Trainee Depot Driver - Nottingham and Derby East Midlands Railway

[dereksingh291]

Drivers - Jobs at East Midlands Railway

jobs.eastmidlandsrailway.co.uk

 

[EchoMike]

Application submitted. Curious how this would work for me having complete high school outside of the UK.

Good luck to anyone that applies.

 

[Owen83]

Will be submitting shortly best of luck to you all.

 

[Dan_Gleeballs]

I went through the application process last year for EMR for a depot driver position and can honestly say it was the one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had in a working capacity. The whole process is set up NOT to find the best person for the role rather a type of person. It genuinely put me off applying for any other roles with EMR, and I’m happily employed on the railway having been through different processes with different TOCS and FOCS and none of the them set it up like EMR. If your lucky to get through the paper sift , you get the chance to go to the office in derby for a assessment day and it’s set up what I would liken to the apprentice, if you are bubbly and extrovert and have a mindset that you are using this role as a stepping stone you’ll probably do well, it’s a dog eat dog kind of environment.Managers all around the toon taking notes whilst being put into groups and having set tasks to complete, then as a group each standing in front of the room and explaining your answers, so if your like myself, this feels very uncomfortable and is set up for the very confident person who can talk about nothing for a while. It’s then onto one to one scenarios and what would you do and having again to explain your answers , which wasn’t to bad as it actually felt like a railway based task in customer service skills and my EMR person was really helpful and down to earth. After a spot of lunch it’s onto speed interviews, which the type of questions absolutely painful, make sure you brush up on your NTS. To my surprise, I was invited back to a interview in derby with a finance and operations manager. Again didn’t feel comfortable, felt like the interview was not for a role of depot driver , rather a HR position in the company. The type of questions just completely irrelevant mostly to the role. some will say because I didn’t get the job it’s just bitterness but it’s how I felt about the process, and I have colleagues who are happily working on the railway who also went through the EMR process and hated it . If your extrovert and have career progression at the forefront of your thoughts you’ll probably enjoy the process.

 

[Ptrains]

I thought the process was tough and excessively long - but fair.

They cannot test you on anything specifically railway related - that would scupper those who are new to the industry, but they can grill on you the skills and characteristics that people who get paid a lot more than myself deemed to be critical to the role.
Communication is a big one - if you see anything wrong while driving a train, they need to have the confidence that you will say something. So in the assessment they will be looking for those who are willing and able to speak up in front of strangers. Think train evacuations or unit failures, where you will be expected to guide hoards of annoyed passengers (with the TM) safely off a train, or a track worker not wearing hi-vis. Yes, there are managers wandering around taking notes - I got the impression that one manager was assigned 4 or 5 candidates to watch and score them on how they interact within the group (NTS).

Speed interviews were a bit weird, but are they looking for people who can process a situation (the question) recall and provide a succinct answer without the waffle?

I believe there is a going to be fair number of vacancies this year, so I wouldn't hang about.

 

[Brad1997]

Hi, does anyone know roughly when people will be expecting to hear back after the first sifting process? Cheers

 

[Cal_NG4]

I would be assuming after the 22nd when the advert is supposed to close.

 

[Beastbmw]

Application submitted, now for the wait. Best of luck everyone

 

[EMAA]

I went through the application process last year for EMR for a depot driver position and can honestly say it was the one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had in a working capacity. The whole process is set up NOT to find the best person for the role rather a type of person. It genuinely put me off applying for any other roles with EMR, and I’m happily employed on the railway having been through different processes with different TOCS and FOCS and none of the them set it up like EMR. If your lucky to get through the paper sift , you get the chance to go to the office in derby for a assessment day and it’s set up what I would liken to the apprentice, if you are bubbly and extrovert and have a mindset that you are using this role as a stepping stone you’ll probably do well, it’s a dog eat dog kind of environment.Managers all around the toon taking notes whilst being put into groups and having set tasks to complete, then as a group each standing in front of the room and explaining your answers, so if your like myself, this feels very uncomfortable and is set up for the very confident person who can talk about nothing for a while. It’s then onto one to one scenarios and what would you do and having again to explain your answers , which wasn’t to bad as it actually felt like a railway based task in customer service skills and my EMR person was really helpful and down to earth. After a spot of lunch it’s onto speed interviews, which the type of questions absolutely painful, make sure you brush up on your NTS. To my surprise, I was invited back to a interview in derby with a finance and operations manager. Again didn’t feel comfortable, felt like the interview was not for a role of depot driver , rather a HR position in the company. The type of questions just completely irrelevant mostly to the role. some will say because I didn’t get the job it’s just bitterness but it’s how I felt about the process, and I have colleagues who are happily working on the railway who also went through the EMR process and hated it . If your extrovert and have career progression at the forefront of your thoughts you’ll probably enjoy the process.

Hi Dan. Thanks for this. Would you mind giving me some more detailed information about the group tasks and presentations you had to give so I can be more prepared for it? Cheers