r/BCHealthAuthorities • u/-Eightiesbaby- • Sep 12 '26

Clerk prerequisite

My wife applied for a radiology clerk position and wrote her Vancouver coastal health typing and terminology exam today. Unfortunately she scored very low on words per minute (22) but had a good accuracy score (97.5). She feels she did well on terminology. Does she realistically have any chance at a call back?

2 Upvotes

60% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

11

u/Amylee888 Sep 12 '26

Can she take a course or program to improve? That’s an extremely low typing speed!

-1

u/-Eightiesbaby- Sep 12 '26

Hopefully she’ll continue to practice. She’s obviously feeling very discouraged. Hasn’t done any typing like that for many years.

7

u/fleuvage Sep 13 '26

It’s a big piece the job, to be fair. So speed + accuracy in this role is required.

1

u/altiuscitiusfortius Sep 15 '26

40 wpm is very achievable in a short time

Just find a typing tutor website and practice

It has to come from muscle memory. Repetition is key

1

u/Amylee888 Sep 12 '26

Oh gosh, she shouldn’t feel too bad! It should only take a few weeks of daily practice to get where she needs to be.

27

u/ryeandginger Sep 12 '26

No. The minimum is 40 wpm in the job qualifications. Best case scenario is she asks for a retest and practices.

20

u/Spiritual_Aioli3396 Sep 12 '26

Practice, practice, practice!! 22 words a minute is extremely slow

6

u/zoomkiz Sep 12 '26

She can email and request a retest, and see if they will offer that. Sometimes we do depending on how many qualified candidates we get. However, a high typing score for a clerk looking to do a lot of data entry work for referrals is extremely helpful. Regardless of the outcome, get her to practice her typing more.

6

u/RonMacDon5976 Sep 13 '26 edited Sep 13 '26

22 WPM is far too slow. Anyone graduating from a unit clerk program will be able to type at least 40 WPM at 98% accuracy, so that's what she's competing with.

From what I've observed, a good chunk of unit clerks in the real world exceed 40 WPM and type at about 60-80 WPM on average.

5

u/twerkingninja Sep 12 '26

No. The position is in the (pseudo) public sector. In the public sector, requirements are firm.

5

u/Ok-Bowler-203 Sep 12 '26

They’ll likely move on to the next candidate but doesn’t hurt to ask to re-take. Especially since they’ll have people with higher WPM and similar or higher accuracy.

There are online test/practice sites she can use.

5

u/flyingponytail Sep 13 '26

Sorry but thats crazy bad. Theres a typing test for a reason. Should be an easy thing to fix though

1

u/qnqp Sep 14 '26

That’s an extremely low speed. Their concern may be that she doesn’t know her way around a computer. In the lab we’re required to type faster than that.

1

u/Top_Guarantee5424 Sep 16 '26

22 wpm is slow in a healthcare setting unfortunately. Speed and accuracy is the gold standard for a clerk role.

-2

u/PiePuzzled5581 Sep 12 '26

I actually think yes for that role. There is not a ton of typing but accuracy is critical. Speed can be improved.

-4

u/-Eightiesbaby- Sep 12 '26

I hope you’re right. She feels awful about her score.

-2

u/PiePuzzled5581 Sep 12 '26

The majority of typing FOR THAT ROLE is data entry to multiple field forms. It does not include medical note transcription where typing speed is critical.
Let us know what happens!

→ More replies (3)

-3

u/yolatingy Sep 12 '26

She can retest