How the testing and the interviews will go
This is the shape of the talk-through, in the order you will meet it. On the call
it is fitted to your operator and your invite letter — every operator runs the process slightly
differently, and where your letter disagrees with anything here, the letter wins.
1. The application and the online tests
The form is a sift, and so are the unsupervised tests many operators attach to it: usually a
situational judgement exercise, sometimes a concentration or visual search task, occasionally
numerical reasoning. We go through what your operator's version asks, why a big screen and a
quiet hour matter, and which of these count against your attempts.
2. The invite and the week before
What your invite letter is telling you — RAAT, SCAAT, "Vienna tests", Stage 1 and Stage 2 all
mean different things at different operators. The practice pack you are entitled to at least a
week beforehand, and how to use it. Adjustments, if you need them, and why the request has to go
in early. What to take, what to wear, and when to stop practising.
3. The assessment centre, in order
We walk the day as it will run: arrival and ID, the briefing, then the tests one at a time. For
each one — what the administrator reads out, what the practice items look like, what the test is
really measuring, and the mistake that costs most people marks on it.
- The attention and rules tests. Group Bourdon, TEA-Occ, TRP1b, TRP2 and the
DFFT. Timed papers where pace and errors are scored together, and where most first-sitting
losses are people working at the wrong speed.
- The Vienna tests. At a machine with a response panel: the thirty-minute
WAFV vigilance test, ATAVT, 2HAND, and at some operators the Determination Test. Different
skills, and a different kind of tired.
- Situational judgement. Ranking and rating responses to workplace
scenarios, and the safety-first order that settles most of them.
We also talk about the parts that are not tests: the warm room, the long afternoon, the pencils
around you that sound faster than yours, and the fact that nobody tells you how you did before
you go home.
4. The MMI
The structured interview at the assessment centre, fed by a form you fill in beforehand with
written examples — commonly around six. We look at which examples from your working life to use,
how they will be probed two or three questions deep, and where answers usually fall apart: the
team did it rather than you did it, or the story stops before the part where you checked it
worked. If there is time, we run one example as it will be asked.
5. The drivers' manager interview
Usually weeks later, usually at the depot, usually with a driver manager, and at most operators
the last thing before a conditional offer. It is conversational rather than scored against a
frame, and it weighs different things: whether you understand the roster and what it does to a
life, what you know about the operator and the routes, and whether they would put you in a cab.
We go through the questions that come up and what a realistic answer sounds like.
6. After the offer
The rail medical — vision, colour vision, hearing, general fitness and a drugs and alcohol
screen — then references and background checks, then twelve to eighteen months of paid
training. Briefly, so you know what is coming and what would end it.
Get the most out of the hour
Sit the exam version of Group Bourdon and the VSE before the call — both are free. A real
score gives us something to talk about besides how you think you will do.
Open the simulators