Civil service competencies, need help with specific examples please.

[HarryPottersMagicWand]

I have a job interview this week, civil service, competency interview.

I know the competencies they are going to ask me on:
Seeing the big picture
Delivering at pace
Collaborating and partnering
Managing a quality service

The application needed clear demonstration of Professional expertise which I scored a level 4 - adequate demonstration. I don't know if they will ask more of this in the interview. If I score like this on them, the surely the positions available are going to go to people who give good demonstrations?

I'm struggling for examples. I haven't worked in years due to ill health. I have 2 children at school. I volunteered in school last year and I often help out with the PTA. I have recently completed a business administration qualification and am due to start an IT one at the end of April. My previous job was with a mortgage company (which I had to leave for ill health in 2004 but I remember it very clearly) and in 2006-2007 I went back to college and did my levels 2 and 3 TA qualifications whilst working in a classroom, breakfast club and after school club. I don't really want to be a TA though, my strength does lie in admin and everyone I know says I would be very good at it, even my tutor on the business admin course.

This is all very spread out though and I'm not sure I can think of relevent, up to date examples of these competencies.

Any help would be very appreciated please.

I don't think that's an example an interview panel will want to hear though is it?

Well, I think you would just have to word it wisely

Yeah, I understand it's not easy finding the right examples.

Remember you are allowed to bring and look at notes if you get stuck but I would keep them organised to make it easier!

When is your interview?

10.30 this morning! Can't wait to get it done really as I keep going over and over everything and questioning my answers so once it's done I can chill.

I wish we could write them and then just have a friendly chat to gauge personality. That would be better for an interview .

Aww, it will be fine! Bet it will feel like it only took 5 minutes!

Best of luck let us know how it went!

I think it was ok. The managing a quality service was definitely the toughest and they asked when I had gone above and beyond and I went blank so I talked about how I did a recent business admin course and completed it to a high standard and the tutor was impressed with my portfolio and has agreed to.give me a glowing reference. Not sure how that will score me the.
They are interviewing a LOT though. I don't know how many positions, they aren't sure yet but it will be a few and I could end up on a reserve list for 12 months instead.

I talked about calculating a redemption figure within an hour when our standard turn around time was 2 days, I said about sending out seeds. 20 a day were expected by my average was over 30 with 53 being my highest and I said about me planning and organising a group of mums at school for a Christmas meal each year and a have all for to know each other and the school has even said that our year is a good group of parents.

I liked the office, there were some big people there. Someone we else was there at the same time as me and we were the only ones who actually turned up 20 minutes before like we were told to and I was the only one who turned up with a passport style photo, as we are supposed to. And none of that will count in my favour as the interviewers won't even know that (someone else dealt with us for the first 20 minutes before showing us in to the interview room).

Deeds not seeds!!

They said I wasn't the only one who struggled with the managing a quality service question. So that made me feel better.

Not big people!! Nice people ffs.

Glad it went well. Do you know when you are finding out the result?

They weren't exactly sure as there are 4 offices recruiting around the country and whilst the interviews for mine finish tomorrow, they aren't sure about the others and people won't be informed until they have all finished and scored the candidates. They said it should be about 2 weeks. It seems so long! I am a tad impatient though.

That's not that bad. Fingers crossed

Well done ! I'm sure dropping in that you acting on your personal development, and doing really well (the business admin course) was a realllh good thing to get in. Shows that even if you've been out of the workplace for a while, you are actively working to get back to work.

Let us know when you hear.

Hi! I've just had feedback from a competence-based interview I thought I did well on, but the written feedback says otherwise. It looks like they only gave me credit for demonstrating the competence if I used the exact words from the competency framework and every bullet point from the framework was addressed.

The written examples I have of competencies are apparently good though (according to two senior civil servants and the fact that I'm getting interviews). Would people recommend essentially memorising the examples for interview?

wigeon, that's what I am hoping. I was determined to get it in there somewhere, as well an mentioning I am booked onto another course soon.

That's not good bernard, that's got me worried now as I'm not sure if I said the exact words, probably not! I take notes in but I don't give them more than a passing glance as I don't want to look like I am just reading. I'll never remember what words to say even though I do read through and write out the expected competencies. Plus you can't know exactly how they are going to word the question or what they are going to ask. My previous interview they didn't tell me what competency they were asking about first, yesterdays they did which I though was good.

Hm, Bernard, that must be disappointing. IME, sometimes the people who didn't do the job didn't do bad interviews per se, it's just that someone else did better. And in the feedback you have to identify areas the unsuccessful candidates could have done better at. So, for example, with "collaborating and partnering", an acceptable answer would give details of how someone had achieved something by working with others, and how they'd build good working relationships. A stronger answer (am thinking of G7 level as that's what I've just been interviewing candidates for) would also talk about overcoming some kind of obstacle to joint working, or finding a way through difficulties.

I definitely wouldn't recommend memorising an answer - you don't always get asked something as obvious as "tell me about a time when you collaborated and partnered", and you do need to tailor your answer to whatever question you've been asked.

Personally I don't insist on people parroting the exact words from the competency framework or ticking off every bullet, and I don't think my colleagues do either. Although with a strong field of candidates it's good to have a full answer to each question which covers several aspects of that particular competency.

I'd really recommend asking if you could have a conversation with someone from the panel where you were unsuccessful - that tells you so much more than brief written feedback and is much more nuanced.

Another tip is to do mock interviews in advance, even though they are a bit cringy. They can be really valuable.

Thank you wigeon. It's what they are looking for as evidence that I've shown the behaviours that's eluding me - for example I know that collaborating and partnering requires building productive relationships with people. I can do that; I get positive feedback on how many difficult people I manage to form good relationships with and how many contacts I can use to make things happen. Its trying to explain how I build a relationship with someone that clearly isn't persuading an interviewer - I phone people up, I don't rely on email, my key strength is knowing what I'm talking about so that other people rate me and therefore are willing to spend time helping me. I ask them what their priorities are and what difficulties they have to deal with and thus figure out shared goals. What else is there to say?

I'm a good SEO in any role requiring knowledge. I get stuff done by being persuasive and persistent and respected for knowing my shit. Figuring out what interviewers want me to say beyond that is beyond me.
Joys of being autistic I suppose.

Hm. I think "collaborating and partnering" is more than building relationships with individual people. Do you talk about working with a range of docent people and organisations towards a goal? Or how you bring along and together people on something where there was disagreement or some kind of pressure or tension? Or working across different orgsnisational cultures or organisations, or teams within your organisation with different priorities to deliver your / your organisations objectives?

Is there someone in your organisation who you could sit down with to talk through some of your examples?

Didn't get it. Scored shit on the competencies. 4, 3, 3 and 2. I knew my managing a quality service wasn't good but I thought I had done better on the other 3. A 4 isn't really going to cut it at all is it. Didn't even make the reserve list which is so frustrating as I know I'd be good at the job. I think basing it on just competencies is a really poor way of interviewing and doesn't necessarily tell you enough about a person.

Sorry to hear that HPMW. I've gone through all the descriptors of meeting the competencies at my grade and the set for the grade above and written down how I'very met every single one of them. Then did an interview with the descriptors in front of me so I could make sure I covered all of them. Did loads more talking and hopefully sounded coherent. Was supposed to hear yesterday or today... also have another interview after Easter.

I think some interviewers are better than others at checking their understanding and trying to get the best out of you. I don't know if the one I got 0,1,2,2 was out of 3 or 7 but got 4s and 5s more recently.

Apparently the interviewers I had were really good at trying to get the right knowledge out of you to really help you. They didn't ask me too many follow up questions so I thought I had done ok. Now I'm thinking they didn't because they knew my responses were not good enough for the job.

Are 4s and 5s enough to get the job? My examples are never going to get me 6 or 7s, even 5 is probably a stretch although I thought they were about that, obviously not.

Sorry OP - you sound really hard working and with your attitude I am sure you will get something soon. I'm really impressed at all the prep you've put in. It's bound to pay off soon.

Oh, sorry to hear that. How disappointing.

I'm afraid you absolutely must see if you can speak to one of the interview panel to get feedback. Otherwise you will never know what you did to get the 4 (which isn't bad!) and to get the 2 and 3s.

I also wonder whether there's any way you can get a bit more current work experience, including volunteering experience?

4s and 5s should usually be enough to get you through, depending on what scoring bar they are using. IME, hardly anyone scores 6s or 7s.

And finally, not sure if you did do a mock interview, but I think that's going to be essential to help you move on and up, if you can find someone familiar with civil service competencies who can talk you through how to present your experiences in a way which scores well.

I don't know if the interviewing panel will give feedback. I did ask at the time if we get feedback and the woman said she didn't know whether it was given or not. As the application is done through a central process rather than direct with the office, how do you go about getting feedback from the panel as I don't have their contact details.

I did feel the 4 was my best example, although I thought it may be a 5. The 2 didn't entirely surprise me as I did say at the time I wasn't sure how relevant it was and this confirmed to me that it wasn't really. They did say everyone had struggled with that competency which had made me feel better at the time. The 3s, one was work related but I only had 1 role for that position and it was stupidly basic so there wasn't a huge amount I could say, the other 3 was a personal example of me organising the school mums christmas meal each years and how I do it, what a good relationship we all have and how the school even say we are a really good group of parents. I thought that example was ok but it obviously wasn't good enough.

I didn't even made the shortlist. They said that those who were not successful could go on a shortlist for 12 months for further positions, I didn't even make that which is really depressing as I know it's a job I could do well, the office reminded me a lot of my old job for a mortgage company and the staff that were with me sorting out my paperwork were really lovely and I felt really comfortable there. It's also annoying that I was the most prepared, had all the relevant paperwork that was asked for and was the only person who had bothered to bring a passport size photograph, as stated on the application, and was only one of a few who turned up 20 minutes before the interview, again like we were told to, and none of this actually counted in my favour because of the rigidness of competency interviews.

I have applied for a few more today, but as they aren't guaranteed interviews, I won't hold my breath for actually hearing as I haven't heard from any jobs apart from civil service ones.

I have applied for a voluntary position doing admin for a children's centre so am waiting to hear back from them. I recently tried to apply for an admin position with the CAB as I felt this would give some really good experience and I didn't recieve a reply and when I chased it up, they said it had been withdrawn! Even trying to volunteer isn't easy. I was volunteering at my DCs school and they don't want me either now.

Sorry that you didn't get the job, OP

For future / anyone else applying for CS jobs, it's well worth trying to structure your answers with the STAR framework:

Situation: briefly set the background for the example
Task: what did you have to do
Action: what did you actually do (remember to talk about "I" not "we"!)
Result: what was the outcome of the action

Also, always have another couple of examples up your sleeve in case the panel asks for "another time you have delivered a quality service" (or whatever). And for higher grade posts, also have examples of when something hasn't gone very well and what you have learnt from that situation

Good luck!

Sorry to hear that Harry.
How does the scoring work? Is each competency marked out of 7 - or do you only get 7s in the Executive/top level job interviews? Eg, if you are going for a grade one job you need to score 1s, grade two require 2s etc.
And how are the questions phrased? I can't imagine the question: tell us about a time you partnered and collaborated well.

Job hunting is so bloody depressing!

Basically, a 1 is you didn't demonstrate the competency, 2 is limited demonstration, 3 is some demonstration, 4 is adequate, 5 is good, 6 is above expected and 7 is beyond expectation. This was for bottom level positions, think it is the same regardless of the grade. And yes, that's pretty much how they word it. It's quite difficult and you have to be very specific, you can't talk about yoyr role generally or your skills. It is a specific example of that competency, in detail.

I did use the star method, I read up extensively on the the competencies and how to demonstrate them.