Can you explain how you were recruited for your position in the Government of Canada?
A: Like I mentioned, I applied to 10 positions through the Post Secondary Recruitment process within Government of Canada . I must have spent 3 weeks reading every book that I can get my hands on about how to prepare resumes for the Government of Canada. Even though that was a couple of years ago, there were not the same great resources that exist today. After going through the books, I customized each resume for the jobs that I was applying to. I then put them aside for two days, doubled and tripled checked them and sent in my application.
Then, I had to do those dreaded Post Secondary Recruitment exams! I got my hands on every resource that existed and that was my life for the next 3 weeks. There were no practice tests that could be downloaded in those days so I had to tug along huge books which no longer exist. I really drilled myself because failure was not an option. After I wrote the exams, a big load was taken off of my shoulders and I impatiently waited for my marks while going about my life.
I was checking my email from home one day when I saw an email from a weird email address (I would later discover that this is common when one receives an invitation from a Government department for an invitation to write an exam). I was about to delete it when I looked at the subject title and it looked like a competition number that I applied to so I took a risk and opened it. That was one of the best risks that I took because it was an invitation to write an exam! This was one month after I wrote my Post Secondary Recruitment exams so they must have really liked my application (laughs). Needless to say, I immediately started studying about the hiring department. If I recall correctly, I had a two week notification, so studying for that exam was my new part-time job.
Upon reaching the exam, I realized that my studying for the most part was in vain. This was not a knowledge exam but a writing exam. The Post Secondary Recruitment candidates were required to write a briefing note and then we would be invited for an interview by an interview panel (since then I have done several internal processes that follow the same format).
The briefing note was straight forward but I found that some of the required sections led to writing repetitive information. I’ve always been a strong writer, so writing a briefing note in an hour with a two-page limit was not an issue for me. Note that this was my first time writing a briefing note so I was a little nervous; nevertheless I gave it my best. The interview part f the exam was great. I love meeting new people so it was basically a chat with old friends. At the end of the interview, I knew that it either went very well or extremely bad.
I went about my life and after a long final semester, I decided to go away for two weeks. In the second week I decided to check my email and there was the invitation for the third phase of interviewing. In this particular process, candidates were preselected (based on the interviews in the second stage) for interviews with certain units. We were invited to Ottawa for a full 2 day event. On the first day, we were given the option to meet with representatives during a 2 hour period from various units and to arrange additional interviews in the same day and the day after. I ended up with seven interviews in two days. Needless to say, I was in interviews that same day and hardly slept that night in preparation for my interviews the next day. Although everyone was friendly, the stakes were high. One week and a half after the interview stage I was contacted for a full-time position and two months later I started with the Government of Canada.