase. And yes, it seems to me equally blurry the way how they decide on what are the most desirable answers. On the other hand, I don’t know the other way to prepare myself. Any advice?
Good point arnuz! I was just wondering whether it actually pays off to buy AD level e-tray exercises given the fact that it seems quite expensive and you don't get to practise that much anyway. I guess it's just another tool for them to select among those who have already passed the first phase. And yes, it seems to me equally blurry the way how they decide on what are the most desirable answers. On the other hand, I don’t know the other way to prepare myself. Any advice?
Good point arnuz! I was just wondering whether it actually pays off to buy AD level e-tray exercises given the fact that it seems quite expensive and you don't get to practise that much anyway. I guess it's just another tool for them to select among those who have already passed the first phase. And yes, it seems to me equally blurry the way how they decide on what are the most desirable answers. On the other hand, I don’t know the other way to prepare myself. Any advice?
Good point arnuz! I was just wondering whether it actually pays off to buy AD level e-tray exercises given the fact that it seems quite expensive and you don't get to practise that much anyway. I guess it's just another tool for them to select among those who have already passed the first phase. And yes, it seems to me equally blurry the way how they decide on what are the most desirable answers. On the other hand, I don’t know the other way to prepare myself. Any advice?
Good point arnuz! I was just wondering whether it actually pays off to buy AD level e-tray exercises given the fact that it seems quite expensive and you don't get to practise that much anyway. I guess it's just another tool for them to select among those who have already passed the first phase. And yes, it seems to me equally blurry the way how they decide on what are the most desirable answers. On the other hand, I don’t know the other way to prepare myself. Any advice?
they also changed many of the correct replies in the etray. I consider that some of the tests are not very well done and the answers given are very badly motivated
Hi Don,
You are right, we have updated some of the etray exercises because the answer options were not well balanced across the 5 available options (in other words, the two extremes were over-represented to the detriment of the 3 "middle options").
What we have done to rectify this? Our occupational psychologists have gone back to the drawing board and revised ALL etray exercises and made amendments where necessary. Now, the answer options in ALL of our etray tests are balanced and represent the full scale of answer options.
I hope this makes sense. If you have additional questions/concerns - please feel free to let us know.
Throughout our 10 years in the market, we have been committed to serving the EPSO community with the best training materials. We may make mistakes sometimes but are quick and through to correct them.
Thank you for training with us!
David @ Online EU Training
David can you tell us if the explanations of the five options ++/+/=/-/-- are exactly the same as epso's, or if you have tried to get reasonable but not necessarily 100% accurate ones?
I'm particularly curious about the middle option. Having equally good and bad aspects is very different than say, having a neutral result.
Dear Arnuz,
As you know we are independent from the European Union institutions, hence from EPSO too. Their exact tests are kept confidential and therefore we are not familiar with the exact wording or the exact methodology behind them. However, we work with experts who have designed tons of similar tests and other consultants who know the EPSO procedure very well. We also gather regular feedback from candidates to ensure that our test truly model the real EPSO exams.
To answer your question about the middle option, it is safe to say that an option that offers a solution completely irrelevant to the situation sould not rated as a +/- (even though it is neutral) but rather towards the negative end (either "-" or "--" depending on whether you have other option which actually entail doing something harmful.)
We hope this answer helps, and thank you for the comment!
David @ Online EU Training
just got out of the test center.
Epso's e-tray is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy harder than those on eutraining...
yes indeed. I can only confirm...
did you guys score higher than average on eutraining's e-tray tests?
yes, approx 4 points above in average
approx so do I....im sitting for the exam tomorrow...i guess the minimum score then to move on to the AC will be quite lower than the first round...good luck to all!
Me as well.
But I supposed it would be so (Epso being harder) ; basically, on eutraining, for the e-tray, one question = an answer to be found in one mail.
as we say in french "shit" to you
excuse me???
:)
it means "good luck" (saying "good luck" being bad luck)
oh ok! xaxa :) bad luck then to everyone...!
Hi guys,
Im sitting for the exam tomorrow...
Could you please tell me how many mails are there in the exercise? Are they longer than eu training e-tray tests?
Greetings from Spain and good luck to all!
I didn't count the number of mails, but there were 18 questions.
The problem is eutraining tests are SJT's in the form of e-tray, i.e. you are able in a lot of cases to guess the best and worst answer without needing to read the e-mails...
It has only been the case in 2/3 questions in the Epso test I sat. Answers are more subtle and you have to cross between several mail to find the right answer.
Ok Henri, many thanks for the info and lots of "shit" to you! We also say it in spanish ;-)
pfff E-tray was superhard :s:s:s I think I messed up
hallo, is anybody able to tell exactly how many e-mails and questions where in the tests?
Thanks
Yeah, my problem is that the eutraining preparation tests are not of equal difficulty as the real e-tray test. In the preapration tests everything seemed in order and questions logically followed the emails which allows you to gain lots of time. In the real test questions are random to the order of the email and sometimes, instead of describing a bit situation, they are like "what would you reply to the email of Mr. X"? Obviously, you have to first figure out what email they are taking about it which takes a lot of time. I didn't read all the emails. I rather skimmed them briefly and then tried to answer the questions. I'm not sure if that was a good strategy.
Same here. My OP theory is confirmed by my test experience: given that we have all passed the SJTs, it's 100% luck. Way to waste taxpayer money EPSO!
We should make a class action to make them invite all of us at the AC... It's totally unfair that only 25% of us will get there out of this diceroll.
Could anybody tell me how much information can you actually see on the inbox mail list, sender, date, subjet...? or just the subjet?
I totally agree with all of you above!! Unfortunately the real test had almost nothing to do with the practice tests at eutraining... I am very disappointed i really think i messed it all up. Too many emails, with no names at the left navigation panel, you had to run through each one of them in every question in order to find the one that the person in question had sent, too many stakeholders, i believe there were about 15 names you had to cope with, 18 questions and not 17 as epso indicated, most of the emails were very long with too much information in, you had to cross check dates of events overlapping, the navigation can be very frustrating if you have a monitor less than 22''. I left a question anaswered because at the last 18secs another screen appeared and i could nothing but hit a finish button... A huge disappointment... I believe that very few people or noone will do well in this and luck will be the key factor.
Btw, does anyone know when we can expect the results?
Hi everybody
A piece of advice for the few who have yet to take the exam.
Try to read (thoroughly) all the emails in the inbox approximately in 25 minutes, that is, about half of the available time. And above all, read very carefully the email introducing the people involved in the project (yes, there is always a project in progress). It will be very useful for many questions.
In my inbox I found at least 20 emails (by the way, not arranged chronologically) and, of course, a few of them were completely pointelss...
Well, to pass this exam everybody needs luck, but, imho, be very careful helps.
Quite dissapointed by my performance as well...i expected to do a lot better...
Ι feel i answered some questions totally randomly...didnt have time to double check anything..
Nor to thorougly go through all the emails...oh well the best prepared and luckiest 25% will make it through!
Does anybody know when can we expect the results??
The next step is planned on 16/11 with the case study. So I suppose E-tray results should come by the end of october at the latest.
When I read some advice here, I don't know whether I took the same test as most of you guys, or if some people are just trolling those who are yet to take the test...
In my opinion there were no much surprise in this test. It was exactly how it was described in the sample. I agree however that there interface sucked (same as in the sample).
EPSO stated that the etray is supposed to asses a more practical test, but having only the email title as a preview and not be able to sort your emails by name/date/etc... is just not a business reality.
Well, of course in principle the idea of the test is clear. But I guess what most of us mean is that the preparation tests (I don't mean the sample but the test that I bought on eutraining) are easier to handle and in this sense they are misleading.
Sleez,
case study is planned on 13/11... Good luck!
Thanks to all for your advice!
Indeed Carolo54. Sorry for my mistake.
Robi,
I am getting etray for auditors next week.
As you said, I don't get the point in reading all emails at once...According to the instructions on the sample, each question must be considerted on its own, so does it help to read all emails before? isn't it confusing?
Could you tell how many emails do we have to manage per question? Were all 20 emails displayed altogether? Hasn't each question its own related series of emails?
Thank you in advance for your advice!
Thanks for everyone for the useful feedbacks. Could anyone tell if they provide a paper to take notes? Thanks
I think it was harder because the questions were sometimes more open and longer. 18 questions makes a difference in comparison with 15. And yes I found more difficulties going back to find the right email.
But the type of exercise is he same as on this website.
I did not submit (as someone did) but a message appeared that my answers were saved. I hope so
Hello! Could anybody tell me how much time did you have to complete the exercise? I heard somewhere that it was 60 minutes instead of 50. Thanks!
Josepm we had 50 min for 18 questions and approximately 20 e-mails (at least).
Did everyone get a message saying that your answers were saved in the end bc i didnt get one!! I hope my answers were saved!
Carolina, thanks for the information! 20 e-mails?! Did you have time to read all of them? Thanks!
@BCAG, I'm sorry, but I can answer only now. Yes it is true, each question has to be considered on its own, but the same does not apply to emails. That is also why I can not say exactly how many emails you have to manage per question. Actually, there are questions related to a single email and others connected to two or even more emails. And no question has its own related series of messages, as you have to deal with a standard inbox, in which you will find many emails, more or less connected to each other. I suggest you to read previously all the contents of your inbox just because I think it is the best way to know where to find information you later need to answer a question as correctly as you can. And finally, you are right, this way to face the exam can be confusing, but it was the very structure of inbox (no chronological order, no email preview) that compelled me to make this choice.
"In bocca al lupo" (as we say in Italian to wish "good luck") for your etray!
PS: a message indicating that your "answers were saved"? FrancescaB, what are you talking about?? I just saw a sort of overview of my answers (the same you can see on the sample given by Epso)...
Thank you Robi for your useful information!...We'll see..
Just went out my etray test. As expected: 17 questions with 15 emails. Enough time to read emails during first 15-20 min and then right to the questions. Less difficulty than expected. No need to buy any test package in my opinion. Just keep calmed and take into account competencies evaluated....
I am really happy this forum exists (just found it) because after leaving the e-tray, I was so disappointed - both with the test interface and with my performance - that I wanted to start a blog where people preparing for these tests can share experiences and thoughts, vent, etc..:)
My 5 cents to all of us overachievers who made it to the e-tray phase and future ones:
- EPSO e-tray for AD audit that I received on the test day was more similar to the e-tray test for AST on EU training, i.e. event planning and conference organizing; I expected and was truly hoping it would be more on the policy side dealing with policy, policy reports..;
- the tests on Judgment Day, as previously mentioned on this forum, did not specify a name but only subject, making it difficult and time consuming to go back to an email when answering Qs;
- the emails and test questions were much more verbose than the ones sold by EU training;
- MY test did not have any questions concerning people's emotions and problems whereas most practice tests included a good number of questions detailing personal requests for help, relationship problems at work, questions targeting more people skills and emotional intelligence;
- another important point: I was told that test takers are given different questions during a test, needless to analyze, providing for some variance in performance and distorting the neutrality desired by the very nature of "standardized" tests (please see Sept 11 entry for precise answer):
http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/eu-careers.info/2015/08/31/booking-of-the-e-tr...
- overall I found the EU training tests while not perfect, much better and more thoughtfully designed, more balanced, more carefully devised, more transparent and more in tune with real work life, and perhaps this is why they might seem easier (not because of the content or subject matter but the organization and higher clarity of expectations!).
Last piece of advice even if you don't train or prepare in any way - just like training for a sports competition (swimming, running, etc.) - don't do anything academic/computerwise the day before! It's a big mistake reviewing lots of materials and tests the night before, not getting enough sleep and then getting lots of mumbo-jumbo information into your head. It won't make any sense! Also, overpreparing might set your expectations on the wrong path and bring more disappointment than relaxing, meditating or watching TV/doing nothing the day before.
Even when I found eutraining very helpful, I found the real e-tray test by EPSO was much more difficult than the ones I bought to eutraining (AD), which followed all of them the same pattern and offered a range of scenarios to evaluate which you could easily identified.
The mails in the EPSO test were really long and disordered (dates). It was hard to read them all before reading and answering the questions, which I had decided to be the best way to proceed.
This is blatant maladministration, what else can Europe do but fail when her administrators are chosen rolling the dice?
All those who are excluded by this folly. Let's crowd-found a good lawyer, in a thousand or so we can pay the best. With this degree of randomness, it should be easy to show that the etray is an example of maladministration. The ombudsman would rock epso... Again! (google Pachtitis/Commission if you don't know what I'm speaking about)
I found another E-tray experience from a candidate for AD5 generalists I believe.
http://epsoforum.free.fr/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7
Reading his/her experience shows how much E-Tray for generalists was different from what Maria (above) is telling.
Hi guys! Here's input from my side. I just took e-tray AD5 fro Auditors and it seemed to me that I managed time successfully. It's true, the mails are not given in chronological order and on the list of mails only subject is visible, not the name of the sender though. My strategy was to spend 25 minutes on reading e-mails and while reading I was writing down number of mails, the name of the person and the date. Yes, it took some more time, but later I was able to quickly identify the mail I needed instead of wasting time on scrolling through all mails repeatedly.
However, I must say I don't see point in applying this test after successfully passing the SJT?! And is it really simulation of a real situation at work? I mean, I don't think that at work I'll actually only have 50 minutes to manage all these activities they ask from us in this test. Also, I would really like to know how they decide on the level of agreement/disagreement on each question. It seems so blurry to me, not to say random.
Well, now only remains to see what are the outcomes of this dice rolling. Good luck to all of you!
Thank you, akuyreyri, for sharing this. I saw that someone with the same nickname had posted earlier in this thread. Indeed, this person's experience or rather the test for generalists seems to have been different from the one I got for auditors. Does this also mean that all sitting for generalists got the project lead e-tray and all for audit got the conference planning one? I don't know but as I said above, EPSO blog told me that questions won't be the same for all candidates, without specifying if the tests will also vary within a given competition group. Is one to assume that the tests also differed? Prepping for these tests has obscured my ability to think clearly;).
Regardless of the results I get in the end, all I can say is that I would have much rather gotten the administrator test with the 'behavior, heavy traffic and critical information in the questions' questions that sleez mentions.
Hey, does anyone know when we should expect to receive the results of the e-tray? The case study will be in 1 month...
They said by mid-October (to be confirmed).... I asked them again on EU careers online but haven't received an answer.
I asked also for the results but I haven't received any answer yet.
According to page 9 of the FAQ (http://europa.eu/epso/doc/faq_as_pdf_en.pdf), "When and how will I receive the results of my CBT admission tests? Depending on the number of candidates you can expect to receive your test results within 3- 5 weeks after the last testing day."... So, it's in theory but in practice...
Hello Carmen,
Thank you for the information.
Do you know if they have published the results for Auditors? I haven't received any results or letters.
Thanks!!
Hi! I only received the Administrator's... Regarding the results I was asking for, just in case anyone else is wondering, the minimum score to pass was 26,260 apparently.
Good luck!
Thanks again, Carmen. And apparently, congratulations to you!!