Civil Service Application Low Score

[HannahGW]

Hi all,

I just applied for an Executive Officer Role. I have never worked in the civil service before so new to the VERY confusing application process.

However, my friend works in the CS and helped me with my application - I just received my scores and got a 2 on my CV and 3 on personal statement.

My CS friend also got a 2 on her CV yet she ended up getting an interview and the job anyways.

With this in mind, I listed all my relevant jobs, gave very detailed descriptions of my responsibilities making sure to highlight those relevant to the person specification - I then wrote an achievement section for each role highlighting the job spec again, ie using words like "delivering at a pace on X because of X which shows X".

I really spent time to tailor my CV to the job role and use achievements that directly reflected the person spec. Its not like I just listed my roles with no further information.

Im therefore so confused how I scored so low? The job spec also didnt ask for any specific job requirements or experience rather was open to everyone and wanted more general stuff like "interest in policy, management skills" . My job roles have been in policy and management so I ticked the boxes there.

Im just so so confused.

I also got a 3 on personal statement - I made sure I answered the questions they asked me and used explanations. I do agree looking back that I could have done better but they asked 6 questions and only gave you 750 words so thats only 125 words per questions! Its impossible to get your point across in such little words?!

I think I should have at least scored 4's and be allowed to interview.

Does anyone have any insight into why I scored so low - particularly on the CV section?!

I have two degrees from good universities, I have a lot of good job experience - I'm potentially slightly under qualified for the role but not by a large margin, I feel like I really tailored my CV to the job spec particularly in highlighting my achievements.

I have asked them to give me more feedback and am trying to raise them to look at my application in more depth because I really do not think it is fair.

I understand the Civil Service is another world, but my CV has got me some great jobs and no one has ever said it is weak, rather the opposite.

It just feels like a total punch in the face.

UPDATE: I got great feedback from the recruiter and they said 508 people applied so they had to be pretty ruthless and it’s a sign of the current difficult times

Ok, but if you want to try again, you do need to take on board the advice you have been given on here and read the behaviour profiles as it doesn't sound like a strong civil service application, even if they were being particularly picky. They couldn't really have 'marked you down' if all the answers included everything they needed to as it's all auditable.

That’s good news OP! BUT, @Fatherliamdeliverance is right in both posts above! Take on board the advice we’ve given for next time.

A free bit of advice; don’t set your sights on one specific department. Once you’re in, you’re in. There will be lots of jobs advertised internally (civil servants only as in some cases certain departments) you won’t ever see - like Foreign Office and some MoD).

There are jobs at the Foreign Office that work on soft power and cultural heritage from countries around the world - some of these even include postings to places in Eastern Europe, Middle East or South America. MoD have similar jobs. DCMS isn’t the only department where you can, for example, work on protecting cultural heritage. Be flexible.

Given that the current market is so tough, as you've now established, I would also take another look at the SPAG in your CV and statement (in addition to using STAR of course). If necessary, and if you can afford it, hire a professional editor to go over your application.
I know that this is just an Internet forum where nobody is double-checking what they wrote, but a few issues in your posts struck me (using 'your' instead of 'you're' and 'little' instead of 'few'). Since you're claiming to have excellent written skills, and there are so many applicants as to make the process ruthless, it's conceivable that a simple written error was enough to put you out of the running. I certainly wouldn't interview someone who can't use 'you're' correctly if part of their job is writing reports. Not saying this is you necessarily- might just be you can't be arsed to check or change your MN posts, which would be fair enough - but it's worth considering.

@unbotheredbutbewildered and @Fatherliamdeliverance are
absolutely spot on. It is also extraordinarily tough at the moment as if you’re a civil servant you are still going to have a job and get paid, which is quite an attraction in these times.

Re your CV, mention your achievements, not your tasks. Any fool can work with spreadsheets on a daily basis, if you produced a spreadsheet that enabled you to see people’s pay and what an increase of x or y would look like at a glance (that’s quite simplistic, but you get my drift), or you wrote a report that was used to explain a complex legal issue to a non-lawyer (and what was achieved by both examples) - eg the data contributed to a decision on staff restructuring, the non-lawyer took a decision that wasn’t immediately obvious etc etc.

I applied for a campaign that had over 6,000 applicants. That was totally unheard of for senior level posts. I got some good advice to apply for jobs that you’re not interested in to practise competencies. The first job I applied for (and annoyingly one I wanted) I was too general in my answers and scored quite poorly despite being a very good fit. I don’t think that is clear at all to external applicants that depth is better than breadth and it seems to be a bit of an art to work out the best way to present examples.

@HannahGW I’ve recently applied/interview for a policy role. I’ve been placed on reserve, how did you go about finding out how many other applicants there were?

Hii
Could i please get in touch with you to have my personal statement reviewed please. will be super thanful

WonderontheUP

All assessments cv is unfair
I had applied for a job twice same position same application nothing changed and the first one was high score ,second very low.
How score can be so different between two the same aplication??
Regards

That's not true. I'm waiting for my interview results. I got a 6 on my CV and 6 on my Personal Statement. Though, I think my interview may have gotten a little messy, I was more than a little nervous. It was also the first job application I've ever made.

Maybe it depends on the department. In the 3 I've worked for the above is true, certainly fir the roles I've interviewed people for.

And I've interviewed for around 100 roles (so about 600 people).

I applied for a HEO post which I didnt get (understandable as I only found the job on the day of deadline so didnt prep well enough).
I clicked the feedback button and it showed:
"Application feedback
Personal statement score
23
Overall score
23
Overall comments
Please be advised that the vacancy holder assessed your CV & Personal Statement against the Essential Criteria in the advert and then awarded your CV & Personal Statement a single, combined score."
Does anyone know what this means?? Or just that my application was crap!! :)

Hello

Some precious advice please! Ive applied for a role in the Civil Service at HM Treasury (policy driven) Ive had 3 behaviour questions and the CV to submit. Unsuccsesful the feed back is an overall score 12. What does it mean?

HM Treasury doesn't provide detailed feed back (again basic EO role)