Professional or Subprofessional: which one to take

The question almost everyone asks first is which of the two is easier. It is the wrong question, and it is worth saying why before answering the right one.

They are the same examination with one section swapped

Both papers set numerical ability, verbal ability in English and Filipino, and general information. Both are sat on the same Sunday, in the same three hours and ten minutes, and both pass at a general rating of 80.00. The Professional paper runs to 170 items and the Subprofessional to 165 - a difference of five, which is not a difference in difficulty.

One section differs. Professional sets analytical ability: word analogy, logic, assumptions and data interpretation. Subprofessional sets clerical ability in its place: filing and alphabetising, spelling, and reading detail off a form without losing your place.

So what actually decides it

The level you take is decided by the positions you want to be appointable to. Professional eligibility covers first and second level positions. Subprofessional covers first level only. Everything else - which section suits you, how much time you have - is a secondary consideration.

First level positions are the clerical, trades, crafts and custodial ones - non-professional or subprofessional work that does not require four years of collegiate study. Second level positions are the professional, technical and scientific ones, which do, and they run up to division chief. If the job you are aiming at is second level, Subprofessional eligibility will not make you appointable to it, and no amount of doing well on the paper changes that.

The advice everyone gives, and when it is wrong

The standard answer is to take Professional because it covers more. As defaults go it is a reasonable one, and for most people asking the question it is right. It is worth knowing where it stops being right.

It assumes the two extra sections cost you nothing. They are not extra - they replace each other - but they are genuinely different kinds of work. Analytical ability rewards people who are comfortable holding a chain of conditions in their head and noticing what a statement quietly assumes. Clerical ability rewards accuracy under time pressure on material that is not interesting: putting forty names in order correctly, spotting one misspelling in a list, reading a row off a table without drifting a line.

Those are different aptitudes and the exam does not care which one you would rather have. Someone who is applying for first level posts, who has never enjoyed logic puzzles, and who is accurate and fast with detail, is being badly served by advice to sit the paper with the logic section in it because it is broader.

The honest version of the rule: take Professional if any position you might realistically want is second level. If they are all first level, take the paper whose fifth section plays to you.

How to tell which section plays to you

Not by guessing, and not by how the sections sound. Analytical ability sounds harder than clerical ability to almost everybody, and it is not - it is only less familiar. Clerical ability sounds easy and then costs people marks, because doing something simple forty times in nine minutes without one slip is not the same as being able to do it once.

Sit both section types and compare what comes back. The free 50-question diagnostic reports by subject rather than as a single number, which is the only form of result that can answer this question. Two people with the same total can need completely different months of work, and that is exactly the situation you are in when you are choosing a level.

If you want to see the sections themselves before deciding, the Professional paper and the Subprofessional paper are set out separately, and the coverage page lists what each one contains section by section.

Two things that do not depend on the level

Salary. Pay follows the position's salary grade, not the eligibility of the person appointed to it. Holding Professional eligibility does not pay more than holding Subprofessional; what eligibility is actually worth goes into what it does and does not do.

Expiry. Neither lapses. Career service eligibility is permanent once conferred, so the choice you make is a choice about which doors open, not one you will have to make again in five years.

Common questions

Is the Subprofessional exam easier than the Professional one?

Not in any structural sense. Both are sat in three hours and ten minutes, both pass at a general rating of 80.00, and the papers are within five items of each other in length. They differ in one section: Professional sets analytical ability, Subprofessional sets clerical ability. Which of those two you find harder is a fact about you, not about the examination.

Can I take both levels?

You cannot sit both in the same examination. Professional eligibility already covers first and second level positions, so holding it makes Subprofessional eligibility redundant for appointment purposes.

If I pass Professional, do I also hold Subprofessional eligibility?

For the purpose of being appointed, Professional eligibility covers first level positions as well as second level ones, so a separate Subprofessional eligibility is not needed on top of it.

Does the level I take affect my salary?

No. Salary follows the position's salary grade under the compensation rules, not the eligibility held by the person appointed. What the level changes is the range of positions you can be appointed to at all.

Where to start

Decide the level from the positions first, since that part is not a matter of preference. Then measure, because the section that differs is the one you have least idea about until you have sat some of it. If you are still choosing between two levels after doing both of those, the answer is Professional - but you will have arrived at it for a reason rather than as a default.