Clerical Officer Exam: The publicjobs Assessment Questionnaire Explained

publicjobs (the Public Appointments Service) recruits Clerical Officers for the Irish Civil and Public Service through open competitions, and runs separate competitions for Temporary Clerical Officers. In its recent competitions of both kinds, Stage 1 has been an online Assessment Questionnaire, sometimes completed inside the application window itself, and your score on it decides your place in the order of merit for interview. This guide sets out what the questionnaire asks, how the scenario ratings in Part B work, how scores are reported, and how to prepare, and gives you two practice ratings. ProSyllabus is an independent study site, not part of publicjobs or the Public Appointments Service.

publicjobs Stage 1 documents for CO 2023 Dublin, TCO 2024B, TCO Nationwide 2026 and CO Nationwide 2026. Read 25 Oct 2026.

publicjobs describes the Assessment Questionnaire on its Our Recruitment Process page as a multiple-choice assessment that collects information on your skills, interests, preferences and responses to potential scenarios you may face in the role, and says it is often used for large volume competitions for roles such as Clerical Officers, Executive Officers and Garda Trainees.

The Stage 1 documents for Clerical Officer 2023 Dublin, Temporary Clerical Officer 2024B, Temporary Clerical Officer Nationwide 2026 and Clerical Officer in the Civil Service Nationwide 2026 describe the same two-part questionnaire. Part A asks biographical questions about the skills and experience that are relevant for the role. In Part B you imagine yourself in the role, read a range of fictitious scenarios where decisions need to be made, and rate each possible action. The documents say each scenario should be treated independently: do not assume you are working with the same team or in the same area across the examples.

In Temporary Clerical Officer Nationwide 2026, the questionnaire was part of the application itself: the booklet scheduled the application window, including Stage 1, to open on 31 October 2025 and close at 3pm on 18 November 2025, and the document said no extensions would be given. The latest permanent competition, Clerical Officer in the Civil Service Nationwide 2026, worked the same way: its booklet scheduled the application window, including Stage 1, to open on 27 February 2026, and the questionnaire had to be submitted by 3pm on 12 March 2026. In both, candidates had to meet a minimum pass mark on the questionnaire to go forward to interview.

For each action you choose one of four ratings. This is the scale in the publicjobs documents:

Three rules from the same documents matter more than any tip. First, rate each action on its own, as if it were the only one you would take, rather than ranking the actions against each other. Second, base your rating only on the information in the scenario. Third, not every scenario has a Good action, or a Weak or Bad one: publicjobs says you may rate all the actions in one scenario as Good and all those in another as Bad if that seems right.

The publicjobs documents we read do not give the rating expected for any action. What publicjobs does publish is the standard Clerical Officers are measured against: the Clerical Officer capability framework. Its behaviours read like a checklist for Part B, for example "Delivers high quality and professional customer service", "Handles all information and data carefully, particularly when dealing with sensitive or confidential matters", and "Understands when to escalate issues, sharing all relevant information and working with others to find a solution".

Part A asks about your own skills and experience. Your answers should reflect your own skills and experience accurately: the documents say responses may be verified during the interview. The Clerical Officer 2023 Dublin document puts it plainly: the questionnaire will determine the order of merit for final interview and responses may be verified during the interview.

Clerical Officer in the Civil Service Nationwide 2026 added written answers. Its Stage 1 document says Part A Question 2 consisted of four questions that required written answers, with a minimum of 100 and a maximum of 200 words each, and that failing to meet the word count may result in the application receiving no further consideration. Its honesty contract also said candidates are not permitted to use any online systems, software, plug-ins or artificial intelligence to assist them, and that unusual response patterns will be investigated. Check the Stage 1 document for your own competition, because the earlier ones we read did not ask for written answers.

publicjobs has published candidate feedback tables for Clerical Officer competitions. For Clerical Officer 2022 Dublin, it converted scores into three categories, A, B and C, for the top, middle and lower third of the candidates who met the qualifying score, and gave the average score of all applicants. The table showed:

Those figures belong to one competition and are not a pass mark for the next one. They show two useful things: the order of merit is a ranking against everyone else, and the published bands for qualifying candidates were wide, so a higher score moves you up the queue for interview.

publicjobs says it uses a demand-led approach: candidates are moved through the stages in batches, in order of merit, and the size of each batch and the time between stages depend on the number of vacancies. Candidates who succeed at the final stage, the interview, are usually placed on a panel, ranked in order of merit, and offered posts from it in that order as vacancies arise.

Its Our Recruitment Process page says panels are typically active for approximately 18 to 24 months, and that there is no guarantee that being placed on a panel will lead to a job offer. For Temporary Clerical Officer Nationwide 2026, applicants chose one county where they would work, vacancies extended only to a city or town in that county, and the location choice could not be changed after the application was submitted.

publicjobs' Test Advice page gives three pieces of advice that apply here: read the Competition Information Booklet for the role in detail, read any familiarisation material you are sent, and complete the assessment in a quiet place with a good connection. It also offers free self-assessment tests for clerical and entry-level roles under timed conditions. If you need reasonable accommodations, it asks you to say so at the earliest opportunity.

For Part B itself, the practical step is to read the Clerical Officer capability framework and then practise rating actions against it, one at a time, using only what the scenario says. The two practice ratings below show the format. Try each before you open our rating.