# Are all public service jobs barred to external applicants?



## carpedeum (23 Jan 2007)

*Fingal County Council* have jobs advertised for *Administrative Officers* at reasonable salaries of €45,312 - €59,419 per annum.
[broken link removed] 

When a friend of mine, with 25 years experience in multi-national and Irish companies,  contacted the HR Deprtment at Swords, she was told that her application would not be accepted, because, she was not an existing employee of the public service.  

Is this the norm? If so, surely, this policy is to the detriment of Fingal County Council and other public bodies.


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## Purple (23 Jan 2007)

seems very strange. I didn't think that sort of restriction was legal.


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## bradfield (23 Jan 2007)

The county councils have what is called the common recruitment pool. For positions above a certain grade you have to be an employee of organisations that are members of the common recruitment pool, such organisations included the county councils themselves, the health service executives district councils etc. This does not included the civil service. 

I am an Administrative Officer in the Civil Service, I currently work in town and live in Blanch right beside the county council offices. I would like to apply for the positions mentioned but cant eventhough I have more than enough experience. The entry level that I would be eligible for is Assistant Staff Officer for which I would promptly have to take an almost 20000 pay cut! I will stick with the crap commute for the time being! This is all perfectly legal by the way and has been in operation for some time now!!!

D


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## muffin1973 (23 Jan 2007)

But isn't it difficult to move from the private to the public sector for that very reason - that you already have to be 'in the system' to apply for certain jobs? I thought that was quite standard for a lot of public sector jobs.

M


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## Purple (23 Jan 2007)

bradfield said:


> The county councils have what is called the common recruitment pool. For positions above a certain grade you have to be an employee of organisations that are members of the common recruitment pool, such organisations included the county councils themselves, the health service executives district councils etc. This does not included the civil service.
> 
> I am an Administrative Officer in the Civil Service, I currently work in town and live in Blanch right beside the county council offices. I would like to apply for the positions mentioned but cant eventhough I have more than enough experience. The entry level that I would be eligible for is Assistant Staff Officer for which I would promptly have to take an almost 20000 pay cut! I will stick with the crap commute for the time being! This is all perfectly legal by the way and has been in operation for some time now!!!
> 
> D



That's Mad Ted!


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## carpedeum (23 Jan 2007)

It really is crazy! 

You can see why there is not much interest in moving from the public service to the private sector what with the guaranteed pensions, job security and bench marking.


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## Barley (23 Jan 2007)

The job spec ([broken link removed]) for that particular position states that the candidate must be a serving public servant. This is the case for some admin posts in the civil service, but not for all. It's always stated in the job spec if that is the case or not.


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## triplex (23 Jan 2007)

civil servants cannot go for these jobs either - even though they may already be doing the exact same work for the exact same pay in the civil service...

public service and civil service are different  - something AAMers seem to forget!


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## Barley (23 Jan 2007)

triplex said:


> civil servants cannot go for these jobs either - even though they may already be doing the exact same work for the exact same pay in the civil service...
> 
> public service and civil service are different - something AAMers seem to forget!


 
What is the difference then, ted?


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## CharlieC (23 Jan 2007)

Can anyone advise what our hero rising through the ranks would be actually doing?

In my area, Private sector IT, 58k would be someone with very specialist skills or management.


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## Dundhoone (23 Jan 2007)

Public service has what are termed entry grades. These are publicly advertised and open to anyone to apply to .    I dont know what the grades are for the Administrative sides, but for technicial side its Graduate engineer, assistant engineer and Executive engineer.    After that, you have to have a proven track record within a local authority, you can still apply for higher posts (senior exec and senior engineer) but its is very difficult to get these without having worked in the public sector.  I'd assume its similar for the admin side.


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## Dundhoone (23 Jan 2007)

You will notice that the two other posts advertised (and the graveyard job, if shes that way inclined)  Assistant staff officer and senior staff officer are open to anyone.  These must be entry grade posts as mentioned above.  Once in that post, she can apply away for the promotion.


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## Domo (23 Jan 2007)

I sat psychometric tests for Executive Officer Grade in the Civil Service last year - I think there were over 2,000 applicants (just a good guess), and although I did well, I found out afterwards that they would only be employing the top 50 people - so difficult to get in - I will try again this year....

The pension and holidays etc is great!!


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## legend99 (24 Jan 2007)

2 in every 7 Principal Officer positions will be open to external candidates under the T2016 wage deal. Not sure if the PO who is leaving must be going to work in private industry though. Those positions open to external candidates of course as far as I know are also open to internal people so no guarantee external person would get it.

Thats the highest level you can enter civil service at and is new in the T2016 deal. PO are senior management, with only a very small number of more senior people in each department (more senior grades are the Assistant Sec, Deputy Sec and Sec General)


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## bradfield (24 Jan 2007)

Dundhoone said:


> You will notice that the two other posts advertised (and the graveyard job, if shes that way inclined) Assistant staff officer and senior staff officer are open to anyone. These must be entry grade posts as mentioned above. Once in that post, she can apply away for the promotion.


 

Just to make a correction on the above, the assistant staff officer (
Salary Scale:  €27,020 - €41,273 per annum) is open to all but the senior staff officer (Salary Scale:  €43,192 - €53,165 per annum) is open only to applicants from the common recruitment pool!


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