Civil Service Clerical case studies

The Clerical Officer (CO) competition is the standard entry route into clerical grades in the Irish civil and public service. It is aimed at school leavers, career changers and experienced administrators who want a permanent, pensionable post in a government department, hospital, local body or other public employer. Candidates are typically assessed through a computer-based, multiple-choice aptitude stage covering four broad areas: verbal reasoning (comprehension, word relationships, logical deduction from short passages), numerical reasoning (arithmetic, percentages, ratios, tables and charts), clerical checking and error detection (comparing strings of names, dates, codes and figures quickly and accurately), and situational judgement or job simulation (choosing the most and least effective response to realistic office scenarios such as conflicting deadlines, a difficult colleague or a data protection issue). Because the paper is speeded, most preparation time should go into timed practice rather than reading theory. The Civil Service Clerical case studies are 5 cases and about 3,337 words.