Civil service suitability statement

[Rollerbird]

Getting bad scores
What format would you suggest?
I'm doing mini behaviours with different examples to reflect the essential criteria.(star)
Then a summary at the end about how this shows my suitability. It's obviously not working!
Any tips anybody?

Are you using their language to reflect the back the behaviours etc? Are your examples strong enough?

I thought that I was! @pinkfootstool
I've used different examples than my actual behaviour statements (which were my strongest)
Should I use different ones in the statement or does it matter?
If it doesn't get past the statement I'm falling at the first hurdle!

I'm writing my first one of these right now. Do you know if they are assessed by a person or a computer? I'm trying to input as many key words just incase. I'd have thought STAR was the right process too, although i've not gotten that far yet.
The guidance i've been sent says that you can write a paragraph that would fit a few of the criteria and thats fine?

They get sifted by real people. There is a standard setting meeting before they begin sifter so you can score 2 in one exercise and 7s in others so it's quite a bit of pot luck. I would say if you are consistently scoring low there is something you're not quite meeting. Get someone else to go over them with you.

If they have asked for a statement of suitability they mean how you meet the essential criteria in the job ad, rather than how you can demonstrate the behaviours listed in the ad. Not behaviour examples (and it sounds like they were asked for separately anyway).

For instance recently I did a campaign where I the essential criteria were experience of the particular business area and experience of leading a team. What I needed to see in the statement of suitability was a summary of when the candidate had done these things e.g. I worked in x business area in this context for this long successfully and (briefly) this is what I achieved, and I have led x teams doing x, my approach to leadership is x etc.

They are read by real people. Don’t rely on dropping in buzz words as it often ends up looking like you’re just reciting the job ad or the behaviours dictionary back to the sifters rather than providing actual information about you and your achievements. I’ve never done standard setting before sifting, we sift separately and then meet to agree scores afterwards (different departments have different approaches tho).

I've got 2 interviews now!
Thanks for the advice

Make it easy for the people shortlisting to see that you meet the criteria and don't summarise at the end just do good star examples so you're not repeating yourself.

Go through the essential criteria and make sure you very clearly demonstrate that you meet that criteria