If you’re interested in getting a job in New York City, it isn’t enough to merely prepare your character references and resume and hope that your prospective employer will be impressed with it.
Although this may work in most companies, there will be another hurdle that you will have to overcome if you’re seeking employment in one of the many administrative or even government jobs at the local, state, or federal level: pass the New York State Civil Service Exams.
This means that no matter if you’re wanting to apply as a teacher or a police officer, then you will be required by your employer to prove that you managed to pass the NYC Civil Service Exam.
In some cases, you’ll have to meet a certain test score before your application will be considered, making it even more competitive, especially if there’s a lot of candidates vying for a single available position or if the job in question requires them to prove their qualification or competence.
How does the New York Civil Service Exam affect your chances of being hired?
Although you can just finish the New York Civil Service Exam with the minimum score needed to show that you can take on the duties and responsibilities of someone working under a government agency, this is not advisable.
Why? Well, it’s because those who managed to pass the exam will be ranked according to their scores, from highest to lowest, in a list for the purposes of employment eligibility.
This means that the higher your score, the better your chances are of being contacted and considered by the city agency for a job that you are qualified for.
On the other hand, if you got a low score, then you can expect to be ignored by the agency because they will most definitely prefer more promising candidates, making this exam incredibly competitive.
It should be noted that NYC Civil Service Exam scores remain active for a period of four years so you should take that into consideration when attempting it.
To make things worse, even if they share the same subject matter, the New York State Civil Service Exam has three types, preventing you from taking it if you don’t meet the requirements.
Let’s take a look at them.
Types of Civil Service Exams
Open Competitive – An examination that allows anyone that meets the minimum requirements to take it. This is the most frequently administered exam due to how many job openings appear every year.
Promotion – An examination only administered to current permanent employees who are eligible for a promotion within the organization or agency. 55-a employees also take this if they are qualified for a promotion.
Qualified Incumbent Examinations (QIEs) – An examination administered only to non-permanent employees who served at least 2-years in their current position or agency.
What subjects are covered in the New York State Civil Service Exams?
The NYS Civil Service Exam is designed to measure skills that are vital for a civil service employee to have no matter what the position they are applying for.
This means that they have to show good verbal abilities, can perform simple to complex calculations with the inclusion of a data graph or visual aids like charts and tables, and are fit to do clerical tasks such as being able to type a certain amount of words per minute.
Let’s take a look at them in detail:
Verbal Reasoning
- Reading Comprehension
- Grammar
- Word Relations
- Spelling
Numerical Reasoning
- Word Problems
- Graphs and Tables
- Percentages
- Ratio
- Taxation
- Fractions
- Decimals
Clerical Ability
- Alphabetization
- Typing Speed
- Situational Judgement
- Accuracy
- Error Checking
How can you properly prepare for the NYC Civil Service Exams?
Like every assessment out there in the market, the New York State Civil Service Exam is something that everyone can ace if they invest a bit of time and hard work in preparing.
For the verbal and numerical reasoning sections of the test, it would be best to kick off the dust of some old highschool or college books.
This is because the questions contained within them are quite similar to the ones in the actual exam, allowing you to study for it all the while having an answer sheet if you managed to get the correct answers to them when you were a student.
Otherwise, you can consider taking up an online preparation course.
These courses not only contain study guides that offer in-depth explanations on how to tackle each subject but also a number of practice tests that you can take advantage of, allowing you to familiarize yourself with how taking the NY Civil Service Exam feels like.
For the clerical ability section, you can improve your typing skills by either having a book in front of you and then typing out the words in a word processor as much as you can per view on a page or paragraph.
Some test-takers prefer to transcribe speeches since it forces them to ‘keep up’ with the audio, thus causing them to type faster even if gradually. It is also here that you can train your error checking skills because you’ll be able to see if you mistyped a word while typing it out.
The situational judgment test of the NYS Civil Service Test, however, aims to figure out if you can act in a way that is expected of a civil servant.