Civil Service questions

[Teaandtoast2022]

Hi everyone

So I’m moving into another career change and I have started applying into project delivery/policy roles in the Civil Service and I had a couple of questions.

1. My first application was not successful. Apparently I scored high enough to secure an interview, but due to the volume of applicants they raised the score you needed, and assessed against the ‘lead competency’. What does that actually mean and is there any way I can prepare for this in future applications?
2. I have applied for a job in a particular department, but I know it can take some time to hear back. In the meantime I have found another job in the same department I’d like to apply for. Is that allowed? Or do I need to wait for a response from the first application?
3. if successful for an interview, apparently I need to do an in test exercise. I have googled, and I sort of understand, but it would be useful to know exactly what it is from someone who works in the civil Service.

Any tips for an interview? I can cope with an interview in my current field, but I’m actually terrified of interviewing somewhere completely new.

Thank you!

Sorry in tray exercise not in test. Autocorrect haunts me!

I worked for a while in CS a few years ago, my experience would be slightly out of date now perhaps, but I would say:

1. It sounds like basically so many people met the basic standard to be invited for interview that they picked one criteria they thought was most important and shortlisted based on that, like most oversubscribed jobs really, just they've couched it in typical CS jargon. I wouldn't have thought you can do anything about it. Continue to tailor your applications of course and address their essential criteria. Maybe focus more on the essentials than the desirables if there's limited space/word count?
2. Apply for as many jobs in the same department as you like. There's no etiquette against it.It's doubtful job A will even know you've applied for job B unless it's literally the same team and same people shortlisting and they happen to remember your application.
3. In tray exercise is basically a list/bundle of typical tasks you'll do in the role (might be on paper or electronic) - so for project management I guess it might be things like replying to emails, putting together project documentation, arranging a meeting, doing some data analysis. Part 1 of the task is usually to prioritize the tasks, sometimes with a rationale and then there's sometimes a Part 2 where you actually have to start doing them. Sometimes they interrupt you in part 2 with 'new' tasks and nearly always there isn't enough time to complete everything, this is part of the test. Often there isn't a clear right answer particularly to the prioritization tasks (e.g. do you clear off a quick but not urgent task before focussing on longer but more important things, either is often OK so long as you do anything urgent first) but they basically want to see you have a sensible approach and enough knowledge/experience to understand what can wait and what can't.
4. Interview fairly standard usually, a lot of CS uses standard competency based questions, some have moved on to more 'strengths based' or 'values based' (don't ask me the difference, I don't really understand!) - but the same preparation really holds for all, prepare good answers to why you want the job, how your skills/experience fit, what your strengths and weaknesses are, lots of good examples of how you have demonstrated the various competencies or skills they list on their advert/person specification. CS tends to like well structured answers but also that hit whatever their latest buzzwords are (which will vary by department but fairly likely you'll be asked something about equality and diversity or inclusion at any interview for instance). Do an advanced search on CS interviews on here as there is good advice, although beware a bit that some posters don't always fully appreciate that the cs is very big and diverse and what is always true in their department might not be true of others. The big behemoth national departments like DWP are very different to the smaller, more Westminster-centric ones like DCMS which again are different to the highly specialised arms-length-body type ones like some parts of the Environment Agency or some of the health agencies, so take everything with a pinch of salt!

Good luck...

Agree with above so just on 'lead competency', if there are more than a certain amount of applications the hiring manager only has to score the competency they deem the most important (the lead). So irrespective of how good your other ones are, they won't be read and only the lead competency score will matter. Usually it says which one it is somewhere on the job spec but otherwise it tends to be the competency listed first

Thank you so much @maxelly for taking the time to reply and such a detailed response too. It was very useful! I’m hoping I get an interview - even if I don’t get past that - it’s experience which I would like. Out of interest, which field do you work in? What is the CS like to work for?

Thanks @dancingmice that makes sense - it would be a minefield to read through that many applications!

The recruitment process seems so tough for CS - but I’m enjoying the challenge!

My field is health so I worked with DH and various of the (then, they've all changed around by now) ALBs that fell under DH - so like I say potentially a very different experience than other parts of the CS. On the whole I liked it, I found them very supportive and flexible, miles ahead than the rest of the public sector on remote working and flexible working and so on. The money pretty good (again comparing to other public sector here, not to private sector!), the pension scheme and other terms excellent and the work largely interesting/fulfilling, people mostly very nice, the offices and general facilities and IT positively palatial compared to typical hospital or council grot-block with 1000 year old knackered PCs and a rat infestation (like I say everything is relative!).

Like all institutions the bureaucracy, hierarchy obsession and slow pace of change sometimes is absolutely maddening, yet on the other hand you do have to get used to the painstaking work of years being swept away overnight when there's a change of minister and/or total about-turn in policy, people unable to cope with that generally do not thrive. There will be very frequent restructures as departments and agencies get reshuffled to go with whatever the political mood or whim is at the time, but rarely will anyone actually lose their job unless they deliberately go for one of the very generous VR schemes or are that rare beast, a CS so totally useless they actually get sacked, but again if you are the sort of person massively stressed out by constant job title changes and having to reapply for your job every 3-5 years then (some) CS jobs may not be for you. Civil servants do absolutely love a good moan and whinge also so people will often come across as miserable and doom and gloom particularly if you ask them what the CS is like to work in, take it all with a pinch of salt, people often stay around for decades so there must be something good about it! In the end I left just because I got a bit fed up with being so remote from actual healthcare delivery and wanted to be a bit closer to the action so returned to the main NHS (CS can feel a bit ivory tower land especially in Westminster) but that wouldn't apply to all CS jobs at all...

Environment Agency here. I couldn't have put it better than @maxelly.

Technically EA is not CS, but we use the same recruitment processes and interview methods and report directly to Defra, so we are very similar in all but pension!

The advert should tell you what the lead competency (or behaviour as sometimes called) is. You need to make that strong, as if a lot of people score a 4 then the pass mark could be increased to 5 or even 6, saves interviewing too many people

I've interviewed a lot of candidates over the last 3 years. Strength questions are designed to be scored on the passion and interest you show in your reply. So for example a question about whether you feel comfortable challenging a senior leader or minister, if you look hesitant and don't sound convincing, you will likely score lower than if you reply confidently that you would definitely challenge upwards if you felt that evidence was being ignored or there were good reasons to doubt the decision would be ethical. (Just a for instance).

The scoring is 1-4 where 1 = not a strength, 2 = learned behaviour, 3 = potential strength and 4 = strength. You want to aim for at least a 3. The best answers are spontaneous and relatively short, definitely not waffle.

A really absurd aspect of the strengths scoring is that enthusiasm is prioritised over competence. Basically they’ll often score you as a 3 for sounding enthusiastic even if you have no experience and can’t do the thing. You can get a 2 for not being enthusiastic even if you’re really excellent at doing it. The way the training is done encourages this.

It’s ridiculous. There are bits of any job that people don’t like. As long as they do it competently, it doesn’t matter they don’t like it. People should not be penalised for not loving admin tasks. Or being poor at acting like they do.

I really hate the strengths stuff in success profiles. I think it might actually be quite discriminatory.

@SudocremOnEverything I totally agree. I hate the whole recruitment process to be honest, it's so variable between teams let alone departments. I don't feel like it's particularly easy to understand for candidates. In my experience, recruiting managers are given a briefing by the HRBP on how to score, and often panels don't get curious enough and then end up with someone who can talk a good game and give excellent eye contact. It's all a bit clinical.

With competencies make sure you read up on civil service success profiles and look up the specific type of behaviour that they are expecting to show that you meet that competency. It's not always what you might expect would fall into that category. Once you have that detail, use one or two examples of a situation when you've displayed that behaviour.

It is much easier for the sift panel if you follow the STAR format for your answer - what was the situation, what was the task that was required, what action did you take and what was the result. Of these the 'action' bit is where you need the most detail.

You can also prep some examples for your interview so you have them up your sleeve when they ask you on behaviour questions. But if you do need to think on your feet with a behaviour question, again try and follow STAR and really focus on what YOU did in detail. So instead of saying 'i got the team to work well together' explain HOW you did it. I was on a panel recently and lots of people didn't do this and did not score as highly as they could have done.

I actually liked my CS interviews because I felt that I could prep a bit in advance.

Good luck!

@MilliwaysUniverse i have actually written a 35 page paper about how terrible the strengths bit of success profiles is.

But, I agree, the entire process was set up to try to be fairer and actually created a system where people needed you be trained and experienced in applying for civil service jobs even to get a chance of one. It’s horrendous.

I had a hideous experience interviewing for one of those bulk HEO recruitment campaigns (in policy). It was abundantly clear that the panel was incapable of actually assessing a candidate in a meaningful way because they were only going to look for things that fitted their mental image of ‘people in policy in this department’. It was demoralising and helped me to realise that I’d never progress within the civil service, not because I wouldn’t have been excellent in the role, but because I was always going to appear ‘not us’ in interviews. I worked in a team that’s told was to not do things the civil service way. But that was an issue because of the way roles, rather than individuals, are graded in the civil service.

Tbh, it’s quite obvious to almost everyone how much civil service recruitment procedures hamper the civil service in recruiting people who would be right for the role. And in finding pretty much anyone in highly skilled specialist roles. The grade structure makes it difficult in so many areas, even with additional payments - but then the actual sifting and interview processes mean great candidates are rejected because they weren’t sufficiently adept at applying for jobs the civil service way.

It’s all stupid.

Thanks everyone and I do agree, the recruitment process does make it so hard for credible candidates to
make it through. They want their work force to reflect the society and ‘real’ people - but make it so tough!

I haven’t heard anything. When I log in the status is - application being processed! I’ll update the results. I hope I get to interview stage I’d love to have that experience.

I’m just reviving this thread as applying for lots of CS jobs at the moment, in DCMS, and found it so useful.

@SudocremOnEverything I just wanted to say you make me feel so much better- I am a senior creative industries professional with lots of formal management experience and genuine passion for and interest in how people work and how we foster U.K. creative talent and currently applying for the tons of jobs coming up in this area that are now devolved.

You are so right in that I need a training course on just how to apply. I am treating it just like learning a new language. It is crazy though because they want people from creative industries, but we recruit SO differently! Even learning to do STAR answers is hard. I actually do appreciate the fairness element of it, far too much industry recruitment is done over a ‘little chat’ in a private members club.

I can see the results of my first two applications in the autumn, both jobs that I am more than abundantly qualified for and I did such crap applications that I got 2s and 3s. The shame! I am now forcing myself to do one or two applications a week and reading everything available online about how to get better scores - but it’s really hard!

@Teaandtoast2022 how are you getting on?

@Sparklingblah I got the job! I was absolutely blown away but I’m so thrilled! I think I could be really good at this, and I’m so excited to start!

It really is a tough process to get in, but the application form I feel is the first really big hurdle. It took me a month to write 2000 words, edit, edit, edit again. What I found, this time, that possibly helped me scored highly was being very specific about what I did that helped produce good results. I used lots of proactive vocabulary for example, amended, motivated, supported, planned, created, challenged, monitored, produced, organised.

I come from a completely different field as well, so I completely understand what a minefield it is to navigate the application/recruitment stage.

@Teaandtoast2022 wow congrats!!!! So pleased for you, I hope it’s going really well.

That’s so interesting, three new positions have now come up and I’m going to follow your example and really masterclass the applications. Brilliant tip re using the proactive vocabulary (two words I would barely ever have used a few months ago!)

@Sparklingblah Thank you so much! I’ve just received my start date, so I’m feeling incredibly nervous but excited too!

I mean I am not a civil service expert, but reading around forums etc it does appear that the mountain to overcome first is that application m. Once you’ve mastered a really good application you can use and edit it for more applications etc.

Let us know how you get on!!