Civil Service interview examples

[NoTvNoWifi]

Hi all. I hope somebody out there can help as my head is fried with google. I am totally delighted to have an interview for a dream job for the MoD HEO. I am new to civil service interviews and am struggling to figure out how many examples I should prepare. The interview will be a blend of are four behaviours and experience. Should I prep four strong examples around the behaviours AND examples for all the essential criteria? Do they literally say this is a question about Seeing the Big Picture or do you have to realise that from a more obscure question. Please somebody out there put me out of my prepping confusion!!

They will literally say ‘this question is about seeing the big picture’. Yes. They always tell you which behaviour they’re assessing in the question.

But they can work across your answers to score each behaviour too.

Thank you for replying. Would it be tell us about a time you had trouble with a colleague - this is question is about seeing the big picture? Or just tell about a time you saw the big picture?!

It depends. I think the more common approach would be. ‘This question is about communicating and influencing. Please tell me about a time when you successfully influenced the outcome of events.’

It’s possible they could ask ‘give me your best example of seeing the big picture’ though. But much less likely.

My suggestion would be to think about several different examples and how they relate to each of the behaviours. Say your behaviours are: seeing the big picture, communicating and influencing, making effective decisions and delivering at pace.

Maybe try to think of 5 examples (so you have spares depending on what they actually ask) and think about how each example shows the behaviours (where possible).

you can reuse the same example in the interview too and relate it to a different question. So maybe you have a great example of a project you were involved with where your role was to communicate what you knew would be unpopular (but necessary) changes to a group of people. It’s a great answer for a question about how you used communication techniques to diffuse difficult situations. But the same project also had very tight deadlines (and was highly strategic for the company), so it’s a good example for the delivering at pace question too. There’s no reason why you can’t come back to it and outline the pertinent bits for that behaviour.

the panel won’t see your application either, so you can reuse anything in there. And don’t assume they know something because it was in there. Just tell them everything they need to know because they haven’t seen it.

They will tell you the behaviour then ask you a question. So I would prepare a few examples of each behaviour so you aren’t accidentally stuck with an example that doesn’t fit the question

A good tip is to prepare your examples, and make really quick and accessible prompts about them rather than much longer, properly worded prose. That way you are much less likely to end up reading to your panel. And you’ll be better placed to adapt to the specific questions you’re asked.

Thank you folks. This is such a minefield and you have been hugely helpful. I need to work through the fear of the unknown and focus. Will prepare my examples and try to put them in my brain so they come out as naturally as possible!

What does HOE stand for?

Higher executive officer. It’s a civil service grade.

This is the defra explanation.

Ah yes, so total brain freeze

i do know that the civil service as you go up the tree like to internal promote heavily

OP I've just seen quite a good unofficial guide to the civil service interview process posted on LinkedIn. If you have an account, search for Nathan White and he's posted it free to read.

Will do right now thanks!