Civil Service sifting - big variation in scores (G7 posts)

[Levithecat]

Hopefully not too outing but I’m feeling really glum and know there’s a fair few CS here. I’m current CS but on Mat leave and have been applying for G7 posts - there are a few campaigns at the moment in my dept.

I applied for two almost identical posts and put in almost identical applications. I got good scores for one, was interviewed and just missed the grade but got positive and helpful feedback. I’ve just had an email to say the second was unsuccessful and I’ve logged on to see a row of 2s in my feedback.

I haven’t been in the service long and haven’t done recruitment so don’t know how it works, but just can’t see how I can score so differently. My boss had reviewed my examples and thought they were solid. It’s hard to talk it through with someone while I’m on leave and I will when I can, but can anyone shed any light?

I had really hoped to have another stab at an interview now I’ve been through the process once.

Haven’t they just completely changed their values and core competencies? I know someone who has been applying and it seems like a completely half baked process and recruiting managers seem clueless as to how to score anything. :(

Yes, lots of depts are moving from purely competency based to “success profiles” although the new “behaviours” are almost identical to the old competencies. And the other aspects are strengths, experience and something else (technical skills?) but each recruitment can chose which elements of the success profiles you use.

Have you asked for more detailed feedback from the one where you scored 2s? Especially if you say that your scores were very different to previous recent applications and you’d like to understand why. I’d be happy to give more feedback than the raw scores, particularly for someone in my own Dept.

I’m recruiting for three G7s at the moment (closing date 3 March), so if you fancy DHSC...?! I’m testing “behaviours” in the written application (ie basically competencies) and a mix of strengths and behaviours in the interview.

It'll be as simple as different people doing the sift. I didn't know you could see individual scores as a candidate though, is that through trac?

Are you with defra :o

Also, are you SEO applying on promotion? It’s possible one of the jobs was way more popular than the other so you were competing with a strong field of substantive G7s for the low scoring one. Although the scoring is meant to be objective, not relative to the field for that particular recruitment.

Stealth, you can see the scores through the CIvil Service Jobs web portal. Trac is for NHS jobs but not used by the CS afaik.

Trac is definitely used in the Cs, we use it

Thank you for the replies - I’m grateful.
What I can see is a score for each competency, eg delivering at pace. The two posts were only a few weeks apart and had identical competencies. I know they’re in a weird place trying to move to success profiles, as you say Boob. My interview had a load of strength based stuff in it which was actually quite fun, though the competencies are clearly still the currency.

Wigeon sadly I don’t think they’ll give detailed feedback from sift. And you could be right about the competitiveness, though the one I was interviewed for was a campaign with 4 posts, and the one I haven’t been shortlisted for was for 50 posts

So it looks like, as Stealth says, it’s just different folk sifting. Which is pretty depressing as it’s then just luck and not very objective. In large campaigns like this will they only have one person looking at each application?

Wigeon absolutely I would but I can’t be london based sadly! Assume that’s why your vacancies haven’t come up in my alerts. Thank you.

I think it will be because of the different people sifting. I've just recruited some G7s and the panel had differing views of the examples and performance at interview.

That was competency based though - although now we're going to start using success profiles.

Good luck for the next round - hope you get something soon.

To those involved in doing civil service sifts, are there "mark schemes" that you refer to to decide on the score you give for behaviours? Or are you shown any examples of what a 4 might look like compared to a 6, for example? Is there ever any kind of moderation process? What training have you had?

This happens all the time, I think it's down to different people doing the sifting.

As the competencies/behaviours were the same but the scores so different even though you used the same examples, it might be worth raising with your L&D dept as it seems there is a consistency problem.

A high number of applicants shouldn't affect your scores. Your application is either good enough or it isn't and if too many people pass at sift stage it's dealt with by interviewing eg the top 20 scorers, not by scoring harshly like that.

What were your sift scores for the first one? If they're using the 7 point scoring system, 4 is usually a pass so 2 is pretty much saying you didn't fill out the form at all - it's a vast difference and not at all marginal. I sifted some applications yesterday by the way.

To answer the questions about training, there is some stuff on Civil Service Learning (as yet incomplete) but I've not seen examples of what is a 4 what is a 5 etc. It's very much a case of look at the guidance and use your common sense. This is where success profiles will improve on competencies, as the behaviour descriptions in the guidance are more tangible a much less prescriptive. Many people get very tick box about scoring competencies.

Under success profiles recruiters can set their own scoring scale as well, which can be massively confusing - I applied for a job recently and didn't realise the scores were out of 4 rather than 7, thought I'd not done too well then realised I'd got maximum marks (did get the job!). I think the 7 point scale makes for more discrepancies too as people fixate on 4 as the pass mark rather than looking at the details - 4 is a moderate demonstration, 5 is a good demonstration.

One issue is breadth vs depth - some recruiters look for one really good example others prefer more than one and check that all the different aspects of the competency. I got feedback on one application to include more examples, reworked my answers and on the next job was given feedback that I should have given just one. Since then I have specifically asked recruiters which they are looking for - if I can't get that I tend to use one really strong example but add a brief summary of times when I have successfully demonstrated the other aspects of the competency. I don't know whether the new system will be any better!

Unfortunately being a high performer isn't going to help with CS recruitment, which is a skill in itself. As PP mentioned breadth is important, so often it's the things you've done outside your normal duties that give you the leg up you need.

I've recently experienced the new system as both recruiter and applicant.

When I was an applicant, the bit where you write behaviours asked for candidates to answer a question ("how do your skills fit the job" type thing). This was easier to write than competencies, although I did it with reference to the behaviours guidance.

The campaign I'm doing now asked basically for examples of different behaviours, so was exactly like competencies. I was a bit disappointed tbh, as the new system allows for so much more freedom/imagination when designing the campaign (wasn't involved in that!)

The interviews are split now into behaviours and strengths. Behaviours is the same drill as competencies, except the questions can be more imaginative than "tell me about a time you delivered at pace" - key is to identify the behaviour being tested. I had prepared examples but I found I had to think on my feet a lot more rather than regurgitating competencies. I thought it was much better. The strengths based thing is interesting, you genuinely can't prepare for it. If you're a CS already there is some really good info on strengths based interviews on CS Learning, in the bit for recruiters (rather than for candidates). It will show you what is being tested.

That’s very helpful / interesting Isleep. We do use the 7-point system. For the one I was shortlisted for they raised the cutoff to 5 at sift because of volume of applications. So I scored 5s for that and then scored 2s across the board at sift for the second application. I wondered if the scorer was old school - I’ve come in from a different career and 3/5 of my examples were from outside the service (but were appropriate).

They had identical behaviours to assess and I use STAR as usual. Tbh it doesn’t feel like the application stage is changing to reflect success profiles but the interviews definitely are, and I really enjoyed my interview. I know how I can improve on that, I just need to get shortlisted first! It is a bit demoralising.

I think I’ll raise it with someone if I can, as a consistency issue as you say.

Thank you Anne - I’ll keep fingers crossed for someone with a different perspective next time.

And good luck Cair Una and others!

I've done lots of sifting / interviewing as a panel member. There is a "mark scheme" although it says things like "substantial positive evidence" and "moderate positive evidence". More importantly though, before Success Profiles (only just introduced in my dept), we used the Civil Service Competency Framework , which sets out in a lot of detail the behaviours you should expect for each competency. So when you are scoring a candidate, you look for evidence about whether their example shows they have demonstrates none / a few/ most of those behaviours. It's pretty transparent because of course the candidates can easily look at the competency framework to see what they need to demonstrate. In a 250 word written example there's not room to demonstrate every single behaviour for each competency, and as sifter I wouldn't expect that.

In the sifts I've done, there are at least two people sifting (and in my recent open recruitment we will have three people, two G6s and an SCS). So that helps with consistency/ moderation. I've usually found that I'm within a mark of the other sifters or interviewers, I can't recall a time when I and another sifter / interviewer had completely different draft scores. It sounds like you have just been very unlucky with your 2s, or that Success Profiles has been difficult to adapt to (for your scorer maybe).

You should be able to give people credit for non-CS examples because the behaviours are generic. I certainly have done.

I agree the volume of applicants shouldn't make a difference, because it should be objective in theory....

OP, my vacancies are London or Leeds-based, so if you would be happy based in Leeds then they'd be open to you! DHSC policy roles. Why do you think you won't be able to get feedback? If you know who the recruiting manager is, you might as well ask - nothing to lose! Or perhaps talk to your HR Business Partner to see if they have an insight into why you scored so differently, given they usually sit on interview panels regularly.

It's always worth asking the recruiting manager for feedback, their details should be on the original job advert.
I applied for a role recently and scored really badly but the recruiting manager was open to giving me feedback and spent an hour with me detailing where (in his opinion) I had gone wrong with my competencies.
It's hugely frustrating though as these same competencies had scored me straight 6's in a previous application 😢

Thanks for this info everyone. I have my first cs interview this week. I have never applied before and the process seemed baffling, although explained very well online.
I’m a nervous wreck for the interview, even more since some helpful soul told me it was probably just a first interview. I’m hoping that because you have all the info beforehand it shouldnt through up any surprises. But who knows, I’ll just keep studying.

Iamtheworst - what kind of role are you going for? Have you been told if the interview is competency-based (or "behaviour" based in the new Success Profiles system) or strength-based or both? You can't go wrong with answering competency questions with the STAR technique (google it). You can tell a competency question as they tend to start "Tell me about a time when you..." or "Can you give me an example of when you....".

It’s a massive intake, 100 roles at the very bottom level. They said behaviour based, on the application we had to answer how we met them in the application before the online tests. I’ve prepared the points I made then, but also others in case they want different examples.
My other worry is the interviews didn’t seem to be that long, I have to pick of a list and they were every 45 mins. I’m hoping they are just really efficient and don’t have the 30 mins of faffing I’ve experienced elsewhere.

Hello, my first time on this forum but I am looking for advice on civil service sifts using the new behaviour and success profiles. I applied for my Line Managers position (D Grade) and my result scoring was shockingly poor. I answered 6 behaviours, 5 scoring 2 and 1 scoring 1. Using the STAR structure (only using one example per behaviour and consisting of 250 words). I also had help constructing my application from a Scottish Government B2 experienced in the Sift procedure. I feel the scores are not a true reflection of my application. Can anyone advise me how to address this. Thank you

Do you know what the equivalent grade is (eg SEO, G7)?

I've sifted a lot of applications.

There tends to be a bit of variance in scores because it's subjective, but if you're getting 2's and 1's I'd say your examples are simply not at the right level, possibly not even demonstrating the behaviour.

You might think your application is great, but obviously the people sifting do not. Your scores show that you were not even "nearly there", you were quite wide of the mark. If you had a mix of 3s and mostly 4s I'd say you were "nearly there" and there may have been an element of subjectivity.

When taking advice from people you need to make sure they have experience sifting applications at the same level you're applying for - so same grade or preferably above. I'm guessing that a B grade is lower than a D grade, so the person who helped you may well be experienced in sifting but not at the right level. Your examples might have got you through a B grade sift but don't cut it for D - the grade expectations will be completely different.

Also it's a good idea to choose someone independent to review your application - people you are friendly with tend to only tell you nice things which isn't overly helpful.

Hi thank you for your reply. The person who advised me is an SCS who does applications on a daily basis.the D grade is an EO post. I have.done my LM’s job on many occasions in his absence. Apart from the recruiting office does the employing dept have anything to do with sifting? Also is there anywhere I send my behaviours to have them assessed. They person who helped me I didn’t know as I work for the MOD. She was very practical and we used the behaviour guidelines.