YOU WERE LOOKING FOR: Practice Postal Exam
It would help if you had that in mind while answering each and every question. Take a look at this sample question for better understanding. If you want to know how to answer this kind of questions, use the full guides in our PrepPack. For now, here...
Now that you know what to expect from the test, it is time to figure out all about the scoring. But as we have come to understand about the USPS already, it is not all black and white. If you pass, the job is not at all promised to you! Note: If you...
Emphasize the right traits for this job — use our full guide, written by experts, to know how to answer the personality questions. How will our PrepPack help you with that? Step 1: practice with questions that will look exactly like the ones you will get on the exam. Each question is accompanied by a solution and full explanation. It is filled with tips and strategies to do it the right way. Step 3: practice even more with a question bank for all sections of the exam. This will give you the extra push to score higher than other candidates. After you submit the exam, the status in your USPS candidate profile online will be updated: In Process — you have submitted the test but did not get a score yet.
Ineligible — you did not pass the assessment you scored below Eligible — you passed the assessment and now waiting for updates. If everything goes smoothly, you will be called in for an interview if you get a really high score, you might skip this step. FAQ I heard that to get this job, I have to take the test. Has it changed? Yes, it has changed! Instead, there are four new exams, for different job applicants. There is no such thing. The only updated versions are the new tests. The postal exam is mainly a personality assessment. Why do I have to practice? This personality assessment is designed to see if your personality is right for this specific job or not. The right way to answer the questions is to emphasize Customer Service Clerk job traits. A good way to get it right is to practice with similar questions, and understand which trait is emphasized in every answer. The USPS wants me to answer honestly. Should I answer what I really think? Well, it is a bit tricky.
Every person has a few personas. When you are at home with your family you are a different person than when you are at work. And you would act differently when you hang with your friends or when in the middle of your workday. When you are applying for a job, it is better to present your work persona, and leave the everyday persona at home. All the personas are a part of you. Even if you only present Are there right and wrong answers? How is my personality being scored?
The USPS does not score your personality itself, but your personality as it relates for this specific job. In that sense, the right answers will emphasize the traits that are needed for the Customer Service Clerk job. If 70 is the passing score, why should I work hard and score higher than that? Getting a high score is important! The higher your score, the better your chances are to be called for an interview, and fast. If you score really high, they might offer you the job without even coming in for an interview.
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ORDER NOW To apply for postal positions use our instructional guide and then click on the link at the end of the guide to go direct to the Postal Services' official online employment site. Job opportunities are also advertised at local post offices, in national and local newspapers, journals and periodicals. A passing score of 70 percent or better on a postal exam will place the applicant's name on an eligible register for that job vacancy and you can use the same test and application information to apply for multiple jobs. To improve your postal exam score and for complete information on this process pick up a copy of the 7th edition of Post Office Jobs. Postal employees who have the knowledge, education, credentials, and skills may apply for these openings. Few postal clerks and non professional employees will have law degrees, engineering credentials, or doctorates for example.
These post office jobs will generally be advertised in local papers and on the USPS web site. You can also call the local CSSD office's Human Resource Department to check on the status of your application or to follow up on interviews. You will be rated on a point system maximum of points even without a written test. Therefore, your resume and Application For Employment PS Form must be thoroughly completed and include all key information such as degrees, training, credentials, and detailed work experience. Only the top three candidates will generally be referred to the selecting official for consideration. Also, explore and apply for all job vacancies in the government and private sectors to improve you chance of employment. Post office job applicants seeking entry level professional and administrative positions can apply for mail handling positions and take the Battery Exam to get their foot in the door.
Once hired, as vacancies open in their specialty such as accounting, budget, and other occupations, the Postal Service often advertises these positions first to current postal employees through internal job announcements. Once you get your foot in the door you can bid on these restricted announcements and the experience that you will gain from the entry level mail handling position will help you to better understand the postal system.
Introduction This is a common section in all the VEA versions. It contains a brief paragraph on the history of the postal services, jobs mapped to the test you are writing, necessary instructions and one sample question for each constituent section. Work Scenarios The Work Scenarios segment is common for all versions of the VEA though, as mentioned earlier, it is christened differently in This section assesses your intrinsic situational awareness in a typical work environment. Questions are of multiple choice behavioural type. Each has a write-up followed by different possible responses.
If it so appears that none of the options appear most likely or least likely to you, pick the closest ones. On the face of it, there is no right or wrong response. You are expected to answer the question based on how you would respond to a similar situation in real-life. However, keep in mind the increasing focus on soft skills, customer centricity and importance of being a solid team player.
That should help you pre-empt the desirable skills being looked for. Nonetheless, ensure you are happy with your choice before you move on to the next question. You are not allowed to go back to the previous question after you have moved ahead! These are generally in-built test mechanisms to check your behavioural consistency on situational judgement. Being honest and consistent is the key! Sample Question 1 You are approaching the lunch hour in your shift. It is the Holiday season and your day has been really busy. A customer comes in and asks to check if she can redirect the shipment she had sent a while back. This is usually a time taking activity that might delay your lunch break. Select the action you will be most likely to take and the action you will be least likely to take while attending to the customer. Response: Option 1 is not the best recommended option. You manage not to delay your lunch break. You also help her by informing of the option to check eligibility online.
However, in effect, her actual query still remains unaddressed and the customer is likely to leave unsatisfied. Option 2 is far from ideal. You are only finding an excuse of not doing your job. In addition, you are needlessly redirecting customers to an escalation authority. This is not expected from a customer-centric team member role. This should thus be the least desirable option. Option 3 could result in an irate customer. Even though you offer to help her checking for eligibility, the prolonged wait could leave you with an unhappy customer. Option 4 should be the most desirable. Irrespective of it being a busy day, the time taking nature of the task or impending lunch break, you do what you are supposed to do in the first place. You go the extra mile to ensure a satisfied customer experience. Sample Question 2 It is a busy Monday morning.
There are lots of work to be done but you see your colleague continuously fidgeting and moving away from his desk for prolonged periods. You anticipate by the end of the day there will be a slippage in the work assigned to your team. Select the action you will be most likely to take and the action you will be least likely to take in this scenario. Even though you think that you have taken corrective option beforehand by reporting to the Postmaster, this reflects bad team-spirit. It could create a negative team environment and impact working relationship with your colleague in future. Option 2 is also not the most favoured option. While you proactively take additional work, the actual issue remains unaddressed.
If the colleague is intentionally shirking work, you might end up with an errant colleague and unfair workloads to cover for him in future too. Option 3 should be the most desirable option. You show positive team spirit and open communication by talking to your team member about a perceived issue. You also find an opportunity to resolve the situation without escalating or hindering teamwork.
Your colleague might be having genuine problems and would really appreciate some help from the team in times of need. Option 4 should be the least desirable. Talking about a colleague behind his back and instigating others to get him reported must never be encouraged in a well-functioning team environment. It contains questions specifically related to your past work experience. Understand that this is the place in the assessment where any information you submitted earlier as part of the application process may be corroborated.
Therefore, while answering this section, make sure all details that you shared in previous phases dovetail with the responses you provide here. Be careful that all specifics on past work events, gap in employment etc, tally exactly. Needless to say, you are expected to be absolutely honest while presenting the facts. Any inconsistency may be the ground for immediate ineligibility. As in earlier sections, check your response before you move on to the next question. You may not go back to earlier questions. Ensure you have exact dates for important employment events. This should avoid any inadvertent discrepancy while taking this test. It is also by far the segment with the most number of questions.
All questions are behavioural types and are meant to gauge your personality fitment to the role you are applying for. You would be typically presented with a combination of two statements say, statements A and B and required to choose your response on a subjective scale — Most like statement A, Somewhat like statement A, Somewhat like statement B, Most like statement B. Since these are behavioural questions meant to assess your personality traits, there can be no obvious right or wrong answer. But if you have researched the job role well, you may still guess the desired behaviours.
Best bet, be honest. As in other parts involving behavioural questions in all VEA versions, there are checks and balances internally to weed out attempts to con the system. There can be complementary questions and you need to be careful so as not to get flagged for behavioural inconsistency. Note that, it is highly probable that neither of the two statements will exactly describe your approach. Pick up the statement that reflects more like you usually behave. Trust your gut! Identify which of the following statements describes you best: Response: Respond to reflect your general approach to work. Keep in mind the kind of behaviour that would likely be expected from you in the position you are applying for. For example, work in carrier, mail handling or mail processing roles can be very repetitive and mostly follow a defined set of activities. If you largely like jobs with lots of variations, you might sooner or later feel your work dull or tedious in these roles.
Obviously it will not imply a great fitment. On the other hand, customer service clerk jobs in sales, service or distribution might have to deal with different situations with different customers. As the nomenclature suggests, the goal is to find how adept you are at identifying differences between two separate numbers. The test itself looks deceptively simple. There would be 12 questions in total and you may expect them to be presented in groups of four. Each number would be an 8-digit string. Be careful and vigilant as you check out the number strings. As soon as you find the first anomaly, do not check any further. In case you find it difficult to visually check and compare entire strings, feel free to devise your own ways — you may start from the left and check two numerals each or divide in groups of four. It should be fairly easy with rigorous practice. You may also want to say out the numbers aloud or use a stylus, pen or pencil tip as an aid if that helps to focus.
Be confident of your responses before you move on to the next set of questions. You would not be allowed to move back to the previous set. If there are 4 or more consecutive zeros, check carefully — that sequence might hide a possible mismatch. PRO TIP 8: Even though it is nowhere explicitly stated in either the or versions, you may benefit by working this section quickly and, of course, correctly! It appears that the internal mechanism may keep a tab on the time taken to complete this section. It could be advantageous to complement accuracy with speed to jack up your score. Sample Question 4.
To score high and improve your chances to get the job, use this question U. One of the customers on your route moved to a different unit at the same apartment complex. You know he has moved but you have not received a change of address. He flags you down one day and wants to know why he is not getting his mail. What would you most likely do? Inform him that until you receive a change of address, you cannot deliver to the new address. Tell him that you are holding it at the station until you receive the change of address, which is postal policy. Tell him you will bring it all to him tomorrow but if he has not submitted a change of address, he should do so soon. Give him a change of address card that you keep in your truck and tell him he must submit it soon or they will send his mail back to the sender after a certain time.
Incorrect answer. Please choose another answer. What would you least likely do? It is time for your break, but the work is unfinished, and you are behind schedule. Go to break. You are almost finished, so ask your supervisor if you can finish and go on your break later. Remind your supervisor that it is your break time in case she wants someone to work the mail while you are gone. Ask someone to finish up so you can go on break. You find a stamped letter on the ground next to the mail box that appears to be outgoing mail. The flag on the mail box is up.
Leave the letter on the ground, as its outside the scope of your responsibility. Put the letter back in the mail box and leave the flag up to let the owner know the mail was not picked up, so she can examine it. Pick up the letter and process it as if it was posted to be mailed. Knock on the mail box owner's door and ask if it's her mail. You are manually casing mail and you hear two co-workers gossiping about another co-worker who is close enough to hear them. Quietly tell the two gossiping co-workers that the person they are talking about can hear them.
Mind your own business and keep it to yourself. Join the conversation and try to change the subject. Later tell the person that was being talked about that those two people gossip about everyone and not to let it bother her. A container of mail from your machine has been taken to the dock to be loaded on a truck, and you realize you may have put a tub of mail in it which does not belong there. This means that it could go to the wrong postal station. Leave your station and run to the dock to see if the truck has left to fix your mistake. Ask your supervisor if you can run to the dock to see if you can rectify the mistake. Tell your supervisor what you suspect and ask if she can call the dock to find out if the truck is still there. There's no need to do anything. No one will know it was you that made the mistake.
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