 So we really have a broad group of folks here, right? Some people who have tested, who have interviewed, who are currently working, or have worked in some version of civil service, meaning government work. I am a DPH employee, but I am not representing DPH tonight. I'm representing myself. I'm freestyling over here. So any concerns that you have, we can talk after the training and I can answer any questions. Just kind of as a civilian who went through the process. I'm sort of also self-taught, so I feel like reflecting that back to you. I developed this training on my own because it's a lot of questions that people have and I feel like it's important for everyone to have access to this information, both internally, to my department, but also for folks who are interested in general. So this may change and this may be an iteration of a different type of training as it emerges and as I learn more. But just wanted to share that I'm sort of here as a volunteer, here as a support to my fellow San Franciscoans and I also have been through this process. So that's kind of where this content comes from. What to expect tonight? It's gonna be a lot of definitions, a lot of descriptions, most of which will not make a lot of sense to you if you are brand new. So some of this might connect to, if you've interviewed for a city job or if you've tested it, it'll make more sense because you might have seen it before in some version. If you're brand new, I will try to make it as entertaining as possible, acknowledging that there's a lot of definitions and a lot of just sort of descriptions of things that may or may not make a ton of sense. So pop up a hand. If it's a super specific question, I'll take it after the training, if it's specific to your experience, but if it's a question that is about a word you don't understand or something that it's not clear, please pop up a hand and I'll answer. Yes. I will share the slides, thank you for asking. I passed around or Donia helped me pass around a sign-in sheet and so I will send, if I can read your handwriting, I will send you the slides after the presentation. There are some links to websites here that'll be useful and some other training materials. So absolutely access these if that's something you wanna do afterwards. Thank you for asking. Any other questions before we start? Okay, great. So a lot of definitions, we're gonna give some tips and resources on Test Prep in addition to being a civilian human, I also come out of higher ed. So I am a former educator, a former teacher with adults. And so a lot of the tips for Test Prep are also coming from that. I used to teach high stakes testing and standardized testing as part of my background in GED, Adult Basic Ed, ESL, English Second Language. So some of this is city specific test stuff, but a lot of it's just like people specific test stuff. So it's a little bit interwoven and again, questions as they come, please raise a hand if I can take them, if I need to take them after I will and we'll move through. We did this and who's in the room. So I'm gonna be referring to websites. And again, these will be linked in the slides. We won't need to pull them up right now, but I'll be referring to the SFDHR job site as well as the exam information website. This is tiny print, hard to read, a little bit confusing, but the second website that's listed here is essentially a general idea of when our tests will occur throughout the fiscal year for most of our classifications. Less common classifications or more niche or specific classifications won't be listed there. Neither will temporary positions, which I will talk about in just a second, but for the permanent civil service exams, there will be a schedule that you can access here by fiscal year and you can look up our most common classifications, meaning our most common jobs and you can get an idea roughly of when we'll be announcing those positions and when we might be testing for them. So I'll refer to these websites and you can pull them up after. So just a very quick overview and I feel like this is the most important diagram that I need to carry around in my pocket. For those of you who worked in federal government or international, like diplomatic service, there's the foreign service exam and I think I heard one person has taken that. That's a very specific exam, extremely high stakes, extremely hard to pass. Counties, states and cities have their own version of that that is also high stakes, also a little bit difficult to pass and navigate, but basically you don't get to take that test, the civil service exam, until you've applied for a job. I didn't know any of this when I was navigating my own hiring process, so I actually applied for a job and got a job and took the job, not realizing that it wasn't a civil service job, it was a temp job and I was surprised and it was news to me and I had to figure that out. So I was like, what test? Everyone was like, oh, you passed the test, right? And I didn't, because I didn't actually have the job I thought I had. So all of that to say, it seems counterintuitive to break this down, but you have to first see when the jobs are announced, apply to the job in the right window of time, test for that position if you get passed the initial application and then you will be invited to interview. So I've heard some folks have interviewed, some folks have tested, it's a little bit everywhere, yes. The jobs are announced on the actual job site when they're open, but before they're open, you can get an idea within about a quarter, a fiscal year quarter of when that job will be announced. And I'll pull this up at the end if you wanna put eyes on it, the actual job site and the job announcements if that'll be helpful. Moving through. And actually, hold on, do I have this slide up here? Yes, I'll toggle back to the other slides in just a second, if you have questions specifically about the application process, there's a whole other workshop that's so fun and so entertaining and I think you should come. It's next month, February 13th and it'll be in the downstairs Hispanic Latino room, but that's a much more in-depth look at how to apply, how to fill out your application, how to make it sizzle, how to get through kind of that initial gate, which is the application process so that you can come and take a really fun high stakes test after. So this is kind of the test talk and then next month will be the initial application talk. So if you have specific questions about applying, let's talk afterwards or come to my talk next month. Just wanted to put a plug in for that that today we're just gonna talk about testing. Temporary positions with the city mean no test. So great news, you don't have to sit for a really stressful test. Bad news, it's a temp job, right? Which means you can be, let go when the job is done or the grant rise up or the person on leave comes back from leave and it also isn't necessarily a foot in the door so that's something that we talk much more in-depth on in February. So a temp job with the city is great for experience and exposure but it's not a traditional temp job where they're gonna love you and hire you, there's still gonna be a process where you have to be on a list and show up for the test, et cetera and I'll talk much more about that in Feb if you come to my other training. Yes, if it's permanent civil service there will be some sort of test and I'm gonna define what all of these tests look like. Some of them do not feel like standardized tests and so we'll go through what they are. So you may not sit for an exam but there may be some sort of screening that would be considered your test. So in some way, shape or form and we'll look at the different versions of that you will have to take a test even if it doesn't look or feel like a standardized test might look or feel it normally but again, sort of the job search piece is when you apply initially and then you take the exam and again, if you want more information definitely come to my talk in February but as you're looking on the job site for those of you who are brand new to civil service definitely start there. There is too much information. It's a little bit confusing but if you start to look and if you're drinking something fabulous that takes the edge off, I highly recommend it whatever that is for you, okay? It takes time, it's a little bit confusing to navigate initially but get comfortable with that job site just as a start, kind of your homework for tonight if you're brand new to this. Look around at the jobs, click on the job descriptions put on your reading glasses because the font is very small, right? But start exploring what types of jobs are out there in civil service just to kind of get comfortable and then come in February, we'll talk more about applying. You can also put in notifications if you see a job you like but you're not quite ready to apply to it or maybe you missed the deadline. You can always put in a notification for that job on the job site and again at the end I'll pull up this website for those who wanna stick around and I'll show you how to navigate it but if you do have kind of a dream job for example the job I have which is as a trainer I really don't qualify for a lot of city jobs I'm an educator, I like worked in adult basic ed so I'm not a nurse, I'm not a doctor there's not a lot of stuff that's a natural fit for me but I do love training, facilitation, working with people so for me really the only job is this 1232 classification that I hold, the training officer and those jobs don't open that often so I put in a notification saying well maybe in a year I wanna make a job change and that's initially how I got notified of the opening for the position that I have now so I tell people this at my other training and I'll tell you now, a city job is not a job that you're gonna get in a month it's not a job if you need a job right now it's not gonna do it for you if you need a job in like a year and a half let's talk, right? Because it takes a while and I'll talk a lot more about that at my other conversation in Feb so talking about exams, right? You've already applied to your dream job you found it, you waited, you applied they got through the initial screening and the types of exams that you'll sit for are for permanent civil service positions there's these acronyms on the job site which again we'll pull up at the end but if you see CBT, CCT or PBT these essentially mean these are permanent civil service jobs they have exams as part of the requirement to get through which means they are permanent, right? And a permanent civil service position is like sort of that cliched example of all the Sacramento folks who retired at 55 and are traveling now in Cecily that's like that's the good job that you keep forever and there's great benefits and you get to have a pension and all that stuff that exists only in fairy tales outside of government, right? So these are the jobs that you want if that's the type of career you're looking for like a long-term sort of benefited position with the city or county permanent civil service is what you want TEX, PEX, TPV, I heard, you know, temp provisional a couple of different types of jobs these are temp, right? They're not permanent it's not to say they're bad jobs it's not to say you don't do interesting work while doing those jobs but it is not the permanent civil service that you may be thinking of when you apply to a city job so again, lots more on that when we have our next meeting in February it's the million dollar question and the answer is no well, the answer is like this many people get to do that and it's really, really rare very recently we just did a big conversion of one type of classification, the 2903 no, excuse me I can't remember but there was some big batch of temporary folks that were hired that were just converted to permanent but that like only happens like every 11 years, right? sort of like an eclipse so I wouldn't bank on it but if you are temporary it means that you're in the game you get to know people you might hear that a test is coming up that you might test for or that a position might be opening but it's all also publicly aware it's publicly advertised as well so you don't necessarily have an edge but it doesn't hurt if you're just curious to get into government, yes this is class-based test so the classification dictates the type of test meaning if it's a muni driver class you would have to probably drive a bus for your test, right? That's so the classification means the job type the class-based test is CBT CCT, I'm trying to remember the acronym and I can't remember it but it's on the website you can just search on the job site for it and PBT is position-based test so we hire a lot of muni drivers we hire a lot of clerks we hire a lot of different types of classification sometimes hundreds at a time we only hire my classification maybe four or five people a year, maybe less so my test was a PBT, a position-based test which means that for this very unique niche position we will create a specific test for that rather than a broad classification test where maybe 400 people sit for it and you mentioned that in the back about maybe 400 people getting through the 2903 so it really depends on the job there are clerks in the fire department there are clerks in the police department there are clerks at public health there are clerks in vital records there are clerks in the controllers so a clerk is a very broad classification we might test 700 people, hire 300 of them and disperse them throughout the city like leaves on a windy day leaves we love and who are very important and valuable but the position-based tests are for jobs that are a little bit less common and so there might be a specific test that's catered just to that role that maybe we test five people on 20 people on, 30 people on so that's the acronym for the permanent and these are all on the job site if you wanna fact-check me which I highly recommend doing how do you know if you need to take a test? Well, if you look on the job site you pull up your dream job and it's with the fire department or with the public defender's office or whoever and it'll say down here job type CBT discrete it doesn't make any sense it's not user-friendly, okay but because I just gave you this golden nugget CBT that means it's going to be permanent and discrete I think means something about how long the list lasts again all of this is on the website I would not fill your brain with that information but the most important thing is this acronym is gonna be the permanent job, right? If it says TEX or TPV or PEX you'll know that it's temp doesn't mean it's a bad job doesn't mean it wouldn't be a cool experience but it's not gonna be a permanent job, right? And the good news is that you won't have to take a test if it's temporary but if it's CBT, CCT or PBT you will sit for some sort of exam and that exam will look like different things that we're gonna dive into right now again temporary is gonna be exempt from civil service so not permanent you'll also get some really good information on the job announcement even though the font is tiny and by the time you've had a special beverage and looked at all the jobs you want you might not be in the best place to be reading but if you scroll all the way down to the very bottom of the job announcement there's something called selection procedures again not user friendly language but what that really means is they're telling you what type of exam you'll have and what weight it will hold on your rank, right? You're gonna be scored and ranked so for this job I think it's a health program coordinator three that I pulled there's a written exam and the weight says 100% so that means okay the pressure's on 100% of how you rank will be based on how you do that day on a written like fill in the blank bubble test, right? No pressure, right? But at least you know and you can do some things to prepare and we'll show you some tips on how to prepare in just a second so it may say weight 50% written 50% oral that means you'll probably sit for a written test which will be stressful and then you'll get to go sit for an even more stressful written exam or excuse me, oral exam where maybe you'll have to interview or in my case I did a presentation so there might be two components to your test, right? And that tells you the weight based on what the selection procedures tell you and the good news is there's also preparation tips here, right? Under selection procedures if you read the fine print which you can't see here it will actually outline more or less the types of skills and knowledge that they're looking for on this test so it says they're looking for someone with the ability to establish and maintain effective and cooperative relationships interpersonal relationships ability to interview people exercise good judgment, right? It doesn't tell you what's gonna be on the test but you can kind of read between the lines to say, okay, there's gonna be a lot of questions about people management on this exam or there's going to be a lot of questions about a conflict, right? Probably scenarios where you have to navigate conflict on this test or it might just say something like you're applying to be a gardener you're going to have to show us how to successfully transplant a tree, right? It'll tell you in selection procedures based on the job you're applying for so that's a real sort of goldmine of information that's way, way at the bottom of the job description. Yeah, kind of helpful tells you just in general what to look for and what might show up on the test there is a multiple choice test prep manual on the website it is very generic so if you're hoping to get like inside scoop on what might be on your test you're wrong but that's okay it doesn't mean you shouldn't look at it and I'll tell you exactly why that's helpful in just a little bit. So selection procedures lots of good details there if you keep scrolling to the bottom of the job you're looking for. So we have these different types of exams I said that some of them will feel like a seated exam high pressure fill in the blank using a pencil that they issue you and some of them might not feel like an exam at all okay so we're gonna go through the types of exams that the civil service currently uses as a gate to let people in or to keep people out of positions. So we'll start with a written exam sort of the classic like 1980s 90s high school exam where there's like four options and you're like oh there's two that are good and two that are bad and I'm gonna roll a dice, right? And then you think of all the tips that you learned in your prep class and you forget them all, right? So this is gonna be a very traditional seated test it'll give you a location, it'll give you a time it's not negotiable, you'll show up, you'll sit for the test there's gonna be someone doing construction next door to really throw a wrench in the plans which is what happened to me once and it'll keep you on your toes. So these tests usually take about two to three hours you have to really block your schedule for them and you'll be given maybe a month's notice when you get to this point. They're administered in person they are usually multiple choice and so the multiple choice test prep guide that I just mentioned that's linked there it's good just to practice especially if you have been out of multiple choice land for a while I highly recommend reviewing that and again we just saw the selection procedures part of the job announcement highlighted that's a great place to prep for the written exam, right? The selection procedures will tell you the areas or topics that will be covered in the exam that you can prepare for or you can just read that the night before your exam to try to calm your nerves, right? If you don't think you're gonna prepare that's okay too. There's also a type of exam called a supplemental questionnaire and this is becoming much more common because the city gets so many applications or applicants for their open positions there's often a screen that is part of the initial application called an SQ a supplemental questionnaire and the supplemental questionnaire is an exam. It is a way to verify that the things that the minimum qualifications are met so it might say you said you have experience in education tell me how many years and you click down. It may have you fill in an essay, a brief essay about how you got those three years of experience, right? So you talk about the college you taught at you talk about this, that or the other and I'll go into more detail here in a second. The supplemental questionnaire may be in person you may be asked to show up and fill in an essay or fill in this brief questionnaire or it might just be part of the application process and you click through it and it doesn't even feel like an exam but surprise it's your exam. And how will you know if your exam is a supplemental questionnaire? Where do you look? Yeah, someone's listening in the back. All right, selection procedures will tell you what kind of exam so it will say supplemental questionnaire 100% if that's your only test. Very frequently in fact more frequently than not these days it'll say 50% wait supplemental questionnaire as an initial screener and then it'll say 50% written exam or 50% practical skills exam. So always look at the supplemental excuse me the selection procedures to know what type of exam you'll have. The SQ, right? So there's some good information here and we got this. This is important, err on the side of detail when you're filling out a supplemental questionnaire. So this is like that moment in high school when they're like write everything you remember about this novel that you didn't read, right? This is when you're gonna just fill it in, okay? But it's about your work history so you don't have to lie, it's a beautiful thing. Error on the side of more detail than less, right? You want to fill in all of the details you don't wanna use acronyms and I'll show you an example of this in just a second. These responses, your written responses are evaluated by a panel that does not have access to your application. So all they're going off of is your supplemental questionnaire. They may not have access to the full multi-page, multi-hour application that you painstakingly prepared. So if your exam is a supplemental questionnaire, just really overdo it. TMI, too much information, that's what we want. And I'll give you an example here. I use this in my other training too so this might be familiar to some of you. When you're filling out the supplemental questionnaire, you want to avoid acronyms, you want to avoid being vague, you want to be just like overly descriptive, like you're describing what you did for a living to someone who has never had a job before, right? You want to tell us every single thing. Don't assume that the panel knows what you're talking about, right? So you come and sit for a written exam, there's this group of people who, you know, days later are gonna be reading what you wrote. It's on you to tell them how good you are and how qualified you are and why you're the best person for the job, right? And you have to do that by talking about your work history. So we have this example, very common supplemental questionnaire, maybe it's three or four questions, you know, how much experience do you have, how did you get the experience, you know, et cetera, anything else you'd like us to know. So this question, how did you gain your one or more years of experience was on a supplemental questionnaire for a man working for DPH who I was working with? And he put this, we pulled up his application and he put this on his SQ. I worked at Edgewood. Does anybody know what Edgewood is? I see one and a half heads. Okay, tell me what Edgewood is. Yeah, exactly, troubled youth, right? And it's like rehabilitative and it's for kids who are kind of in need of extreme intervention. And how do you know what Edgewood is? How do you know? Because you know from working, right? Some of us worked in nonprofits. I know what Edgewood is because I worked in nonprofits. I worked in social services before this, right? But the panel may not know what Edgewood is or they may have heard of it but they can't place it and they're not gonna pull out their phone because they're lazy and they're not gonna Google it, right? So do the Googling for them, all right? When you fill out your supplemental questionnaire, it's on you to say, I worked at Edgewood and you really wanna just squeeze out every detail that would be relevant, that would make you stand out for this position. He was applying to a health worker three role as a health worker two. And because he said, I worked at Edgewood, period, I did not know that this person had worked there for seven years. I did not know that he worked directly with youth, which is really hard work. I also didn't know that he became a manager during those seven years, which is also really hard work and amazing to have on a resume. And he also was using the language that showed up in the job description, right? So the folks who work at Edgewood may not call their clients underserved youth, right? They may not call them whatever the job description is calling the position they're hiring for, but it's on you to kind of be savvy and have read the job description the night before and crammed for the exam, so that you're able to speak the language of the panel, speak the language of the position you're applying to, to really make it clear that like, man, I've got this, I've got the experience, I've done it, I did seven years of it, I'm the best person, yeah. If it's online, there's a character limit and I think they tell you it's like 2000 or 25. And so just like take out all the comments, take out all the space, like dude, cram it full, right? If it's written, obviously it would be the limit of the physical paper, right? But thank you for asking. Really cram it full of all of the information that you can that shows this mystery panel of people who do not know you, why you're the best person, right? This is your opportunity to brag, which for most of us is really difficult to do, but when you sit for an SQ, that is your test and it's on you to really showcase what you've done. Another type of exam, so we've seen two types, right? We saw a written exam, which is your typical multiple choice. We've seen the supplemental questionnaire that's either an essay in person or an essay online. And then there's an oral exam. It's usually in person, again, rated by a panel. We love panels in the city. It's a set of predetermined questions, which means that you will get the same set of questions that everyone else gets. Has anyone in here, some of you have been through the interview process with the city and county? Yes, and there are panels, we are not joking. There's like a bunch of people with no expressions and no emotions and no blood running through their veins staring at you, right? And they read you the set of questions that everybody gets to be read and then you can't deviate and if you make a joke, forget it, all right? I'll tell you a funny story about trying to make a joke at a panel interview once. So take your time to gather your thoughts before responding, duh. However, when you're nervous, this is really hard to do, right? When there's five people staring at you that you're not sure if they're people or not. So, and now I'm on a panel, so now I'm the person who gets to throw it back. But really take time, right? It's very nerve-wracking. It's a very unnatural way to examine someone. Feels like an interview, but it's not. It's actually a test, right? But you are seated, you are responding and it's really on you to like take that breath and make the most of your seat time because that really is your test. That's how you're being evaluated. Obviously, dress appropriately, dress for the job you want. And another tip, use the same strategy that you would on the supplemental questionnaire. Instead of writing out all the details of everything you've done and how great you are, you're gonna talk about it, right? So avoid acronyms, avoid, you know, I did some of this stuff and some of that stuff for a while, right? I wanna know how many years you did it. I wanna know who you managed. I wanna know how many people you managed. So it's really making that opportunity really, really clear to the panel that you've got the experience and more. You've done this and more. You've done that and more, right? So similar strategy, too much information. Bombard them with your fabulousness, yes. Star, that's a good point. I don't think we're that savvy. But I think it's a great approach if that's a way that helps you think. Situation, task, achievement, or action, result, yeah. Thank you for bringing that in. I will make a note to myself and I'll send a little handout with the star. The star talking points on it. If I can read my own writing at the end of the night. Thank you for bringing that up. I don't think that's necessarily what they're looking for. More than anything, they're looking for how you respond, if you've got the experience, if you can speak the lingo of the position they're hiring for. And pro tip, if you look at the job description, that's the lingo they're looking for. Yeah, go ahead. It's not usually HR. So again, every division and every department is different, but typically a hiring panel will be the hiring manager, the person who's gonna be your boss. And then a variety of folks that they've brought in for that panel. So maybe it'll be someone who's an expert in your field. Maybe it'll be someone who's just walking down the hall and they needed somebody because someone called in sick, right? There's usually at least one of those on every panel. You gotta find their eyes, right? Because they're the ones who are just as scared as you are. Like what am I doing here? But typically the panel is diverse, intentionally diverse, so a mix of genders and races and experience in the city. And then it's usually kind of a combination of a manager, another team member, and maybe a couple of people who would be adjacent to your role. So at my panel for my current job, I'm an HR but I'm a trainer. So I had a person who was a trainer on my panel. I had my hiring manager who was a social worker trainer person. And then the three other people were just like HR folks who I end up working sort of close to. Does that answer your question? And obviously every panel is different, but in general they try to put folks who are gonna be useful additions to your interview, excuse me, to your exam panel. Another type of exam is a training and experience exam. So this would be for more of the vocation type jobs that the city hires for, Gardner, bus driver, some of those technical jobs. It may be online as part of the application process. So again, you might not know you're taking a test, but you're taking a test. It'll say, tell me about how you learned how to fix buses, right? And you'll have to answer those questions online when you submit your application. Do you remember the other type of test that sometimes is sneaky like that? The supplemental questionnaire sometimes looks like that. You won't know you're taking a test until you submit it and you're like, oh, I should have put a little more thought into that, right? The training and experience evaluation is used to confirm previous work experience. So if a specific job says, we need you to have 13 years of human resource analyst work, right? They may throw in this exam when you submit your application just to make sure you're not lying, right? To make sure that you can verify that you've actually had that experience because they're looking for a very specific type of candidate, right? How many people have seen a job out in the wild posted on a job site and you don't quite meet all the qualifications, but you're like, I could figure this out, I'm really charming. Who's done that? Yes, perfect. That's the normal way that most normal people get normal jobs, right? We are not normal in the government. So it doesn't matter if you're charming, it doesn't matter if you can figure it out on the job which is actually kind of a bummer because that's how, again, most jobs happen. Usually you don't walk into a job having every single skill that they're looking for but this is what we expect when you come to work in civil service and then we teach you on the job anyway. So as confusing as that is and as counterintuitive as that is, that's kind of the reality of civil service. It's a merit based system, right? So because of rules, regulations, state, federal, county, city guidelines, we have to hire in a very specific way and we have to exam people in a very specific way and the best way that we've done that which could always use some improvement but what we've got for now is making sure that people have the experience and the qualifications before they come in and for some people that's a really big problem because you can't learn on the job, you have to have everything before you come in but I have some strategies and workarounds for that if you come to my February 13th training, another plug. So again, similar to the other trainings, read the questions carefully, take your time, selecting the best option that matches your background and again, an example of this might be a drop down menu as you submit your application that says, do you have five years, 10 years, or 15 years of the required experience? Click carefully, right? Cause you'll be judged on that and another fun tip, when you take one of these online, even if you click the wrong thing and you're stressed out and you're in a hurry, you can't go back and fix it. You can't go back and fix your application and you can't go back and fix your exam. So really take your time and be careful, yeah. Mm-hmm. You can save it, but if you hit submit, you can't go back. But yes, there's an option to, there's a save option, yeah. And when you go into, I would actually just, again, for homework for the newbies, if you find a job that you're even remotely interested in, click on it, click apply and it'll open up this, essentially like a Word document format where you can save and wait to submit and play with it and so you don't have to submit it when you open it, but once you click submit, it's over. You know, a ton of classic examples of this are like the person who submitted their application at 501 or they submitted their, you know, test a minute, literally a minute late and then they go and petition to HR and HR says like, sorry, we operate on fairness, you know, you didn't make the cutoff, right? So, you know, it's sort of counter-human, it's sort of counter-natural, it's sort of counter-intuitive the way that we hire, but it's because we have all of these rules and regulations we're beholden to as part of civil service commission, city, county, state, et cetera, guidelines when we hire for government work. So really take this process seriously, only have an adult beverage in your hand when you're looking for jobs, not when you're filling out your exam. Pro tip, another type of exam is a performance exam and again, this one's gonna be in person, another panel, we love panels and this type of exam is designed to mimic real life tasks and situations on the job. So you may have to like dismantle some sort of machine if you're getting a machinist job in the city or you might have to go out in the field and do some sort of work as an arborist if we're hiring you as a tree specialist, right? This is much more rare, a lot of our jobs are administrative jobs, but this also is a component and it will tell you in the selection procedures whether or not that's gonna be part of your test. And again, show all the steps or parts of the task presented to you is kind of the pro tip on that type of exam. Don't rush through it, you wanna be deliberate just as you would write out a beautiful essay about how fabulous you are. You would also wanna dismantle the thing or build the thing or do the thing in a really deliberate way so that you can show the panel what it is that you're doing in that moment. Questions about this type of exam? This is like sort of thinking of like a classic Muney driver test, it would be like, okay, move this giant bus around the corner and back it up, right? That would be kind of a classic performance exam. The management and supervisory test battery is another type of exam and it's online. You have to go and sit at a computer and it's allegedly very difficult, I haven't taken it. You're given information about a fictitious organization and asked to assume the role of the manager and then you're given a bunch of questions, essentially a bunch of situations that you have to manage your way through. Most questions have more than one right answer and you get partial points for partially correct answers. So an example of this might be, you notice that one of your employees is taking home city property and he's done it the last couple of weeks, you haven't said something and now you need to clarify what's going on, right? How would you approach it? They'll give you four options and maybe two of those are decent and if you pick one or two of the two decent answers you would get partial points for that. Similar to your application and similar to other aspects of city work, you cannot go back and change your answers because it's all on the computer and you also have to monitor your time thinking about like a high stakes online or computer based test, you can't go back and you have to finish within an allotted window. Multiple question and there's also essay. There's essay component, exactly, it's a written test and I haven't taken it but I also one time asked a coworker who had just taken it and he was like, I cannot disclose anything that was on that test, it's against the rules, I signed an oath and I felt really bad because mostly I was just asking was it stressful but he felt like I was trying to pry for the answers and he was a great civil servant, he didn't budge so good for him. But allegedly because I have not taken this test it is a mixture of multiple choice and written and again sort of situational questions rather than like memorizable facts. It's more of the nuance of like how would you navigate this interpersonal conflict? How would you navigate this like tricky situation? Who would you report this thing to first if it happened while you were on shift, et cetera? Computer based. Yeah, I do, I do. I think they're ambiguous intentionally and I think even the right, like even if that was happening to me right now in my job now, I don't know what I would do. So like I would probably go to my supervisor because I work in a very hierarchical organization, et cetera, et cetera, but I think your point is really adept. It's like obviously once you're on the job you would have to learn what it is that they prefer you do, et cetera, et cetera. But I think more than anything they're just trying to see like if you have management experience you might answer it a certain way. If you don't have management experience you might answer another way. If you are more ego driven as a manager you might answer it impulsively versus doing something that would be more of like a collaborative solution. But again I can't speak to the test and they're also different every time they have them. They rewrite them every time. And honestly at the end of the day civil service exams are written by people and people are inherently people and have flaws and have biases and have preferences. And so as a former educator and as a current trainer I have to say that the exams the exams are gatekeeping but they're also not perfect instruments. We are also losing a ton of really great people every time we have an exam that isn't dialed in or that is written in a way that is biased or slanted and they're written by people, right? So that's just kind of a general disclaimer. I'm actually not a huge fan of standardized tests even though I administered many in my higher ed world. And yet it's part of the civil service structure and until that structure changes this is kind of what we have to navigate if you want to work in civil service. So it's kind of a bummer it's not a great tool it's a poorly refined instrument at the moment and it's kind of all we have to figure out how we let in hundreds of applicants how we whittle that down to 75. And then who we interview from there. And of course there's gonna be flaw and of course there's gonna be error and of course there's going to be bias because humans wrote the test. So that's just kind of a general bummer fact about education and standardized testing in general but it doesn't mean you shouldn't show up and try your best and you may test three times and on the third time you test really well, right? So a lot of it is just kind of managing yourself and we're gonna go into that in just a second. So those are the exam types, right? Written, oral, the performance exam, the training and experience exam, the supplemental questionnaire which isn't really an exam and then the last one was the manager supervisor battery. You will know what kind of test you will be expected to take when you scroll all the way to the bottom of your job that you're looking at it'll tell you what type of test to expect even if it's a year later that they tell you to show up, right? So there are ways you can prepare acknowledging that these tests are all super keyed in to the person writing them and they're different every time. There are ways you can prepare by looking at the position description, right? What are we calling our clients these days? Are we calling them underserved? Are we calling them at risk, right? Get the lingo down because you may use that in a written test you may also use that in an oral test. Again, the selection procedures will tell you oh, they're looking for someone with interpersonal conflict experience. I'm gonna watch a YouTube video, right? And seriously Google in YouTube, right? I wish this would have been around when I was new in the workforce because I probably would have come off way better in interviews. There's a ton of civil service exam tests and tips and ways to practice. There's videos, civil service means city, county, state, federal employment. So there's a lot of different examples. And more than cracking the code on how to pass the test, these are really about reducing your anxiety. Like people take tests all the time. If I don't pass, I can just take it again, right? It's really a way for you to feel if you're the kind of person that likes to prepare, do this, go on YouTube, go on Google. There's a lot of great resources. Make them your best friends forever, right? It seems silly, it seems obvious, but it's real, it's good, yes. Exactly. Yeah, we have a bunch of library resources coming up in a future slide. On the day of the exam, you've done some prep work and there's more resources I'm gonna go to in just a second that are here at the library and online. But the day of the exam, most importantly, more importantly than reading the job description, more importantly than obsessing over the terminology they're using these days for your work and more important than the critical YouTube video that I recommended you look at is really to be gentle with yourself because more than anything, the performance on an exam is about anxiety. The way you perform on exam, the way your brain works, the way you show up, the way you hold a pencil, it's all about how you manage your stress for that two hour window and that's bad news if you're anxious like me, but if you can figure out a way to get through it, maybe you don't have coffee till after the test or whatever you need to do, right? Do whatever you can to be gentle with yourself and be calm and to put yourself in your best mode to do well, test-taking is a muscle and a lot of us haven't flexed it in a while, right? So it's gonna feel weird, it's gonna feel hard, it's gonna feel sore, right? But really be gentle with yourself, be gentle with your own mind, be gentle with your own sort of experience of the exam and you'll do much better than you would if you just let your heebie-jeebies run wild, yes. No, that's a great question and yeah. That's a great question and I would say no. Usually the written exam is something you sit for and you can actually wear sweatpants to that because the proctor doesn't care what you're wearing, right? But yeah, she was comfortable, right? So again, it depends on the type of exam. There were a couple of exams that are in-person, right? In front of a panel. Those are the ones you're gonna wanna wear fancy clothes to but if you're super stressed out about test-taking, you can wear whatever you wanna wear as long as it's street legal, okay? And take care of yourself, right? Wear what feels comfortable, eat and drink and be ready for that sort of high pressure thing. To pretend it's not high pressure won't help but to really prepare yourself and say, okay, I need more coffee this day, I need less coffee this day, I need some protein, I need some whatever, right? You don't get to use a calculator if there's math and if there is math, you won't know till you get there. I sat for an exam for a trainer position and there was math and I was doing long division and I was sweating and there was jackhammering. It was a bad situation. So if there's math, it'll be a surprise to you and me on your test. But they give you, yes, if there's like, if it's like an accounting clerk job, they might provide you with the tools. If it's an online sort of computer-based test, there might be some sort of tool but all of that will be explained to you when you show up. If it's like a super math position, like accounting, there's more than likely going to be all the tools you need, maybe an Excel spreadsheet, et cetera, but most of the written exams, you don't know what's gonna be on it and I took a written exam once for, I can't remember what position and there was a photo of an Excel spreadsheet cell and it was like, what function would you use to do, I was just like, oh my God, I can't do this on a computer let alone like handwritten, right? So it's whatever they've decided as the test writers to put in the test but again, the selection procedures will tell you if it's gonna be heavily math or calculator-based or whatever and then they'll give you all of the procedures when you arrive in your fluffy pink slippers and again, just thinking kind of about the exam, it is high stakes and these are coveted jobs and it's stressful and you really want it and also these, we give these about every year so if you don't pass it this time or you don't do well this time, acknowledge that it probably would have taken a couple of years for you to get hired anyway and consider it a blessing, you got a sneak peek at how to pass the test and you got to kind of deal with the nerves of that the first time so that the next time you show up you're like, I got this, I'll wear something more comfortable and I'll drink less coffee or whatever you need to do on the day of. There's a little bit of interview prep and then there's some more resources, we're almost done. Yes? How's the decision about the exam? You didn't know the result? You do. And then? Good, depends on the test and it depends on the position, right? And I'll talk much more about this at my February 13th chat so I'll do a very quick overview right now. Once you pass the application and then you get invited to take your test and then you take your test. Months later they will send you an email that says, congratulations, you scored 973 out of a total of 1130 and none of that will make sense to you and then they'll tell you another number like you ranked 17, which will also not make sense to you and then you'll call someone you know who works for Alameda County and you'll have them help you understand because you're like, what? Or you'll email me and I'll be like, it's okay, you did great, this is what that means. But they won't tell you you did great, they'll just give you a bunch of numbers, okay? Again, if you go back to the job description it will tell you what that number means. The email will also attempt to tell you what that number means, but it'll be really confusing. And basically your rank is what dictates your proximity to being called for an interview. A very quick example is let's say that my job, my trainer job has a rule of three. That means that the first people given preference for an interview are the people who rank in the top three. But our rank is determined by our score. So there might be more than three people who ranked in the top three. Because if I tied for first with a bunch of other amazing overachievers like me, there may be five of us who are ranked one. If you're a clerk and we hire hundreds of clerks a year you might be tied with like 75 people who ranked one. Okay, so the rule is what tells you about where you'll be batched but it doesn't tell you that you're like the third person on the list, right? The lists are posted publicly on the SFDHR website so you can look at them once they're posted and see exactly where you fall. But rank sometimes means you're the only one and you're number three and it's great and rank sometimes means you're one of 17 people who ranked third, yes. I will go into it, I'm actually gonna, in the interest of time I'll take that after class. And I'm also gonna talk about it more on the 13th if you wanna come to that talk. Okay, that's okay, I'll talk to you after this, yeah. Cause that's a little bit more specific after the exam but I can talk about that after for anyone who wants to stay and I'll pull up an example of it. Quick, more panel discussion. I pulled this from the show Pose which I love. Almost everyone gets a 10, my type of panel. Just a quick note on interviews because everything you'll do for test prep can also be useful for interview prep, right? The same, you might recognize this slide, I basically copied everything and just changed out this word interview instead of test prep. Because if you look at the job description, if you look at the selection procedures, what kind of person are they looking to hire, right? What kind of skills are they looking for? And again, our friend Google still helps. There's a ton of amazing interview prep questions that you can just Google. I do career coaching as part of my job at DPH and I was working with a woman who was a high level exec who was going for even higher level executive position and I was like, how am I gonna help her? I'm not this heavy of a hitter. And we got on Google and she found a bunch of practice questions and she got the job and it's a beautiful thing, right? So it's not about me, it's about Google. Go there, okay? They will help you. And again, review the position description before your interview when you get called after your exam. All of the nuggets and all of the keywords that they're gonna be listening for are gonna be in the job description. So do that before you prep for the interview. Behind the scenes, the stuff they don't want you to know, right? These are typical interview questions. There's no guarantee every interview panel is different and every question is different, but in general, you can bank on a question about why you would be best for the job, right? There's usually a question about managing conflict, right? Tell me about a time you had to deal with a difficult client. Tell me about a time you had to deal with a difficult coworker. I'm talking really fast. I'm sorry, because I wanna make sure I'm respecting your time. There's usually a question about working with diverse patients or diverse colleagues. I'm kind of over the word diverse, but you know what they're getting at. How do you handle intercultural, interracial, et cetera, communication? And again, the position description will kind of nudge you in the direction of what you can prep for. The gentleman who had worked at Edgewood, who was going from health worker two to health worker three, he would have had a lot to say about this question because of the populations that he worked with at Edgewood and he would sizzle in that interview if he used exactly the language and the terminology that the city is using to describe the target population rather than what he called his clients or his patients or his residents, right? So again, use the language of the position description because you're translating your fabulous work history into government jargon and making it really easy and palatable for them to see how fabulous you are. And again, same thing with the interview, same thing with the test, being gentle with yourself, how you monitor your own anxiety and your stress is really what's gonna help you talk about yourself well and so do what you need to do, don't forget to brag. And just a quick tip, it's easy to forget this, but in the civil service, by the time you've applied and taken an exam, you are so vetted. They have vetted you, they've put you through the sieve, they've made sure that you're one of the top whatever candidates, right? So you deserve to be there, right? I think it's very easy when you sit in an interview and there's people staring at you that you feel like, ooh, God, I'm not good enough, right? Well, HR thought you were good enough, okay? And then the test people thought you were good enough. So these people, this is just the icing on the cake, right? So really situate yourself in that. You got through the worst of it and now you're interviewing, great. And again, you get to practice. If the interview doesn't go the way you wanted it to go, you got to practice and you got to meet folks who you might work with in the future. A quick note on testing accommodations, some people don't have to take an exam, okay? We have a process where you can, if you have a qualifying disability, you can reach out to the person listed at the top of your job announcement and explain, I have this thing, right? And you don't need to tell me what it is, but you can talk with them. They can make an accommodation, either give you more time or if you are qualified, you can do the ACE program, the Access to City Employment program. If you have a qualifying disability under their rules, you don't have to take the test at all, okay? It's a way to try to get everybody from a diverse sort of cognitive and physical background into city employment if taking the exam would be prohibitive. So some tools for folks who may need it, highly recommend taking advantage. And again, these websites which I'll pull up after for those of you who want to stick around. More resources, the library does have a ton of great resources. There's practice test banks. There's e-learning modules on the library website. And again, if you have your library card, you can access that. There's also multiple choice test prep. Again, login required and YouTube, YouTube, YouTube. There's so many good videos, just general multiple choice skills stuff. I was watching one the other day when I was prepping for this. And it was this woman with like the most soothing voice and she was like, if there's a selection of four, usually two out of four are gonna be pretty close. If you can eliminate two, I was like, oh yeah, I forgot about that, right? Like I haven't taken a test in a while. So if you're an anxious person, if you are nervous about the test, do all of those things. If it helps you reduce your anxiety because it's really the anxiety that's gonna be the hard thing of the test. It's not really the test itself. Yeah, select learning express when you go here. And again, I'll send you these slides and then you can search, if you do civil service, there will be a number of tests that will pop up that are just civil service exams. Thank you for asking. Yeah, this connects to this. And then there's practice test banks as well. And there's also some books. If you're like an old school book person, there's some civil service books. If that helps you quell your fears. Yeah, I mean, exactly. Ooh, okay. Testimonial right here. And frankly, probably an HR person came and got that book right after you and they pulled some questions because they were like, I don't know how to write a test, right? Real talk. So that's cool, right? If you practice, there might be some similarity with what you find online. And again, I'll send these slides out if you wanna just follow the links. Questions before we pull up websites? General questions? Yeah. You know, again, I feel like on February 13th, the next time we hang out, I sort of use this parallel of like there's the real world where you send like a thank you email and everyone loves you and then you get the job and in the fake world, government hiring, we can't accept any of that because it looks like bribery. It looks like nepotism. It's like against the rules. So I think intentionally we don't share the information of who's on the panel. You may end up working with them in the future. You can thank them. One of my besties at my job now was on my hiring panel. And so I got to thank him after the fact. But yeah, it's counterintuitive. You don't get to do all the nice things you would normally do at a normal job interview for a normal job, because we're not normal. Yes. And then I'll tell you. It looks a lot about the panel. It depends on the position. It depends on the level of position. I think for executives, there's like multi-layers of interviews depending on how fast they need to hire someone. They may just do like a three-person panel. It really depends on the job. There's always gonna be one interview and then there may be more, which you'll be notified of. I recently sat on a panel and there were two really good candidates and we liked them both. And so we brought them both back individually with a smaller group to do kind of a second round and then that helped us make our decision. But you'll be notified and there's a lot of like emailing and a lot of like disclosures because it's government. So you'll be well informed if there's next steps to your interview. That's the good news and the bad news of applying to government work is you'll be extra informed about every step of the process. Yes. I'm trying to remember. I think you can, I think you can but I also don't know, usually they give you like all the questions on a piece of paper so you don't have to. I think they really want you to like be engaged. Right. Right, you can't leave with it. Right, it's like literally taped to the table for an extra layer of intimidation and inhumanity. But yeah, like all the questions, like they'll read them to you, even though you're reading them and looking at them at the same time. It's part of the process. So I think you can like take notes if you have your own notepad but it doesn't really help or hurt because you'll have everything in front of you. Yeah, thank you for that question. Any other questions? And then I'll answer your question about the tests. Yes, actually I'll answer that because that's what I do for a living. I am a trainer so I run professional development trainings. I do a lot of anti-racist work with physicians, nurses, and other providers but I also do career advancement workshops and I work with people one-on-one who have been in the same job for 10 years and they're fed up and they want something different. That was literally today. So there are resources within your department for advancement. For a lot of people getting that permanent job is the most important first step and then you pass your probation and then you're permanent and from there you can move on sort of safely with the protections of your union and the protections of your role to explore other jobs. And some people don't want to move. Some people just want to be a clerk and they want to retire as a clerk and that's totally fine but there are ways to move up and it's the same process once you're in. And I think it was you who mentioned. You may have a temp job or you may have some job that you really, really like and seven years into it you want to challenge. You're gonna have to show up and apply and sit for the test just like everybody else even though you know everyone who's gonna interview you and even though you know the department and you've lived in the city and all that stuff. Even once you're inside you still have to be on the list. You have to have taken the test if it's a permanent role. There are some exceptions to that which are, I'm sorry, on happening on February 13th but I can also talk with you a little bit more about that. There are temporary roles you can take once you're permanent. So for example, I somehow by some miracle passed my probation and I am now a permanent civil servant which means that if I wanna like dabble in some other field and I'm qualified and I pass the exam and all that stuff I can jump to that job internally but I would need to compete with everyone else from the outside. If there's a temporary job that's open remember temporary means no exam. If there's a temp job that I'm like I could probably do that and I could pass the minimum qualifications. I can jump to that temp job but I can keep my permanent job which means that when the temporary job runs out I can go back, revert back to my permanent civil service role which is again one of the benefits of being permanent. It's not a benefit if you're temp because I'm both holding my other position that no one else can take while I'm dabbling with the temp role and then if I go back another temp would have to fill my job. So it's good for me once you're in but it's not great if you're trying to navigate the temp system and I would be more than happy to talk more about that because I know a lot of the details but that's kind of a high level answer to your question I think. Any other general questions before we pull up websites? Yes, excellent question. I can only speak for DPH because that's where I'm really embedded but I know city-wide the mayor has worked with the unions very closely because there was kind of a glut of hiring temps because it takes so long to hire permanent folks. Again on the 13th I'll go into more depth but it took me about a year to get my job, like a calendar year. Not everybody can wait that long, right? And so it becomes an equity issue it becomes all sorts of layers of issues and because it takes so long to hire someone permanently the city ended up hiring a bunch of temps because it's faster, they don't have to do the test they can bring them in and bring them out and that created another equity issue because if we're only hiring temp people then there are people who are not getting the benefits not getting the protections of the union not getting all of these other things while doing the work of a government employee. So right now the current trend is to try to reverse that tide a little bit the mayor has made it a directive and HR both citywide and all the different HRs within the different units of the city are actively trying to intentionally hire more permanent. So that's good news for you if you want a new job in the next three years but no sooner, I'm joking but it's tragic but think about it it's a long term strategy it's a slow burn a lot of people wait multiple years to get the job they really really want because of how long it takes and because of the testing and because of the scoring and because of the ranking. So when I said you were new and I would send you running out the door whoever was brand new to this, yes that's why it's not a quick job it's a slow burn it's something that you're like okay this is what I want to do in two or three years so I'm gonna start the process now. Temp jobs are faster but they're temp permanent jobs are slower to hire but they're permanent and of course all of the good things that come from that including a career and a pension and stability and union representation and then of course it's the waiting right and more than happy to talk about that. It depends on the type of temp job and it'll usually say in the fine print when you apply to a temp job like this is a category 18 which can last up to three years or this is a category 16 which can last up to a year. What that really means though is it depends once you show up so I actually started as a temp and I didn't know because I didn't know I was like oh I didn't have to take a test this is great awesome but what it meant was that I was essentially filling in for someone who had had a baby, right? So I quit my day job I started my city job I bought a velvet suit I was feeling so good for myself and about 90 days into what I didn't know was a temp job, temp job this woman came to my office and she was like oh I've heard so much about you like thanks for filling in and it was the woman who had had a baby and it had taken so long to hire me that her baby was graduating from high school and my job was up, right? And so I was like panicked and there was a couple weeks where they were like we can try to keep you on but we actually can't and because of some dumb luck I had also taken an exam for the trainer position but I had applied to both and it was really confusing I was like I thought I had applied to this and then I didn't have to take a test now I have to take a test so by some miracle I happened to like be on the list for the permanent job that was also opening and so I was able to like jump to that without an interruption in my work but it was like dumb luck and I don't recommend anyone doing that but some of the temp jobs are like very, very temp it's rare that that happens but because hiring takes so long it sometimes does I was working with a nurse practitioner who essentially had a very similar thing happen she's like I got hired in December and like right now she's being told that the person who like broke their hip is coming back and is rehabilitated and it's amazing and so she's like well like I guess I'll go back to Kaiser, right and luckily for her she has a high earning job and she's able to jump around but it's a little precarious when you're looking at temp jobs so definitely read the fine print and ask people to help you understand that, yes yeah, TPV, that's one of the acronyms, the temporary yeah, TPV, yeah, temporary provisional is TPV and it's less common than the other temporary ways we hire but again it's a workaround because it takes a long time to hire or because of the civil service rules there isn't a sitting list so TPV less common but it happens I know a woman at PUC all these acronyms, Public Utilities Commission she started as TPV temporary provisional and they said we'll let you know when we're gonna actually have a test ready for this job but you might lose your job if you don't test well and if you don't enter, right and so she was like okay I'll try it but that's that acronym TPV it's temporary but it's like a little nuance of temporary which means that it doesn't matter how good you are if you don't pass the test they can't bring you right back into the job you were doing before so it's a little bit different than other temp jobs but it is a way to get in so don't shy away from temp work just know that it'll be a little bit of a workaround rather than like a straightforward like apply test they love you, happy 30th anniversary which is what we all hope for other questions before I pull up the website and I'll probably take this off because of the sound thank you, your stamina is incredible I appreciate your attention and I will send a follow-up email to everyone who put their info on the sign-in sheet there's also evaluations so I'm gonna keep yammering and show people websites but please fill those out if you don't wanna listen anymore you don't have to thank you for being here and I hope to see you on the 13th