Happy to get a Civil Service Interview! Any tips?

[Teaandtoast2022]

So after one failed application, I was successful on the second one in a different department which I'm absolutely elated about! It is the dream job and I really want to prepare well for the interview.

Any tips for the interview? It's on MS Teams - I've never had a online interview before so I am unsure about the etiquette.

Make sure you’re prepared with the behaviours and have examples following the STAR principle. Make sure there’s a lot of what YOU did rather than the team did. Check if there’s any strength questions. Although they are looking for a natural response there’s still a knack to the scoring. Lots of info online re strengths including a strengths dictionary which is linked to the behaviours so you can see which strengths they might use. Have a question ready. What are your departments top challenges at the moment, what would my first 6 months in the job look like, what would my top priorities / role be.

most of all don’t be tempted to read from a script as it’s on a screen, they can always tell

Good luck.

I sit on quite a lot of interview panels for civil service. Absolutely stick to STAR format and be clear of your role saying I not we.

A stronger answer will bring out a good result/outcome so you can give good sense of what the impact of your action was. Even better answers also reflect on any challenge you overcame which will give the panel confidence that you can handle problems effectively.

Don't be afraid to ask for clarification and ask for a question to be repeated if needed and if helpful jot down notes and if needed v high level bullet point notes to refer to.

Memorise success profiles with regards to the specific behaviour and strengths and make sure your answers are in STAR format and reflect the particular behaviour they are looking at.

what’s important to remember with civil service, it’s not about you as a person per se, they won’t be going on a gut feeling about you - because that is biased recruitment. They will go on skills only and that will come from demonstrating that with your examples - read what they are asking for in the criteria and then marry that up with the different behaviour - so delivering at pace , seeing the big picture etc etc

Thank you so much for all the replies, they are very useful. My interview is in a couple of weeks and I've started jotting down examples linked to behaviour and strengths.

I've been in another professional field for over 10 years, so this is a change in direction for me but I think I have lots of transferable skills.

@TonightMatthewIamgoingtobecher that's great to hear! So the position I'm applying for is EO. Could you maybe give me some examples of what sorts of questions they may ask for an EO role compared to say SEO?

Also, is there anywhere I can practice an in tray exercise? That's the bit I'm dreading, I've never done that.

I'm grateful for all the tips here, especially the star approach which I did use in my application. I just hope I do not sound robotic!

What's the role? I'm in a specialist area but could give general success profile advice

@TonightMatthewIamgoingtobecher the role is project support officer.

What are the behaviours? I can give you an example of some of the questions we have used recently to give you an idea. Difference between EO and SEO is the level of the example. You’d expect a much higher level example from an SEO than EO, purely as they don’t always have the experience to give higher level examples.

@Darbs76 Thank you, that would be great!

So in my application form, I wrote under scheduling, change control, knowledge management and stakeholder engagement.

I've also attached a photo of the behaviours in the attached support documentation:

I hope the photo worked!

We always had a question about "What do you understand by the importance of equality and diversity in the workplace" or something similar in our interviews. It almost always threw people who hadn't prepared. Google it and mention legal protections, protected characteristics, eliminating discrimination and the benefits to all of increasing diversity.

Those don't appear to be the behaviours we use in civil service success profiles, sorry not familiar with them.

Is it local government not civil service perhaps?

Definitely stick to the star format. Be flexible with your answers so they are relevant - I interviewed someone recently who had clearly decided what their answer should be regardless of the exact question I just read out a preprepared answer! Not great!

Just thought I’d update this thread -

I got the job! Absolutely elated!!

Thank you for all the advice on this thread, it was very useful.

Congratulations

Great news well done