STATE OF LOUISIANA
DEPARTMENT OF STATE CIVIL SERVICE
BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA
General Circular No. 001468
To: Heads of State Agencies and Human Resource Directors
Subject: New Professional Supervisor Exam
Issue Date: January 18, 2002
With your cooperation, the Department of Civil Service and its contractor, Darany and Associates, have developed a new test for the Professional Supervisor positions. The new exam, Series 3700, will replace the Series 3500 exam. The content of Series 3700 is significantly different from the content of Series 3500.
Series 3700 will cover the areas of:
Supervisory Knowledge – questions related to supervisory concepts such as performance evaluations, motivating employees, delegation, and team building (30 Questions)
Written Communication Skills – questions related to paragraph organization, error correction and error recognition (30 Questions)
In-Basket – consists of a scenario in which the test taker assumes the role of a supervisor returning from a vacation and reviewing memos and analyzing the situations and identifying relationships and connections among the pieces of information provided in the scenario and in-basket items. These questions are related to the test taker’s solution, decision or action in response to a problem or to achieve a specific objective (25 Questions)
As a result of the change in content, the existing registers for Series 3500 will be cancelled. Persons currently on 3500 registers must take the new Series 3700 exam to maintain their eligibility in the future.
The first date for administration of the Series 3700 exam will be February 4, 2002 at our Baton Rouge and New Orleans Information Offices. Testing at our Saturday Centers will begin February 9, 2002.
The last date for administration of the Series 3500 exam will be March 15, 2002 at our Baton Rouge and New Orleans Information Offices. March 16, 2002 will be our last date of administering the Series 3500 at our Saturday Centers.
Candidates taking Series 3500 or receiving a Re-grade on a Series 3500 register after February 2, 2002 will be given a limited grade life to expire May 1, 2002.
Thursday, March 28, 2002 is the last day that certificates will be issued from Series 3500 registers. Appointments may be made from existing Series 3500 certificates as long as the certificates are still active.
Monday, April 8, 2002 we will begin issuing certificates from Series 3700 registers.
NO CERTIFICATES WILL BE ISSUED FOR THESE JOBS FROM FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2002 THROUGH FRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2002.
All candidates active on Series 3500 by February 2, 2002 will be notified in writing about the implementation of the new test. They will be advised to take the new exam as soon as possible, but no later than March 28, 2002 to ensure that there will be no break in eligibility. They may take the new exam after March 28, 2002 but may miss being on the first certificates issued using the new exam.
Other Series 3500 candidates will be notified of the implementation of the new test by handouts given out by our monitors at all our testing locations beginning February 4, 2002. Information regarding the new test will also be posted on the Civil Service website: www.dscs.state.la.us. Study guides with sample test questions for Series 3700 will also be available by February 4, 2002. These can be picked up at our Information Offices or may be viewed on our website.
If you have any questions, please contact one of the following locations for additional information:
Baton Rouge Headquarters (225) 342-8536
Baton Rouge Information Office (225) 925-1911
New Orleans Information Office (504) 568-5812
Sincerely,
Allen Reynolds
Director