40% pass the interview? As in get through to training? Seems a lot! Is it then filtered more by references/medicals?
It is filtered heavily BEFORE the Assessment stage by rejecting application forms. This gets rid of the vast majority of applications. Some TOCs will have a Corporate Interview or Corporate Tests before the Assessment Centre, which will get rid of more. After this there is the Assessment Centre (which is what we were talking about originally) with OPC which is the one that has a 40% pass rate. The OPC Assesment consists of Mechanical Comprehension, the two Trainability tests, Reactions, Concentration and the Structured Interview with an OPC assessor at the end. 40% will pass all 6 tests, the remaining 60% will fail on one or more of these 6 tests. However, normally only a small percentage will have even made it this far. After the Assessment Stage there is further selection stages; sometimes a final corporate Interview; sometimes further corporate tests (like SCAAT, Fault Finding, Maths, Verbal Comprehension, Rules exams, etc - I've seen these all being used!); sometimes personality questionaires; then
even after all this the company will decide who to take on and who to put "on hold" (in other words they reject you even though you passed everything simply because there wasnt enough vacancies). After this the job offer is still subject to the medical, references, the contract being agreed, signed and returned on time, and that you don't have any problems with notice period from your current employer. Some TOCs like DRS have a yet another additional stage - Screening. Basically an in depth look into your history to see if there is anything they don't like, and if anything is different to what you said in the interview, medical and application form. Then between this and starting the job you could be removed if they find out any lies in the application or interviews. Also note that there can be long periods between various stages in the process after passing each stage where you can do nothing but wait and hope they dont put you "on hold".
All this before you even start training, which lasts 9-12 months for a mainline drivers role, or 3-6 months for a depot drivers role.
Really is a mountain to climb isn't it?
Yes