To ask if anyone works for the Council?

[Tiredandcantbebothered1]

Wondering if it's just as good/better to work for than the Holy Civil Service.

I know the CS recruitment is supposed to be fair and transparent, my colleague has been doing the AO role via agency there for nearly 2 years, and has just been rejected for the permanent role, not even getting an interview because she got a 3 in the personal statement.
She's a top performer in the team and has had a few awards and such but can't be hired permanently?

Local Council seems to have very similar benefits and the hybrid and flexi as options too. Hopefully the recruitment process is a little faster too, it sounds to be judging from the job advertisements.

I'm just fed up with how ridiculous the Civil Service is. My old EO manager apparently was an AO then just got asked if he wanted to do the EO role? I haven't heard of this otherwise, I know there's no such thing as being promoted based on performance or length of service, you have to apply.
I'm there on agency too but things like EOIs are not open to us. Contract is supposed to end in just over 2 months, none of us know if we're being kept on and they're keeping it all very vague so I'm now applying for whatever I can.

100%

Yes I do know what you mean. Maybe what helped was I'd done a lot of research around the behaviour profiles and the 'buzz' words associated with them.
I found it hard to fit my experience into this in meaningful ways at times hence why I felt I'd done so terribly.

Why are they so bloody slow then?

The fact that I've been waiting over 2 months to know if I've got an interview for an EO role tells me the number of applicants must be incredibly high

Probably because people can't be arsed to find out about the system

You've got nothing to lose x

In my own experience with CS recruitment they are slow because:

1. The application can be open for a LONG time. One of our more recent ones was open for a month and we don’t even start looking at anything until the closing date so if you happen to see it and apply on day 1 then you’ve been “waiting” for a full month before we would even be thinking about starting to look at applications.

2. Sifting takes time, and allocating the time & resource to do the sifting takes time. At least where we are the sift is done by people who all have their own jobs to do, they have to rearrange schedules to find time to do the sifting. Then there’s checks done on those sifts to ensure fairness which again, more people, more busy calendar’s, more time.

3. The interview process is the same as above- all of those people have day jobs. It sometimes takes
   a few weeks just to get enough people together who are able to do the interviews (e.g. are the correct grade), willing to do the interviews, and then find time in their schedules to actually fit that in.

And

1. To get them all to agree to come into work for a day

Isn't this discrimination against introverts which should surely count as neurodiversity

No, it’s not discrimination. It’s simply life when applying for jobs- you have to sell yourself, the more you can do that the more likely you are to be promoted/hired.

Which is a shame as quite often turn out to be the worst person for the job and also so full of themselves they go within a few months (IE Liz Truss)

Trust me it’s just as frustrating when trying to recruit , the problem is establishing a panel for sifting and then again for interviews - it’s an enormous amount of time involved for the existing CS with follow up meetings to grade etc. It should go back to centralised recruitment with experienced full time panels

Totally agree, you often get the wrong person for the role just because they were able to tell the best story.

As I say I can think of multiple examples from this year alone where I’ve watched exactly this happen. Applying for a job or promotion now essentially is a story telling game, or putting the lottery on. You don’t have to be the best candidate, have the best experience, you just have to be able to tell the best story and hit the buzz words.

One of the local councils I'm applying to actually accepts a CV with a cover letter, I'm in shock.

Again ouch!
I did a significant amount of research before my CS interview so I knew their behaviour profiles and what was important under each section. Anyone has the ability to do that....

I also had the experience for the job as advertised!

I don’t doubt you did at all, but I can think of 3 colleagues just off the top of my head who this year alone have been passed over for promotion, 1 of them only at the end of last year was giving the internal presentations about behaviour profiles, STAR, buzzwords. They WROTE and taught that same guidance.

It’s a lottery, is the reality. I’ve sifted and interviewed hundreds of these applications and people now, if you can talk the talk you’re golden. If you’re the best member of staff in the department but not great with words or performing then you’ll miss out despite being absolutely the best person for the job.

Have worked for 2 x districts and 1 x county. In someone who if I fit into a team I thrive. If not and I feel injustice I hate it. 1 x district was fabulous team etc . But so so busy workload wise but there genuinely weren’t rally slackers (occasionally one would arrive and then not last long and leave). The county was terrible. They asked if my notice period from previous job could be shortened and I felt pressured me to join quicker. Now I’m here i realise it’s because they desperately needed staff, it’s badly managed, just bad and they probably didn’t want me to ask around and back out of it. So all of these jobs recruitment has been quick (and need DBSs) sick leave, annual leave etc generous- probably the same as at CS? But I cant lie with the county it really is quite miserable and not because of the workload but the absolute terrible leadership, needing to be in some in crowd to get anywhere .

So I would ask around, visit before accepting etc.

good luck x

I wouldn't say "ouch"- your posts indicate you understand how to play the game and that you put a lot of work into familiarising yourself with the process, and it paid off!

There are a lot of people out there who really struggle with it- in my experience people from lower socio-economic and ethnically diverse backgrounds are less likely to understand it- if people don't have parents with professional jobs to help them with applying for their early jobs, the requirements of this kind of application process means the posts become really hard to obtain. It is very labour intensive as you have found, and the "box ticking" element of needing to use "I" not "we", of needing to provide detailed examples that show all required elements of competencies, and include good evidence rather than generic statements etc is a skill in its own right.

It is a process which is "fair" in that candidates are compared on a like-for-like basis, but by necessity that does turn it into a system which can be played- take it as a complement that you've clearly cracked it!!

Thank you @canyousewcushions. You're right, I'm so transparent that I took 'playing the game' as a negative but you're right.

I've nearly always been offered every job I've gone for (2 exceptions when I was going through a hard patch and know I didn't represent myself so well) so I must be able to see through to what's needed.