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In NY, you must pass a civil service exam with practically a score of 100 to be considered for a school office job. The pay is not great but the benefits and other perks are worth it if you can get in.
In NY, you must pass a civil service exam with practically a score of 100 to be considered for a school office job. The pay is not great but the benefits and other perks are worth it if you can get in.
Does your state require this exam?
That's actually not all the way true. There are plenty of provisional jobs that NYC offers without any examination. Your required to take and pass a test for the title you are hired under.
But I have too also wondered does other cities have these same requirements for civil service workers?
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I don't know about NYC, but civil service exams are mostly for federal and law enforcement jobs, and some special districts. Most cities do not require them. Generally, they are used to reduce the number of applicants quickly to a manageable number. Smaller cities can do this simply by increasing the educational or experience requirements. I worked at a utility in CA that had written exams for nearly every non-managerial position. The passing score was determined by the number of candidates we wanted to interview. That could be a score of 80% or a score of 100%, depending on the ability of those applying for that job. For something like entry level customer service, or meter reader, we could have over 200 people take the exam, and only interview the top 25. The interviews resulted in a scored ranking, not considering written test score. In fact the people on the interview panel were never made aware of the test scores. For each opening, the top 3 got interviewed by the hiring manager, and after the selection, everyone else moved up one position in the list.
In NY, you must pass a civil service exam with practically a score of 100 to be considered for a school office job. The pay is not great but the benefits and other perks are worth it if you can get in.
Does your state require this exam?
You don't need a score of 100 to be eligible, but it will take longer to be appointed (i.e. hired) the lower your score is. Reason being, your rank on the eligibility list is determined by test score, and the state canvasses from the top of the list first; as the list dwindles, your rank on the list moves up. Also, getting a 100 doesn't mean you will get a job if your qualifications don't match; it just gives you first crack at job openings.
People drop off the list as time goes on (either they get hired by the state, or they remove themselves from the list because they got a job elsewhere), and the list is usually active for a few years, so it is a slow process the further down the lift you are.
I took the Federal Employee Entrance Exam in 1967. This was for college-level candidates. It consisted of a math section and English section. Passing grade was 70.
It was found that certain demographic groups performed poorly, and so the govt. -- in effect -- dumbed down the test and renamed it. The acronym was PACE although I forgot the actual title. Anyway, certain demographic groups still failed the test in relatively high numbers.
Could stand corrected but I think that they eliminated all testing and assessed candidates by other means. I can tell you that many of those hired from circa the mid-late-80s until I retired in '97 could not compose a cogent paragraph.
I took the Federal Employee Entrance Exam in 1967. This was for college-level candidates. It consisted of a math section and English section. Passing grade was 70.
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Could stand corrected but I think that they eliminated all testing and assessed candidates by other means. I can tell you that many of those hired from circa the mid-late-80s until I retired in '97 could not compose a cogent paragraph.
You are correct. The Federal civil service exam no longer exists. People no longer have to pass a test to become a Federal employee.
That said, Federal agencies still use tests/exams to help identify the best candidates for certain law enforcement, financial / regulatory, and counter intelligence positions. As one example, the Department of Justice uses exams to help identify the best candidates for FBI Special Agent positions.
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