I probably shouldn’t write this in an article that can be viewed by anyone including my boss, but Ontario Public Service (OPS) job alerts have been popping up in my inbox for years. Rarely do I find anything I’m qualified for, and when I do, I never apply. Although I doggedly read the postings, at this point it’s more a habit than anything else, sort of like chewing gum, ultimately harmless but not all that productive either.
It might be a good thing that I’m seriously ambivalent about working for the OPS. From what I can tell, getting in is not all that easy. (Check out this discussion forum about the OPS.) Although I haven’t heard about any plans for the Province to chop public service jobs, cutting government seems to the rage these days — Heaven knows how many public service positions would be left if Tim Hudak ever come to power.
Reasons to apply
Still, working for the OPS does have a lot going for it — flexible work environment, a good work/life balance, decent compensation. A study from the Fraser Institute found that government employees working in Ontario (federal and municipal are included as well as provincial) earned 13.9 per cent more in wages, on average, than their private sector counterparts in April, 2011. (I am not sure what laundry workers in the private sector make, but I bet it’s not anywhere near the $20 an hour made by those who work for provincial detention centres.) Non-wage benefits were also better: Public sector workers are three times more likely to be covered by a pension plan, far less likely to lose their jobs and, on average, set to retire more than a year earlier than private workers. In addition, the OPS received many top employer awards for 2013 including Greater Toronto’s Top Employers 2013, Canada’s Best Diversity Employers, Canada’s Greenest Employers.
There’s a real range of opportunities in the public service: on-call court services officers, claims assessors, data specialists, negotiators, even carpenters are needed. Given that there are 18 career streams, you can move around (at least laterally) all the while remaining with the same employer and thus retaining your seniority. “When your proverbial foot is in the door, your opportunities truly are quite vast,” says the Four Reasons Why You Should Work for the OPS post published in the Ontario Government Job Tips blog. “There are very few organizations where you can be working in one area and accept a new position in a completely different line of business.”
The getting-your-foot-in-the-door method
If I really wanted to get into the OPS, I’d probably take the advice espoused by the anonymous author of the aforementioned job tips blog, namely, to find a temp job with a government ministry. (The Province currently hires temp workers through HR Associates.) You can also get in through part-time or summer jobs or internships or co-op positions.
Once you land one of these positions, you can apply to all internal positions in the OPS — part-time, full-time and permanent — which are much more abundant than external positions. In addition, according to the tips blog, the internal list generally posts more entry level positions than the external list, meaning the qualifications are not as strict.
Applying to external postings
If you prefer the direct approach, you can always apply to the external positions listed on the careers website. Make sure to click on the job description link which will bring you to a more detailed overview of the job specifications. (Some jobs, such as occupational health and safety inspectors, have realistic job previews that give you oodles of information about the positions.) As with any job, go through all of the requirements and key words in the posting and elaborate on how you meet each of them. Don’t forget to include the Job ID# in your application! And never send off a general resumé and cover letter in the hopes that human resources will contact you when something suitable comes up — that’s a doomed career strategy, especially in the OPS.
In the OPS, when a job is posted, a set of criteria is established, and then each applicant gets a score for each criterion. The top ranked candidates are invited to the next round. Often, this involves some form of additional assessment, be it a technical test, a writing test, a French test (for certain designated positions), or a presentation or role-playing exercise. After the testing or assessment is successfully completed, candidates move on to an interview, which is normally conducted by a panel of two or three OPS employees. All candidates are asked the same questions and scored using the same rating scale, determined by a set of expected responses. You might want to brush up on behavioural and situational interview questions as this type of interview is popular with the OPS, according to the Three Things You Need to Know Before Stepping Into an OPS Interview post.
This article originally appeared on poss.ca.