Why don't they just advertise DD for the GE side? it's a bit misleading IMO, don't matter anyway, they have put my application on hold!
April is quite quick considering GTR still have people waiting in the pool, i know someone who passed the process for GTR, fed up of waiting so applied for this and got rejected due to low score.
The manager personally took the time to phone me and explain why I wasn't successful.. it was largely because they are looking for evidence of four key values in the answers and I only scored well on one of them... was March 2015 I was interviewed.. I went to stratford in Jan 15 as well to sit the DFFT which I past- thankfully that wasn't a waste as I needed it for GTR!
I was also too nervous and the other issue was I talked through solving a door fault (rules and regs question) and was honest that it caused a 20 min delay due to a number of issues and they didn't like that as they thought that excessive but perhaps I didn't explain why it took that long as it made them think I wasn't very proficient.. one of the key values
Bit gutting as I scored 71 on the application.
I applied prior to a FGW internal interview as a back up but I past that in late December and then there was a dilemma if to go to this interview. I turned down East Midlands Trains depot driving interview (past sift for that) as I thought well I've past internally for mainline and didn't fancy Nottingham,,, it seemed very strange going to an interview after 'passing' one..
Well it came to light things weren't moving fast with FGW. If the interview was in the summer I would have put more into it but FGW was a distraction at the time. People were still being interviewed in late feb for bristol so I assumed things would happen once they winded down
My girlfriend really didn't want me to pass either! she didn't want the move to cambridge
I am single now and better for it
I also mentioned how playing piano is similar to the train driving competence (I'm grade 8) which probably came across as too out there.. I meant in terms of concentration, accuracy, taking time to read the score, planning ahead..
Oh they also asked why not FGW.. I was perhaps too honest and said I was in the pool for Bristol and made it sound too much like this was an afterthought.. I approached it in the wrong way.. I wanted to go more for the experience as at that time Bristol seemed better as I would have kept my wage and cambridge is so expensive.. it was also strange the last interview I went to I had failed even though I was expecting to be called up for the one prior that I past it felt quite strange,, anyway waffling
awaiting interview dates now.