Civil Service Interview Advice

[milziemoo]

Hi all
I had a grade 7 interview yesterday which included a presentation (I was given the brief 45 minutes before the interview). I think I did OK in the presentation but I completely messed up the behaviours - think complete and utter brain freeze!
I was wondering if anyone has interviewed in the civil service using assessment and behaviours and what tends to have more bearing for you?
I've made my peace with the fact it'd take a miracle to be offered the job but I'm just intrigued.
Thank you :)

Civil Service interviews are a nightmare and you really need to prepare - the interviewers have to stick to very rigorous marking schemes and if you don't have S.T.A.R. answers for each behaviour they can't appoint you even if their gut feel is that you would do the job brilliantly. There are consultancies which can give you proper training in these types of interviews and will help you to refine your answers to typical questions for fees of typically a couple of hundred pounds (though I was lucky to have a friend who was able to do the same for free) - the good thing is that all the job descriptions will include all the "behaviours" they are looking for and it is possible to find, with a bit of googling, a few paragraphs description of what kinds of things they are looking for in each behaviour category at each grade level. So you need to make sure your S.T.A.R. answers include key buzzwords from those descriptions. Given that you didn't do this then yes you may not be in the running for this one, but it will have been good practice to know what to expect for next time. There will always be a next time.