Civil Service Fast Stream

[Jakolantern]

Has anyone got any experience or advice about applying for this? My son has just graduated from a prestigious university and is going back to do a masters next year. He is planning to apply to the civil service fast stream in October and is very motivated and excited by this prospect. He is highly intelligent, with excellent grades and good work experience and is a hardworking, very likeable young man who is committed to the idea of using his life to provide public service. He is not motivated by money, he just wants to be of benefit of others, but he does need to earn enough money to live obviously. I know he would be an asset to the civil service but as a white, middle class man with a humanities degree I feel as though the odds are stacked against him before he even applies. I haven’t mentioned this to him, of course, and I am just a passive spectator to his life now really, but if there was any help or advice I could give him it would be much appreciated.

The internships have been targeted at students with disabilities, ethnic minority and low socioeconomic backgrounds for years.
The Fast Stream can be brutal. Lots of moving round departments, not settling anywhere and drop out rate is fairly high. And it very London centric. So if you want to help, be prepared to help with rent.

OP - regardless of your son’s demographic status, there are absolutely no guarantees where the Civil Service Fast Stream is concerned. It is fiercely competitive and tens of thousands of excellent candidates are rejected every year.

You should encourage your son not to place all his eggs in one basket. He needs to also be applying for other graduate schemes (e.g. NHS management scheme, Local Government Graduate Scheme etc if he wants to stay within the public sector) as well as regular non-graduate entry roles on Civil Service Jobs.

He should apply if he wants, and be prepared that it is highly selective. But he should also look at other routes into the Civil Service, and know that not all jobs are in “policy”, not even within the fast stream. My organisation was looking at getting a “Comms” Fast streamer.
There are also a lot of departments all with different cultures. (One of the advantages of Fast Stream is experiencing different ones.)
There are Perm Secs who started in very lowly roles.

know he would be an asset to the civil service but as a white, middle class man with a humanities degree I feel as though the odds are stacked against him before he even applies.

Really? Why?

Exactly.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3ez3v9v8jqo

I would really like to know what the definition of ‘working class’ is here.

The odds are very much in his favour.

Only 14% of the civil service come from
working class backgrounds and despite the announcement about summer internships today, that will take decades to change

I would say some ministries are more competitive than others however and I know people who were rejected a couple of times before they finally got in, in their late twenties or early thirties, and with more work experience.

It’s good to get some private sector experience before going into the public sector. This helps them to do a better job for the country and our economy, with a better understanding of how things work.

😂 Great post!

The criteria is what job your parents did when you were 14 including sector or industry and how much they got paid for it.

My employer uses four metrics - whether you were the first in your immediate family to go to university, what type of school you went to, the highest educational qualifications your parents had when you were 14 and what the primary earner in your household did as a job when you were 14 (eg sector and level of job)

University you attended? Surely a degree from Imperial that required three A*s to get a place is more of an achievement than a university that accepts applicants with 2Bs and a C. I understand anonymising name / age / sex, but there’s a point at which you may as well scrap the pretence of a selection process and just pull names out of a hat.

New policy on recruitment to civil service jobs announced today by govt may be informing OP’s concerns.

My DD2 joined the fast stream last year and is loving it . The process was long , I think. 6 or 7 different parts to the assessment starting with a maths assessment then some problem solving case study type things . There was an assessment day with other applicants where they had to work as a group . Then a q/a by teams and last stage was an interview panel of some sort - all by teams.
she approached it on the basis of the stats that she would be unsuccessful but would give it her very best shot for the experience.
she is white middle class -2:1 from Russell group uni.
the experience and training she is getting so far in her first year is amazing -.she is well supported and there is a good social vibe with others in the fast stream as they are in a little work group for continuing development. Only draw back is having to move jobs ( and may be move) at the end of the year but she did get to express a preference and got what she wanted . Pay is ok ish but not great compared to other grad schemes but there’s a good path to promotion and the funded training will enable her to jump ship.into the private sector if necessary.She also really likes the people she’s working with and respects them as hard working knowledgeable professionals but also just really nice people . Good luck to your son - loads of her cohort are same demographics as him so I honestly don’t think it will be a barrier .

FWIW I worked with a small group of FSers once. Maybe ten years ago. Not all white and of both sexes. All were standout intelligent, super personable, keen and confident, proactive, capable. Definitely not ‘Tim Nice but Dim’ types, the selection process is notoriously lengthy and ruthless. Anyway the work they did was very impressive.

I didn’t ask their educational or employment backgrounds but could hear from their accents that they were from all over the country. I definitely didn’t go to school with anyone that sparky like that! So OP please do encourage your young person to apply, he sounds great.

My tip is what I felt the majority of the the Civil servants and fast streamers lacked was practical operational expertise, but very bright people were not scarce among them.
So maybe if he can gather any sense of how a major project or major system like a hospital or factory or data centre works via a temporary job or internship, that would stand him in good stead and make him stand out from other bright candidates.

I’m civil service and my manager is a white middle aged man and his manager is a white middle aged man. It’s fully of white middle aged men

Someone I managed was successful applying for fast stream last year. It is London centric but there are postings elsewhere; just less of them. Oh and the person I managed is a white middle aged man too. Not sure what class he is but he used to be a head teacher 🤣

@Theroadt The policy refers to 6 week internships, not all civil service jobs.

Having conducted final interviews for the fast stream, my advice would be:

1. Don't be arrogant
2. Answer the actual question, not what you want the question to be
3. Use the STAR/CAR format
4. Give me some indication that you've read at least some of the masses of information about the scheme
5. Those with experience outside formal education often had better answers
6. Don't waffle

Personally I think anyone who wants to run our country (eg the civil service) should get as wide experience as possible beforehand and so entry to the civil service should be for people with a minimum of five years solid work experience in other sectors.

Too many civil servants went straight from school to university to fast stream. They’ve seen nothing or little of the real world (like some politicians!)

If that is what he wants to do, he should apply. He doesn’t need you putting daft ideas in his head. And if he doesn’t get it, he shouldn’t just blame a scheme.

Seems like a good career choice to me though. Well paid, good pension, lots of opportunities once you are in, don’t seem to get made redundant even if they’ve got no work to do.

Also, if he is as good as you think he is, then stop worrying unnecessarily about his future. Life is stressful enough without making up potential problems.

Any organisation hoping to attract the best and brightest - as our government certainty should be - needs a graduate entry route. That is a fact.

Besides, the Fast Stream pays £30k a year. Acceptable for a fresh grad with a clear path to promotion, but the capable sort of people the Fast Stream seeks to recruit are not going to be interested in a salary that low five years out from university by which point they will be earning far more elsewhere.

So basically the priviledged privately educated are ok and now those from low income backgrounds will be prioritised so essentially those from the squeezed middle are now screwed.

Thank you both for posting about the entry requirements that’s interesting
I would say economic deprivation is an objective marker, not the same as ‘class’ which feels very subjective. it’s also easily verifiable if the parents were UK based and in the tax system. And still verifiable internationally.

@EdisinBurgh You do realise civil servants encompasses people in admin grades on not much more than minimum wage as well? The vast majority of civil servants do not hold enough power to make decisions that affect the running of the country. Even so, many of the people I work with came from industry or academia, and a lot of our SLT worked elsewhere for many years before joining the civil service.

People are responding to this like the son exists. Come on. Never seen such a transparent attempt to stir up drama about a (very insignificant) news story

And asking about parental job is all very well but what if it’s single parent family, which is going to be relatively economically disadvantaged? Adverse childhood experiences? Looked after children? free school meals? Etc etc

That really annoys me. DC could have gone to the university a mile up the road to the one they went to got fee reduction because of having three A* grades at A level coasted through the course and get a first while gaining experience with plenty of time to apply for jobs and to work part time gaining experience.
Also DH and I should have left school at 16 and got "working class" jobs and thought thirty years ahead about what DC's will need