Demx93
Member
Sorry I don’t understand your response?
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A career as a signaller
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ArchangelA
Member
Not aro
Certainly not in the Midlands general area its not
Unfortunately, that misses the next paragraph which refers to new employees so you might find depending on circs your interpretation of this now has to change!
12% of Signallers in my area are female
afternoon all, sorry to bore you all about this but could someone who has been interviewed recently give us a insight into the 8 NTS.
Obviously they’ll ask you the routine interview questions and questions on Safety but when it comes to the NTS will they cover all 8 or just a few to get enough insight into your experience?
Edit: Just to add some more meat to the bones, will they expect a STAR answer to all 8 individual or can you/ will you cover multiple skills in a few answers?
thanks
Obviously they’ll ask you the routine interview questions and questions on Safety but when it comes to the NTS will they cover all 8 or just a few to get enough insight into your experience?
Edit: Just to add some more meat to the bones, will they expect a STAR answer to all 8 individual or can you/ will you cover multiple skills in a few answers?
thanks
Last edited:
Jellyfish22
Member
Have a star method response prepared for each non technical skill, i had 2 prepared for each one just in case!
Thanks for the reply , I’ll get to it!
Anneruon
Member
Thank you for your honest advice! The base salary is more than I'm earning now so I'll happily be able to live off of it.Have a look at the sheet below, grade 4 is £34,698 a year salary. So that is what you will be paid if you never do any overtime or Sundays and you only work day shifts. You will get no extra money on top of that.
If your location also does nights then you will get paid an extra £15.25 for every night shift that you work (=10% of a day’s pay).
If your location works Sundays then you will get paid the Sunday rate for any Sundays that you work, this will be on top of your normal payslip, so that’s extra cash.
If you choose to work any rest days then you will get the RDW daily rate. Again this is on top of your normal pay, extra cash.
The key thing is not to add on the usual basic daily rate onto your salary to work this out. The basic daily rate IS your salary. Sundays and Rest Day Work are extras.
Ultimately I don’t know what your location works and what your roster will be so it’s impossible to know how many Sundays or Rest Days you will be able to work. If you can live off the base salary then you know that you are going to be OK. Please don’t take the job if you can’t afford to live off the base salary because then if the overtime is not available you’re going to struggle. Also please don’t make any decisions based on stuff that strangers off the internet like me tell you
I've read so many different things around the Internet about extra pay and didn’t know what to believe about what to expect my wage to be. If I get the job I'll budget for my base salary then treat anything extra as a bonus for that month.
Demx93
Member
Sorry if it’s been asked before.. but how does the grade system work, what’s required of a signaller to go up from grade to grade?
thanks
thanks
godfreycomplex
Established Member
- Joined
- 23 Jun 2016
- Messages
- 1,488
Sorry if it’s been asked before.. but how does the grade system work, what’s required of a signaller to go up from grade to grade?
thanks
Each signalling location has a grade (a salary level on a sliding scale) (sometimes there are different grades in the same location)
The salary paid to the signallers is in accordance with their grade on the pay scale.
The main NR pay scale has 14 grades. The top 5 are for controllers and Shift Signaller Managers and grade 1 (the lowest) is for crossing keepers, so all signaller grades at the moment are between grades 2 and 9 (there are crossing keepers/SSMs within these grades as well)
Moving up the grades is done by applying for an internal vacancy at the higher grade and being sifted and interviewed, and the highest scoring candidate wins, and begins working (and being paid for) the higher grade location. There are some complications to this around release dates from previous roles but in essence that’s how it works
Hope that helps
Hoping Valley
New Member
Applied for my first signalling job on Monday and did the psychometric tests this afternoon. Today I learnt, don’t use your trackpad on your laptop for the psychometric tests. 
It’s too slow to move cursor around for some of the tests. Think using an iPad or a big phone would be best to make use of the touch screen.
It’s too slow to move cursor around for some of the tests. Think using an iPad or a big phone would be best to make use of the touch screen.Jellyfish22
Member
i completely messed up on one and still got an interview!Applied for my first signalling job on Monday and did the psychometric tests this afternoon. Today I learnt, don’t use your trackpad on your laptop for the psychometric tests.
Hoping Valley
New Member
Thanks for the encouragement. Fingers crossed it wasn't as bad as I felt it went!
I honestly thought mine went terrible too, I thought there was not a chance that I’d get to an interview but I did so try and keep positive. You might have suprised yourself
cowboysfan
Member
I do believe this has been asked before and I have tried to have a search but unable to find it. At what point will I be given the grade from a new role I'm waiting to start? I was under the impression it was 3 months from the advertising of the role(has been over 4 at this point)...but when I asked my current LOM today he said I won't receive any increase till I'm in my new position.
So basically I'm just looking for abit of clarity from others who may of experienced this when having a long wait prior to moving to their new position.
So basically I'm just looking for abit of clarity from others who may of experienced this when having a long wait prior to moving to their new position.
Search "12 weeks" restricted to just this thread and you'll get loads of discussion...
High Dyke
Established Member
The Red Book shows this. NB: The post you are going to must be vacant in order to claim the appropriate rate of pay.
Internal promotion luckily so all good
cowboysfan
Member
Brilliant this clears it up for me. Thank you!
Was it the grid challenge? I've just done it and completely bombed on that one. Felt the others went ok but the grid challenge was horrendous. Will just have to see
Jellyfish22
Member
Can’t remember what it was called but it was the one with remembering the dots in a particular pattern
That's the one! Was feeling pretty confident up until that one
Jellyfish22
Member
I heard everyone fails that one haha my laptop is touch screen tried to do it with that and it was just a mess!
ArkUTD
Member
Yes I've struggled on this one too, though it might be useful to have a bit of paper around to jot down like a general area of each dot in sequence?
Who knows, but overall these tests are so much nicer than the old ones from last year.
Steveswan10
Member
Hi all
Would anyone have any info on how stringent the medical is?
Thanks in advance
Would anyone have any info on how stringent the medical is?
Thanks in advance
It should be a standard safety critical medical. So this will including tests to assess colour blindness, hearing, eyesight, physical health factors (e.g. BMI) and a drugs and alochol check and any medical history. The best thing is to be upfront if there is anything pertinent, even it would have no impact on the role.
Also if you are on medication take it with you
Steveswan10
Member
Thats brilliant, thank you for the info, have my medical next friday
Thats not a problem......not on any medication...thanks for the info
Simon wathall
New Member
Hi all, due to do my psychometric tests tomorrow! Any tips much appreciated.
I’m also a Retained Firefighter does anyone know if I would be able to continue in this role? I did state it in my CV. Thanks for any help received
I’m also a Retained Firefighter does anyone know if I would be able to continue in this role? I did state it in my CV. Thanks for any help received
Llanigraham
On Moderation
You won't be able to leave your panel/Box if there is a shout, but you may be able to still volunteer on your days off, however you would need to clarify this with your LOM.