Post-Secondary Recruitment

The Post-Secondary Recruitment (PSR) program enables federal organizations to meet recruitment challenges by accessing and hiring qualified university and college graduates from across Canada for entry-level officer positions.

There are three primary options for participating in the Public Service Commission (PSC)’s PSR program:

1. Hire Quickly - Search the Targeted Career Stream Inventories: Every fall, the PSR program establishes targeted stream inventories of paritially assessed candidates. These inventories are aligned with occupational areas currently in demand. Hiring managers can access these pools anytime throughout the year. It is a quick and easy way to reduce time and cost per hire!
2. Advertise a Tested Career Choice (job opportunity): As part of the annual PSR campaign, organizations may choose to advertise a tested career choice identifying their specific hiring requirements. Any or all of the three standardized PSR tests can be administered on their behalf.
3. Advertise a Non-Tested Career Choice: If testing is not required or if an organization wishes to advertise outside the usual fall campaign time frames, a non-tested departmental career choice may be an appropriate solution for you. They can be posted at any time throughout the year!

Frequently Asked Questions

Hire Quickly! As part of the fall 2011 PSR campaign, various targeted career stream inventories were established by the PSC to meet a variety of organizational hiring requirements. Both client- and job-seeker–centric, these inventories provide a quick and cost-effective solution for your year-round hiring needs!

Key features

• Candidates have already been assessed using two or three of the following standardized assessment tools: the Situational Judgement Test, the Written Communication Proficiency Test and the Graduate Recruitment Test;
• Staff indeterminate, term or casual hiring requirements;
• Available to all federal organizations;
• Nationally advertised;
• Flexible and tailored to your needs! You can request:
  • the number of candidates
  • the educational level(s) and specializations
  • the experience criteria
  • the specific tests and pass marks that are relevant
• A list of interested candidates is available in as little as 72 hours.

COST: Free!

Targeted Career Stream Inventories are available to support you in your hiring needs

1. Program Delivery and Support
2. Pure, Natural and Applied Sciences
3. Business and Social Sciences
4. Health Sciences (Psychologist and Nursing)
5. Information Technology

In addition to the Career Stream Inventories mentioned above, hiring managers can also access the Financial Officer and Internal Auditors Recruitment and Development (FORD/IARD) program:

Financial Officer and Internal Auditors Recruitment and Development Program: Hire qualified university graduates for entry-level finance and internal audit positions (FI-1 and AS-2). FORD/IARD trainees are part of a formal development program.

• Although advertised as part of the PSR campaign, these inventories are maintained by the Treasury Board Secretariat on behalf of federal organizations. For further information or to access these pools, please contact fordiard@tbs-sct.gc.ca.

Access the inventories

Once you have identified the specific Career Stream Inventory that best suits your hiring needs, please follow these steps:

1. Complete the Request for Referrals Form that best supports your hiring requirements. Need help? Contact us at PSR_RP@psc-cfp.gc.ca. Specify the search criteria, the number of candidates you wish to consider, the experience criteria that you wish to apply and the education qualifications required.
2. Submit your form to the appropriate regional office where the position is located.
3. The PSC will conduct your search or contact you if clarification is required.
4. The PSC will contact the candidates electronically to confirm their interest in your position. Only interested and engaged candidates will be referred to you. Please allow 72 hours for this process.
5. Shortly after candidates have confirmed their interest, the list of candidates, including their application/CV, will be sent to you.
6. You then conduct the remainder of the assessment required for the position. No time? We can do it for you!

Departmental career choices offer organizations an excellent opportunity to leverage the PSR branding and existing relationships with universities and colleges across Canada. It also provides a job-seeker–centric approach to staffing, as the standardized assessment results are consistent and portable across the career choices. Before posting a departmental career choice and to save time and money, we strongly encourage you to check out one of the existing career stream inventories. If your needs are not met through these inventories and you still wish to post a departmental career choice advertising your specific hiring requirements, follow these steps:

1. Contact us at PSR_RP@psc-cfp.gc.ca to discuss your recruitment needs. We can help you!
2. Complete a Post Secondary Recruitment Request for Career Choice and provide your approved statement of merit criteria in both official languages.
3. The PSC will assist you in the preparation of your advertisement and will support you in deciding whether to have any or all of the three standardized PSR tests administered on your behalf.
4. The PSC will advertise your position in the PSR section of the jobs.gc.ca Web site.
5. Once your advertisement has closed, the PSC will administer (if applicable) the standardized tests on your behalf. Testing is conducted in 40 locations within Canada and over 40 locations internationally.
6. Once test scoring has been completed, the PSC will provide you with an electronic file of screened-in candidates for further consideration, and assessment. No time? We can do it for you.
7. If your Career Choice is Non-tested, the PSC will provide you with you an electronic file of your candidates, once your advertisement has closed.

Additional supporting documentation to assist you in requesting a career choice:

• Complete List of Educational Specializations in PSRS
• Guide to Describing a Career Choice

The following is the portfolio of standardized tests that are administered by the PSC during its annual PSR campaign. You tailor the process by choosing the tests you would like administered or applied on your behalf. For each of the tests, the pass mark may vary according to career choice.

Graduate Recruitment Test (GRT-316)

The Graduate Recruitment Test (GRT) measures the candidate's ability to use reasoning to solve problems. The test consists of 55 multiple-choice questions of four types:

• Similarities;
• Arithmetic problems;
• Figure analogies; and
• Number series.

The time allotted to complete the test is 90 minutes. Pass marks on the GRT can be determined by the hiring organization, although the minimum pass mark as established by the PSR program is 23 out of 55.

Candidates may access the GRT Practice Test on-line.

Written Communication Test (WCPT-351)

The Written Communication Proficiency Test (WCPT) is used to assess a candidate's writing skills, specifically grammar, punctuation, vocabulary richness and precision, appropriate level of language use, avoidance of wordiness and redundancies, knowledge of main points versus subordinate details and paragraph and text development — including order of sentences and paragraphs.

The time allotted to complete the test is 1 hour and 40 minutes. Pass marks on the WCPT can be determined by the hiring organization, although the minimum pass mark as established by the PSR program is 30 out of 50.

Candidates may access the WCPT practice test on-line.

Situational Judgment Test (SJT-318)

The Situational Judgment Test (SJT) is used to assess a candidate's judgment skills required for solving problems in work-related situations. It provides the candidate with an opportunity to demonstrate their general knowledge and life experience acquired in work, school, extracurricular and/or community activities. No specialized training, knowledge or experience is required in order to write this test.

The SJT presents 50 hypothetical and challenging situations that a candidate may encounter at work and that involve working with others as part of a team, interacting with others and dealing with workplace dilemmas. In response to each situation, five possible actions are presented that could be taken to deal with the problem described; applicants select the action that is the most effective and the one that is the least effective in dealing with the problem described.

The time allotted to complete the test is 90 minutes. Pass marks on the SJT can be determined by the hiring organization, although the minimum pass mark as established by the PSR program is 66 out of 100.

Candidates may access sample SJT situations on-line.

For more information on the PSR program, please contact Cindy Clark, Program Manager – Post-Secondary Recruitment, at 613-992-9987 or at cindy.clark@psc-cfp.gc.ca;

or

contact us at PSR_RP@psc-cfp.gc.ca.

No time to staff? We’ll do it for you! Learn more about additional PSC services that can help support your recruitment and hiring needs.