EEI CAST, POSS, MASS, TECH and SO/PD tests

[Roll Tide]

Psalms 27:14. 

Good advice for someone who is not driving.

The advice to skip the slow parts and get the most possible done correct is right on!

[B.PRESGROVE]

Ok I finished the test .  I was really suprized how much the practice tests helped out on this exam.  The math wasnt bad , I took advise and skipped the hard stuff, but even then I was only able to complete like 3    word problems when I got to them.  Everything else was pretty basic.  I will know later this week about the results.  This was a POSS/MASS so either ops or maint will be my choices I guess.

Thanks for the advise.

[B.PRESGROVE]

I PASSED!!!!!    Now just waiting on an interview.  Any suggestions on what to talk about and what not to talk about?

[Rad Sponge]

I PASSED!!!!!    Now just waiting on an interview.  Any suggestions on what to talk about and what not to talk about?

Develop your STAR answers.

Situation: Name a challenging work relating situation you were in
Task: What needed to be done (Challenge or Opportunity)
Action: What did you do to accomplish the task (Ownership)
Result: What happened based on your actions

Also, any lessons learned.

Nuclear likes OE (Operating Experience). Be able to discuss your successes as well as your challenges (aka f ups, upgrades, etc).

[Roll Tide]

Any suggestions on what to talk about and what not to talk about?

Many companies have a type of question where they ask what you will and won't do. Would you start a pump without necessary support systems in place? (Yes, but only in situations where the Shift Manager was aware and considered it a necessity due to a REALLY bad day at the plant.) Would you start equipment that has the potential to injure personnel in the area?

Think about situations like that, where they are asking you if you will do something and what you would really do. Because if you are willing to risk a life to shorten an outage, this is not the right job for you. 

Spend some time looking at the NRC website. If you happen to be able to ask (without sounding like you are CNN) about a recent event at Vogtle, they will know you are serious.

http://www.nrc.gov/site-help/search-select.cfm?q=vogtle&sa=Search&cof=FORID%3A11&cx=014311028302829740899%3Agsojhkka504#928

What are your areas for improvement? What are you doing to improve? (Knowing the follow-up may help you select the area!)
What are your greatest strengths? How do you pass that on to others?

Think about these things, and other potential board-style questions.

[B.PRESGROVE]

Hey thanks for the info I will use all of that.  I guess I will have to open the old brain cell vaults from my radcon days of oral boards, and try oh so hard to remember.   ( I dont understand why I cant remember the simple things like shielding calculations or air concentration or decay corrections, but.....that issue from 1985 centerfol.....wwwwwooooooo wrong vault.......thought that beta / gamma weld would hold alot stronger than that....sry fellas my fault  )

My father gave me a holy grail of sorts  .  He was at TMI when it popped (sorry maybe a bad term), but he still had his reactor 1 system binder.  There is so much information packed into that thing.  Im hoping maybe to use some of the info in there during my interview. 

[Fermi2]

Odds are you won't get asked anything technical.

1: Tell us about something you did to make an old job better

2: Tell us about a time you got feedback you might not have liked and what did you do with it

3: Strengths?

4: Weaknesses and what are you doing about them.

5: You see someone doing something you know isn't within procedure, what do you do?

6: You are given a task. You've been trained a certain way to do it and your SM says I want you to do it this way but it's not proceduralized. He says well the new procedure comes out next week. What do you do?

You better get # 6 right!! There are lots of ways of asking it.

Mike

[thenuttyneutron]

#6 may not be a good question.

You can have Ops Evolution Orders that are not procedures, but they have been reviewed by several SROs.  These are used many times with special "exceptional clearances" or new equipment.  If I am given a hand written set of directions with 2 SRO sigs on it and I understand what we are doing, I will have no problem performing the work.

The shift manager wields great power.  There are times you may be in the middle of a procedure and have unexpected events occur.  100% procedural compliance is simply impossible in some situations.  The SM can instruct you to stop in the middle of a procedure and start at the beginning of a different section.  Once such unexpected event happened to me yesterday during an Emergency Diesel Generator run.  The air start motors on one side ran through the interlock sequence but failed to rotate after engaging the fly wheel 3x in a row.  The diesel was locked out.  The other air start was put into service by the direction of the SM in a different section of the procedure after the lockout was cleared.  The motors on the other side had to get to the second of three attempts before getting the diesel to start.  Again we were instructed to go to a different procedure to shut the diesel down without paralleling/loading it.

I think a better question would be about being asked to "fudge" the numbers to make something pass a surveillance test.  No matter what happens, do not ever give your sig away on something that you don't understand.  If you have any doubts, push back and demand answers.  I have refused to sign acceptance criteria before and will not hesitate to do it again in the future.  It is all about being complete and accurate. 

[xobxdoc]

we use step deletion or immediate change procedure forms if we find a procedure doesn't work. It's reviewed by 2 SRO's and the SM.

[B.PRESGROVE]

I have been involved in a couple of procedure changes.  I guess the big difference is that working DOE it takes alot of time to get the step or steps changed.  In the mean while you are expected to do the work under the old procedure, but the area manager has oked the work. 

Broadzilla, I take it you do alot of interviewing of potential employees? 

[Fermi2]

#6 may not be a good question.

You can have Ops Evolution Orders that are not procedures, but they have been reviewed by several SROs.  These are used many times with special "exceptional clearances" or new equipment.  If I am given a hand written set of directions with 2 SRO sigs on it and I understand what we are doing, I will have no problem performing the work.

The shift manager wields great power.  There are times you may be in the middle of a procedure and have unexpected events occur.  100% procedural compliance is simply impossible in some situations.  The SM can instruct you to stop in the middle of a procedure and start at the beginning of a different section.  Once such unexpected event happened to me yesterday during an Emergency Diesel Generator run.  The air start motors on one side ran through the interlock sequence but failed to rotate after engaging the fly wheel 3x in a row.  The diesel was locked out.  The other air start was put into service by the direction of the SM in a different section of the procedure after the lockout was cleared.  The motors on the other side had to get to the second of three attempts before getting the diesel to start.  Again we were instructed to go to a different procedure to shut the diesel down without paralleling/loading it.

I think a better question would be about being asked to "fudge" the numbers to make something pass a surveillance test.  No matter what happens, do not ever give your sig away on something that you don't understand.  If you have any doubts, push back and demand answers.  I have refused to sign acceptance criteria before and will not hesitate to do it again in the future.  It is all about being complete and accurate. 

NOTE the SM referred to ANOTHER section of the procedure. No one can tell you to do anything that isn't procedurally allowed except in an Emergency and then it has to be an SRO.

In this case there is no approved procedure, the correct answer is no. And the last SMs I would ever take input from are ones who let a hole get burnt through their reactor head...

Yes I have interviewed. That question by the way is my multiply everything by zero question.

Mike

[thenuttyneutron]

All SMs have a SRO licenses at my plant.  The emergency situation you are referring to is exactly what I am talking about when I say 100% procedural compliance is sometimes not possible.  If you made a procedure to address every problem/possibility, you would have a procedure longer than the total sum of the books in the Library of Congress.

As far as the hole in the head, it was a bad event in the history of the nuclear industry.  I would rate it as being the 3rd worst event overall.  I was not there to see what happened, but by all accounts that I have heard, it was multiple failures on many levels and many departments.  That is why there was a great purging during the 2001 time frame.  All sites have events they are not proud of.

In the end I will always rate integrity far above anything else.  Do the right thing even when other people are not looking.

[B.PRESGROVE]

In the end I will always rate integrity far above anything else.  Do the right thing even when other people are not looking.

I guess that is what it all boils down to doesnt it?  We have all been in situations where a short cut is not going to hurt anything, but the procedure does not allow it.  What kind of character a person is will let everyone know whether they can be trusted or not.  I will always stick to the procedure with no deviations, that is one reason why I am not working under DOE anymore because they wanted me to go outside the scope of the procedure with no approval.  You will screw yourself everytime if you dont do what it says. 

[Kev3399]

You will screw yourself everytime if you dont do what it says. 

Not exactly true.

Blind procedural compliance is almost as bad as not following it. What if you don't understand a procedure, what do you do?? Stop and get resolution or blindly go along with it because its a procedure and by God you're gonna follow it? This is the crossroads that will get you screwed. I'm sure everyone knows the right answer. However, this is the point where many people fail.......miserably.

Understanding of a procedure is not focused on enough IMO. Fancy terms like "Procedural Compliance/Adherence" leave out a key part of being able to successfully complete a procedure.

[ddklbl]

Understanding of a procedure is not focused on enough IMO. Fancy terms like "Procedural Compliance/Adherence" leave out a key part of being able to successfully complete a procedure.

You make me laugh.  Does focusing on procedural compliance leave out a singular key part? Or are there any other equally important ideals involved here?

[Kev3399]

You make me laugh.  Does focusing on procedural compliance leave out a singular key part? Or are there any other equally important ideals involved here?

Ideals?? I wouldn't say that....... Its just not a good idea to go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 thru a procedure and have no clue what you're doing.

[Joe Ferguson]

Agreed.  There's that whole thing with 'expected response' or 'expected outcome'.  Just because the procedure was written by a smart person - they are subject to the same errors as the rest of us mortals.  If you are going to go blindly - you are gonna go alone.

rotag 

[ddklbl]

Ideals?? I wouldn't say that....... Its just not a good idea to go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 thru a procedure and have no clue what you're doing.

WhooSaaa WhooSaaa  I was envisioning dancing nucleii with 6 floating orbitals each.  We are talking about procedural compliance, I was just wondering if there were any other "principles" worth an honorable mention.

And I am desperately trying to remember the section number (I think it was 3.5.4.2) that specifically talked about blind compliance being just as dangerous as noncompliance and break that off on you.  But now, I just have pillars and 101's stuck in my head.  And for everyone out of the loop, just ignore this last part.

[B.PRESGROVE]

Alright bad news, they did not choose me for the nuclear tech position at votgle, but I have an interview on wed.  for security.  I have to run 200 yards in a minute and shoot a target 6 times.  A little bummed of course, but I guess I will have to start there and work my way into ops. 

[Rad Sponge]

You passed the POSS but didn't get the job and you want to go security?

Umm, no.

Try somewhere else.

[B.PRESGROVE]

Well its kinda like this, I know that they are going to be needing more operators cause they are about to put in two new reactors, so I will get into security and wait for the position to come open again and reapply until I get it.  I dont want to move, my wife has a great teaching career going, my son with school and all.  So I can wait it out.  Psalms 24:17.     I figure if I get my foot in the door this way, it wont be to difficult to move over to ops.  Right?

[Nuclear NASCAR]

If you can be assured that Security is one foot in the door ahead of someone off the street then I'd go ahead. 

[codybuehler]

I just registered for an account here, i used all the advice in the forum to take my very first POSS test.  what a treat! How do they grade these things?  I was a little disappointed not to finish 3 sections; the math, chart and graph sections.  I know that doesn't matter, but i am starting to freak myself out on whether i passed or not.  I wasn't able to finish 15 of the 60 chart problems, 3 of the graph problems and maybe 6-10 of the math problems.  I knew there were going to be a lot of problems on this test, but wow!  Is it possible to finish all of the problems in the alotted time or do you have to be Superman?  haha!     I am still in college finishing up a Nuclear Engineering Degree and have been drilled with math and such which is why I believe I should have been able to finish the ones that I didn't. 

Does my test sound passable?   

Thank you Much!!

[UncaBuffalo]

I just registered for an account here, i used all the advice in the forum to take my very first POSS test.  what a treat! How do they grade these things?  I was a little disappointed not to finish 3 sections; the math, chart and graph sections.  I know that doesn't matter, but i am starting to freak myself out on whether i passed or not.  I wasn't able to finish 15 of the 60 chart problems, 3 of the graph problems and maybe 6-10 of the math problems.  I knew there were going to be a lot of problems on this test, but wow!  Is it possible to finish all of the problems in the alotted time or do you have to be Superman?  haha!     I am still in college finishing up a Nuclear Engineering Degree and have been drilled with math and such which is why I believe I should have been able to finish the ones that I didn't. 

Does my test sound passable?   

Thank you Much!!

Yes, it is possible to finish every section, but the HR lady I talked to said she had only seen it once in 5 years...

The quantity of questions you finished should put you well within the 'pass' range...assuming you got a high enough percentage correct.

Good luck! 

[Fermi2]

I finished it with plenty of time to spare.

The amount you finished should put you in the range where it's graded.

Mike