About 4 days ago, the first MP job opening in well over a year concluded. If you have been interested in the position and reading this blog, you likely have dug through some of the much older posts articulating the hiring process, and what to expect.
Well…throw all that out the window.
With this most recent job opening, and all the upcoming openings, the process will be much different.
Previously, you went to USA Jobs announcement page, uploaded all the information required, including multiple essays, submitted it all and just waited. Often for months. The flow looked like this:
Apply -> Quality Evaluation Panel -> Oral Assessment -> Med/Secuitiy Clearance -> Suitability Review -> Register of Cleared Candidates
Now you are required to apply and immediately schedule an online exam with Pearson Vue. You have two weeks from applying to create an account and schedule the exam, but a much larger window to actually take the exam (I believe about 6 months). You can take it as soon or as late in the window as you want. A colleague applying in another specialty took his exam about a month after applying.
The exam itself tests for Job Knowledge, English Expression, and Situational Judgment. Job knowledge and situation judgement has historically been part of the oral assessment phase. Job knowledge will still be a part of the oral assessment, but for this exam it is multiple choice and testing a baseline level required to proceed further in the hiring process. The situational judgement is being shifted completely to the start of the application process, and the logic in doing this is most people that don’t pass the oral assessment often fail at this portion of the process, so it is being pushed to the start to act as a stronger barrier. English expression is new to the process, and is looking at sentences or phrases that might have an error or structural issue, and picking a word that will improve the sentence.
If you clear this portion of the process, then your entire application gets looked over to ensure you meet the minimum job requirements, and you are then scheduled for an oral assessment.
The oral assessment itself has changed, losing the situational judgement portion, and focusing more heavily on the formal interview and job knowledge.
Over the last few hiring cycles, even before this change, a very small percentage of candidates were making it all the way through the hiring process to the register, so it will be interesting to see if this impacts things even further. It has never been an easy process and many individuals across all specialties only make it in after multiple attempts (or never).
If this job is appealing to you, sign up for job alerts, and I suspect there will be more openings in the coming months. Good look to those of those that applied in the most recent window. -Nick
P.S. -It is worth noting that AI is not allowed for any portion of you application, and if they suspect something includes AI, your candidacy will be tossed.
