Job interview inquisition

Press, 3 July 1985, Page 20

Job interview inquisition

By

BRIAN MOONEY

(of Reuter) through NZPA Madrid The Inquisition was abolished officially in Spain 150 years ago, but for thousands of job-hungry young Spanish graduates the system lives on in the form of the dreaded “oposiciones.” These are competitive examinations by which Spain selects its civil servants, and for the top flight jobs — diplomacy, Treasury, State lawyers and Parliamentary clerks — the test is gnielling and highly competitive. “We would not want to recruit people who are not up to this sort of pressure,” said the Marques de Tamaron, a member of the examiner’s board for a new intake of diplomats. I What makes the oposiciones so testing is that they i require immense learning 1 and candidates have to face i an inquisition of examiners i for a battery of oral tests.

The emphasis on knowledge is in contrast to Civil Service selection procedures in Britain and the United States where candidates are chosen on the basis of character and intelligence tests that cannot be studied for in advance. The learning puts enormous strains on the candidates. It drives some to suicide and one even recently shot and wounded two of his examiners before putting a bullet through his own head. Those who get through oposiciones defend the system and say it should not be changed. “It’s pure hell, but no-one has yet devised a better way,” said a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mr Santiago Salas. The oposiciones are designed to be scrupulously fair and have a series of inbuilt guarantees to protect candidates. One provision allows out-

side observers to sit in during oral tests. At the diplomatic school in Madrid, I heard would-be diplomats pronouncing on Aristotle and discussing modem government. Candidates were called to read a summary and a critique that they had written of a part of a book, “The Mismanagement of Government” by Alejandro Nieto, which had been read to them at an earlier sitting. They had not been allowed to take notes. Their work had been sealed up with two copies, one for themselves and one for the examiners, until the oral test. At the test, they read out both parts and were questioned. “We sit like an Inquisition but we try to make the candidates feel as comfortable as possible,” the Marques said. This was the first of four hurdles. The others were harder.

The toughest is when candidates are asked to talk for an hour on any four subjects from a previously announced list of 320 topics of geography and history, politics and government, law and economics. Subjects range from the causes of World War I to the European conference on security and co-operation, from the function of money markets to the politics of important States. Topics are listed by number. For each section a candidate chooses two numbered balls from a tombola and can discard one of the two. After choosing his topics, he has an hour to prepare four 15-minute speeches. If a candidate this year took out balls numbered 20 and 23 in the politics and government section he would have to speak either on “Ireland, Greece, and Turkey; The Basic Characteristics of their Politics,”

br “The Soviet Union; Continuity and Innovation in the 1977 Constitution.” Another stage tests languages, obligatory English and French plus any others offered. A final examination aims to measure ability to deal with an everyday diplomatic or consular problem. In the foreign service competition, 153 candidates are vying for 30 places in the diplomatic school. The Marques defended the academic weighting of the exams saying the system was thorough and impartial. “We are’ not just looking for erudition. In the first test we are also trying to establish whether candidates are capable of grasping the essentials from a text and reproducing them with a clear commentary.” It usually takes candidates several years and a colossal memory to prepare successfully for the topflight oposiciones.