Civil service interview - worried about my previous jobs

[MishMashMosher]

I applied for a civil service job a few months ago and had an email this week inviting me to an interview. Its for higher executive officer role.

I understand the competency interview style and the 'star' way of answering, but I'm worried about my examples.

I scored well in the online tests so I know I'm not stupid. I had my children young and so far, have only had dead end jobs which fit in with family life.

If my competencies examples are based on waitressing and volunteering with beavers/school ect, will this go against me?

If my competencies examples are based on waitressing and volunteering with beavers/school ect, will this go against me?

Not necessarily, as long as you can relate them to the role and how you could apply that competency in a civil service environment.

Good luck!

Raven, are you a civil servant?

Nope the whole point of competency based interviews is to see how you use the desired competencies - you can demonstrate "seeing the bigger picture" from voluntary roles or waitressing or being the CEO of a major company. Good luck!

I didn't work for 15 years and then got a civil service job - all my examples were either really old or based on volunteering and parenting roles. Six months later I've been offered an HEO role and, again, all the examples were old/volunteering. I think, as @RavenLG says, they're pretty focused on whether you are demonstrating that you have the competencies and not particularly interested in where you've demonstrated them! I had to do one on making a difficult decision - I chose which school to send DS2 to!

If they haven't already told you, they usually let you take notes into the interview btw.

Good luck.

Ah thank you, you've made me feel so much better. I know I have great examples, I just didn't want to make myself look stupid. Even though I probably won't get the job, I want to give myself the best chance.

Does anyone else have any advice for my interview?