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.

Agree with all this, also if he wants to work in the civil service the fast stream is just one option. He might also want to apply for Executive Officer or Higher Executive Officer roles on civil service jobs website, that way he has more control of what role he gets and people still get promoted very fast that way!

How are they going to prove or otherwise what job a persons parents did when they were 14? Ask for payslips? References from Dave to confirm that yes, Robert was a bricklayer? And how will they prove that’s a genuine reference. Or what about if he managed the brick laying company, what does that mean? Such BS.. 🫣

I have read 2% success rate for fast stream.

Can’t comment on the WP access to internships as haven’t read the article, but the FS application is, like most grad schemes, several stages each testing a different aspect of the applicant. I hope this isn’t the only grad scheme he’s applying for - most will open this autumn and be equally as burdensome. But from my dc’s experience of applying over two cycles they get better at understanding what is required with practice (dc is now a FSer - its a good scheme, but very much depends on the teams you’re placed with - some will expect intense work, some won’t have the time to develop you - you need to be a self starter). The FS isn’t the only public sector scheme - there are many more and he should apply to as many as possible.

Does help to have a father who is president of the region and in a position where you have nannies and housekeepers.
Princess of Wales looks stunning despite the cancer treatment and working and three young children

Oh and all the info is in the web, and the student room has threads each year for FS applicants. DC found these super useful.

Try being the downtrodden and disregarded “lower” and then see if you’re that concerned about the “squeezed middle”. I never saw the middle classes being concerned about equality when they were benefitting from the system alongside the rich, now you expect the working class to care about you? Nope.

Kids whose parents who went to university or live in "naice" areas are not (necessarily) rich, they are just not (necessarily)( poor.

And it's not nonsense. One of the biggest issues is that teachers have low expectations of the kids and don't tell them about careers opportunities beyond the trades. So the only way to get past that is to go in yourself and tell them about your career area, dispel the myths, tell them how to get relevant experience, what to do now while they are still at school and what subjects to do for A level or when they go to university.

This is what my employer does.

All that said, if a pupil has a practical bent these days they are probably better off being steered into a trade. AI can't do plumbing!

Teacher here

Sadly he is mis guided if he thinks the civil service is a good way to provide public service! - If he wants to do good against the odds and isn't motivated by money, far better for him to go into education or care and actually make a difference against the odds rather than bumming around in teams meetings talking up a good job.

I applied for it and didn't get past the tests they put you through at the start. They were like the tests you do for the 11+ - gruesome. I think DH applied and failed at that hurdle too!

My ds applied for both this and a number of other competitive streams over the last couple of years.

After 6 months of tests and 4 rigorous rounds - she got down to the last 40 places out of 4000 for one of them. Unfortunately she didn’t get the job. But when we looked at the comments on student forum it seems like most of the places went to candidates who had already done the summer internships. She couldn’t even apply for a summer internship as she wasn’t poor enough/living in a poor enough postcode and she is white. So although they say the internship programme isn’t inherently racist as it doesn’t offer a job at the end of it and everyone needs to apply normally for the graduate schemes - it seems like they are choosing those who have done the internships which aren’t open to everyone.
btw - she has straight A* grades and a v good degree from an excellent top tier uni. It’s tough out there. The large grad schemes have gone very dei heavy and imo it’s pointless applying if you don’t fall into any of the dei categories.

Income over £25k starts having loans reduced. Tell me how families on incomes on £26k and above benefit from the system.

My god, do you know what deficit there is in the trades!! and what a good plumber or electrician can earn these days. We need many more young people picking up trades and not wasting their time at university.

The dots are being joined up, which will result in many office based roles vanishing in the next 10 / 20 years, with trades needs growing.

I did wonder how they would prove it but I guess the BBC could be wrong on the job at 14 thing and they can screen by postcode. There are websites which tell you how deprived your postcode is out of around 35,000 postcodes (across England, anyway).

Very blunt instrument but would work, along with screening out anyone who went to a private school.

So if your child is 13, move to a more deprived postcode, quick ;)

Erm, did you read the last sentence of my post?

Not sure what you are meant to do if you don't have a practical bent though,

And being in the trades isn't that easy - as well as having the practical skills, you also need to be able to solve problems and work well alone, you never know what (or who) you are going to encounter when you go to a job.

But again, if people want more tradesmen and women, then the existing ones will have to train them and they don't want to, because it's a hassle.

Yes I agree with this too. But I also think the current senior crop of SCS would have been coming through before so much attention was being paid to widening access. Our Department (small, Whitehall based) is definitely doing better at Exec / SCS diversity in recent years so it gives me hope that some of these initiatives are starting to pay off.

@Jakolantern I was a fast streamer and also am a fast stream assessor. The recruitment processes are very structured and there are lots of guides online on how to prepare and what to expect. Once you get past the verbal and numerical reasoning tests she major thing they are looking for is leadership ability. You are generally tested on your communication skills, motivation for working in the CS, your judgement and reasoning, and as I say leadership. As others have said though I would definitely advise your son to apply widely as it is competitive and even very good candidates don't always make it through. I am also not a white MC male but there are a lot of them!

NB name changed given this is identifying!

Recruitment is blind so interviewers won't know that candidate did an internship. Only advantage would be 6 weeks work experience (and hopefully a bit of interview coaching).

I'm all for restricting the internship. Nice one Pat.

With gdpr can put anything down

This

They have very specific criteria and character profiles they are looking . We know several who sound like your ds who have been successful. Ds has applied twice but not got in but works in cs now anyway. You can apply internally and more than once. It has not always run in recent years. One of the successful ones actually came off the scheme early to secure a ft role as the salary is restricted while on fast track and progression not guaranteed.

@MinerbirdIt’s 2.2%. Civil service fast stream is very competitive. Nearly 45,000 apply and already get 7785 applicants on Free school meals. I think that’s quite high. Lots of the privately educated who apply are on bursaries.

Delighted to say I would have qualified for the protected intern application! Dc wouldn’t because we’ve achieved our social mobility!

I wish they had this thirty odd years ago.
I applied for loads of jobs in final year at university and got loads of interviews but no job probably because of my strong working class regional accent.
The job I did get offered had an Irish person as chief interviewer who would have listened to what I said rather than how I said it.

It is nonsense. I was one of the students who was subjected to such “outreach” activities. Ours involved taking G&T students from our London comp to visit Cambridge uni for the day when we were in year 10. We were taken on a lovely tour, spoken at about extracurricular activities that students at Cambridge did (a lot of talk about rowing) and then…shepherded back onto the bus.

No acknowledgement of the barriers we faced, nothing about the application process for Cambridge, no talks from admissions, finance, accommodation, SU etc. But I bet all the adults involved felt very good about themselves when we got back to our council estates. And guess what? None of us applied to Cambridge. I now have a PhD and a professional career. I most certainly could have studied at Cambridge. But as the first in my family to go to university I had absolutely no idea of what it would take to even apply. And my visit to Cambridge did not give me any clues.

It really is.