From: Department of Civil Service Updates NYSCivilService@public.govdelivery.com Date: April 6, 2020 at 4:27:02 PM EDT To: Subject: State Examinations Scheduled on April 25 and April 26, 2020 Will Be Postponed Reply-To: NYSCivilService@public.govdelivery.com Please be advised that all State civil service examinations scheduled for April 25 and April 26, 2020 have been postponed. Examinations are being rescheduled and approved candidates will be notified of an alternate test date and provided with an admission notice at that time. Questions regarding State civil service examinations should be directed to the New York State Department of Civil Service at 518-457-2487 in the Albany area or toll free at 1-877-697-5627 for the rest of the state. Note: This notification does not apply to civil service examinations administered by local governments. To check the status of a local civil service examinations, please contact your local civil service agency. For additional information, visit www.cs.ny.gov. |
Author: Sarah Lauser
2020 Supervision Review Resources
Today, we held a lunchtime review of Supervision/Administration at OSC. Here are the handouts from the review; all material covered is also covered in the 2010 and 2017 NYSITS videos.
Online study sessions coming soon
I’m working on some options for online study sessions. The main requirements are the ability to stream audio/video and have a chat function that is relatively easy to moderate. Right now the frontrunner is Twitch, but I’m also looking at WebEx (free version is limited to 100 people) or mycircle.tv (don’t know how well it scales, doesn’t allow live video). If anyone has comments or experience with using these platforms or other suggestions, please comment on this post. Thanks in advance!
FAQ – Will the exams be postponed?
Due to COVID-19, many people have been asking if the exams will be postponed. At this point, I have no idea (Sarah is not a psychic). I have, however, found out that the exams scheduled for this weekend (3/14 and 3/15) have been postponed. The situation surrounding this pandemic is shifting day-by-day and even hour-by-hour so it is likely premature for any decision to be made about exams scheduled for the end of April.
EDIT: 2020-03-25 Civil Service is still updating their site every week to cancel the exams scheduled for the next weekend. I went last Friday and they were advising that exams for following Sat/Sun were postponed but the message didn’t change until early this week to say that the exams for this weekend are postponed.
In the meantime, it doesn’t hurt to keep up your studying! If you’re stuck inside anyway, why not watch some old study group videos?
2020 classes announced
CANCELLED
Statewide IT PEF Members,
PEF Leadership, in an effort to protect the health and safety of our members and staff, will be suspending the use of all PEF offices, including the Member Benefits Program building, for the next 30 days. In support of this action, the Statewide IT Committee will be canceling all of the training sessions currently scheduled for the upcoming exam. This includes both the study groups and the in-person training classes that had been scheduled in Region 8 and Region 10.
During the next 6 weeks, the committee will continue to monitor the status of the upcoming Civil Service exams. Additionally we will be attempting to develop some alternate options for delivering test study materials. Keep an eye out for future emails.
While this situation is unfortunate, the committee believes it is in the best interest of all involved.
Be Safe.
Statewide IT Committee:
James Desso – Chair, EBoard Member
Angelina Rodriguez-Billingsley – Lead, EBoard Member
Debra Vercruysse – Lead, EBoard Member
Gloria Thomas
Mithilesh Kumar, EBoard Member
Mohan Radhakrishna, EBoard Member
New email update!
Statewide IT PEF Members,
While we know the exam applications are due by March 11, 2020, with the announcement of a special telephone town hall meeting scheduled for Wednesday evening March 11, at 7:00 p.m, we have decided to temporarily postpone opening the training class registrations.
President Wayne Spence will be discussing what PEF is doing to protect the communities where we live and our members who are on the front lines of fighting the COVID-19 virus. Email invites have been sent out to all PEF members who have registered a personal email addresses with PEF.
The Statewide IT Committee is concerned with keeping members informed while making the best decisions possible. We will still attempt to get our members training opportunities if possible and are currently in the process of rescheduling the class style registrations to open on 3/12/20 at 7:00 pm. We will continue to monitor the situation and will make adjustments as necessary.
Please keep an eye out for future emails.
Statewide IT Committee:
James Desso – Chair, EBoard Member
Angelina Rodriguez-Billingsley – Lead, EBoard Member
Debra Vercruysse – Lead, EBoard Member
Gloria Thomas
Mithilesh Kumar, EBoard Member
Mohan Radhakrishna, EBoard Member
Original email:
Statewide IT PEF Members,
Hopefully you are all aware, the IT Examinations have been announced and the applications must be submitted by March 11, 2020.
In order to help our members prepare for the upcoming exams, we have been able to organize 4 in-person training opportunities. Light food and beverages will be provided. Signup for all In-person sessions will be handled through the EventBrite links below.
As always, keep an eye out for future emails as we try to add additional resources.
Good luck on the exam.
Statewide IT Committee:
James Desso – Chair, EBoard Member
Angelina Rodriguez-Billingsley – Lead, EBoard Member
Debra Vercruysse – Lead, EBoard Member
Gloria Thomas
Mithilesh Kumar, EBoard Member
Mohan Radhakrishna, EBoard Member
In-Person Training at Polish Community Center – Albany
These sessions will give an overview of most of the subjects of
examination as announced for the 2020 series of upper level IT exams,
including:
➤ General Tips
➤ Logical Reasoning Using Flowcharts
➤ Understanding & Interpreting a Manual
➤ Preparing Written Material / Preparing Reports and Official Documents
➤ Systems Analysis
➤ Understanding & Interpreting Tabular Material
➤ Project Management
➤ Supervision / Administrative Supervision
Dates: 3/21
Time: 1:00 to 4:00
https://pefitsexamprep-3-21-2020.eventbrite.com
Dates: 4/13
Time: 6:00 to 9:00
https://pefitsexamprep-4-13-2020.eventbrite.com
Dates: 4/15
Time: 6:00 to 9:00
https://pefitsexamprep-4-15-2020.eventbrite.com
Class Size: 150 PEF Members
Cost: $15.00
In-Person Training at Region 10 & 11 PEF Head Quarters – NYC
These sessions will give an overview of most of the subjects of
examination as announced for the 2020 series of upper level IT exams,
including:
➤ General Tips
➤ Logical Reasoning Using Flowcharts
➤ Understanding & Interpreting a Manual
➤ Preparing Written Material / Preparing Reports and Official Documents
➤ Systems Analysis
➤ Understanding & Interpreting Tabular Material
➤ Project Management
➤ Supervision / Administrative Supervision
Dates: 4/11
Time: 1:00 to 4:00
https://nycitstraining.eventbrite.com
Class Size: 40 PEF Members
Cost: $22.00
2020 study sessions – coming soon
Please keep an eye on “PEF on the Move” emails for upcoming study session information. I will do my best to ensure all the materials are also available on this website for those who cannot attend in person.
Happy studying!
2020 ITS Subjects of Examination
Here is a summary of the subjects of examination for the 2020 holding of the ITS exams. I have compared the latest announcements against 2017’s announcements and the major change is that “Writing Skills for Managers” is now gone and we’re back to “Preparing reports and official documents” instead. Guess they didn’t like that one.
THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL DOCUMENT FROM CIVIL SERVICE.
THE ANNOUNCEMENTS AT CS.NY.GOV ARE THE ONLY OFFICIAL SOURCE OF INFORMATION.
Flowcharts practice
This handout was created for a study session held at OSC recently. Please be sure to let me know if you discover any issues so they can be corrected for others! Note that flowcharts were previously on the G23 exam but not the higher grade level exams.
January 2020 Upper Level ITS skill set questionnaire update period
I just got a notice that the Upper Level ITS skill set questionnaire is open 1/1/2020 through midnight 1/31/2020. If you are currently on the G23+ lists, please make sure to update your questionnaire and don’t wait until the last minute! I know that I always run into password issues because I have 4 million ny.gov ids so it takes me a while to get into the site. If that happens to you at 10:30 PM on the last day, you’ll probably be a sad panda.
You need to make sure your questionnaire is up-to-date in order to maximize your opportunities for promotion with the selective certification process.
The questionnaire can be found at https://www.cs.ny.gov/instrument/it_upperlevel/
2020 Tentative Exam Schedule
IT exams have been added to the Civil Service Tentative Examination Schedule. According to the tentative schedule, announcement issue date will be February 7, 2020. Application deadline will be March 11, 2020. The scheduled exam date is April 25, 2020.
Information Technology Specialist 3
Information Technology Specialist 3 (Data Communications)
Information Technology Specialist 3 (Database)
Information Technology Specialist 3 (Programming)
Information Technology Specialist 3 (Systems Programming)
Information Technology Specialist 4
Information Technology Specialist 4 (Data Communications)
Information Technology Specialist 4 (Database)
Information Technology Specialist 4 (Operations)
Information Technology Specialist 4 (Systems Programming)
Manager Information Technology Services 1
Manager Information Technology Services 1 (Data Communications)
Manager Information Technology Services 1 (Database)
Manager Information Technology Services 1 (Operations)
Manager Information Technology Services 1 (System Programming)
Manager Information Technology Services 1 (Technical)
Manager Information Technology Services 2
Manager Information Technology Services 2 (Technical)
Assistant Director Information Technology Services 1
Assistant Director Information Technology Services 2
Assistant Director Information Technology Technical Services 1
Director Information Technology Services 1
Director Information Technology Services 2
Director Information Technology Services 3
For more information, see:
https://www.cs.ny.gov/announ/tentative_schedule_prom.cfm