To be utterly demoralised by civil service recruitment?

[MabelMoo23]

I’m currently working in an admin role after stepping down in my career due to husband’s role and family commitments. I’m now trying to improve my situation and am applying to civil service roles.

I know all about success profiles / strengths etc. I’ve researched throughly and I’m applying to HEO roles which are fractionally above what I earn now. My previous salary is that of SEO level, but I appreciate it’s tough to externally get into SEO level.

But I can’t seem to crack it. I’ve had 3 interviews so far, for different roles, two not made it, but one I got onto the reserve list after making it to the final stage and being invited to a “fireside chat”.

that was hard, to get close, but not quite close enough. So I paid for some CS coaching and to be fair, got given some really good tips - for example in STAR saying HOW you did the action bit to get the result, not what.

saw a great role, another HEO, so applied and, 2 of the behaviours were the exact same ones as the role I applied for that I got on the reserve list. I didn’t even get a bloody interview!!! So frustrating. I can’t seem to crack it.

the really frustrating thing is, for a role I ended up on the reserve list for, for this role, my score on two of those identical behaviours was a 3, (all others including CV and experience were a 4). So Which actually really means, that whilst CS recruitment is designed to be “blind” ultimately, the scoring is still subjective. And of course as a result, CS recruitment is still biased to a certain extent, because internal CS staff obviously know how to answer these questions.

but I just can’t crack it. I even paid for a session of coaching, then didn’t even get an interview and I feel utterly demoralised now and wondering if I can even face trying again with different roles. I’ve spent literally hours doing applications, I know for CS you can’t just bang out an application, you have to follow the behaviours in success profiles and give examples. I’ve researched so much, done 3 interviews, tried to learn from feedback and I’m just not cracking it.

I don’t know if it’s even worth bothering trying anymore because I genuinely don’t know what else I can do. Just feel utterly demoralised by it all. Sorry no point to this thread other than a vent

Have you thought about looking at Financial Services eg big banks like NatWest, Barclays etc. I've worked there previously and they are very good with flexible hours/work patterns etc (away from front line branch roles)

I see. From what I have heard NHS interview processes are pretty tough but after reading your post regarding the CS I am thinking not. What job did you have prior to children? would this be something worth going back into?

Try civil service adjacent bodies instead. Look for non departmental public bodies, or even local government. Recruitment is less proscribed, but conditions are the same - I work for an NDPB and we are members of the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme, and have very flexible conditions in most roles. Government agencies also tend to do more interesting work 😁

You might also want to look away from pure admin roles of the sort you’re describing - look at project based roles too.

I've applied for a few CS roles with no success, I just gave up on them. I got a job in the private sector and they are just as family friendly, if not more so. I wouldn't dismiss the private sector.

I'm a civil servant having joined from the private sector nearly 2 years ago. I joined at SEO level and have always been marked as performing well in reviews. I've applied for jobs at SEO and Grade 7 in recent months but have yet to secure an interview. I've even managed to score better in grade 7 applications than SEO roles fitting my background . My current role means that I have sight of how roles are filled in my department and despite the fair and open competition statement, it's rarely like this.

Have you considered university professional services they can be very flexible and offer well paid admin roles.

I tried for years too. DH work in the CS at the time and i knew what I was doing.

I needed flexibility because my second child is disabled and I had to put that on every application I made. I applied for jobs over a five year period (CS & elsewhere) and I got lots of interviews but no offers.

I concluded (sadly) that whilst thee CS offer flexibility to existing employees, they are much, much less keen on talking on new recruits who need it too.

Previous to being a Carer for a disabled child I was generally offered most jobs I interviewed for, so I'm fairly sure I was discriminated against.

OP, can you really be bothered? Honestly, it’s a candidate’s market out there! Go for a role elsewhere where there isn’t such bureaucracy.

I've worked in the CS for over 10 years. If I applied now I wouldn't make it.
I've applied for promotions in my field and haven't been successful at interview.
I recently applied for the role I was doing and didn't even get an interview
It's demoralising and I can't wait to leave.

In all kindness I think the salary issue may have skewed things a bit for you; you say that the roles you’re applying for are marginally more than what you earn now, and are lower than what you were earning before. The reality is that the civil service is notorious for paying significantly lower than private sector for similar roles. We were recruiting Quantity Surveyors at HEO level! It’s horrific.

But that may just mean that you’re applying for roles above your skill set and capability but not recognising it because you’re focused on the salary.

Have you tried HE? Flexible working, Local
Government pension and good leave entitlement.

Very good idea

The company I work for advertise vacancies for several of the CS organisations.

I can honestly say I have never read so much bollocks in job adverts as what they put on there.

One recent advert was more than 5000 words, other than the first paragraph none of it was about what the job actually entailed, contract details etc it was all just waffle about competencies and frameworks.

I can only imagine that the interview process would be absolute soul destroying and I would look elsewhere if I was you OP.

I have a 20 year career in project management. I’m applying for admin jobs. I have examples for every thing on the job description so I ensure that I can actually do said job. So I don’t think I’m just focusing on the salary, but I have to start somewhere. I’ve dropped low enough as it is salary wise, I’m not dropping lower than what I do now

Thank you for all the comments (yep soul destroying is summing it up well at the moment as the bloody applications take HOURS!!!! )

it’s been good to vent I have to admit, but also to read comments from those actually in the CS reassuring me that this is just situation normal for CS. I just need to think if I can actually stomach anymore applications.

I thought the coaching sesh would help me refine my application and that went tits up - so definitely not throwing anymore money at it as it just feels too risky so need to revaluate what is out there.

I hasten to add, I’m not looking for part time, more than happy to be full time but I just need to make sure I can get home in time to ensure my kids can actually get home from after school club - as in I want the flexibility to not be commuting 5 days a week as there is the danger I’d struggle to get to after school club. Im not even trying to be there for school pick up (although one day a week would be nice) - so I’d be happy with just normal hybrid to be honest

It’s not you that’s the problem, it’s the process. It’s all so dependent on the person doing the sifting and then the people who happen to be on the interview panel. You could say exactly the same thing to two different interview panels and get wildly different scores. It’s touted as being fair and transparent but it’s a horrible process, especially for people applying from outside the civil service.

We seem to be having a lot of applications for roles in my department at the moment. I think it’s just a case of applying for everything that you see and eventually you’ll get through. I’m surprised you weren’t offered something when you were on the reserve list. We opt for reserve list candidates over having to go through a tedious and extremely time consuming recruitment process every time.

What about staying within the NHS and looking at roles within Primary Care Networks? We have just appointed a Digital Transformation Lead, starting band 8A £48k, for example www.thcprimarycare.co.uk/post/creating-your-primary-care-network-digital-transformation-lead-job-description-and-90-day-objectives

My brother works for civil service and has done for years - however I remember he started off on a temporary contract and each year he went through recruitment process for permanent post but failed about 3 times before he got taken on permanently - it was really silly as even though he didn't pass the recruitment for the permanent role, they were happy to have him continue working on the remorse contract .

Almost always connections and whom you know (despite their claiming otherwise) and they generally have internal candidates lined up while waisting your time making their process "fair" by ""opening"" the vacancy to external candidates.

Also such HR processes with five billion steps, assessments and interviews feed the army of HR parasites and weed out anyone worth hiring with good skills.

Have you looked for local authority roles? Sometimes there can be good flexibility there - not as much as there used to be but it's still not too bad eg flexible working patterns plus hybrid working in many cases .

I would consider private sector. Lots of big organisations focusing on people/work-life balance and offering flexibility. Return to work schemes for women.
Have you tried using LinkedIn?

It took me two applications to get from AA to AO, are you applying to the same department each time? If so look for vacancies in a different apartment, chances are your applications are going through the same selectors each time & somebody different may score differently. Don't forget that there will be internal candidates & they will be given jobs first.

I work in the financial sector and it is extremely flexible, I second LinkedIn!

I am an old lag in the CS and I do lots of sifting and interviewing. I recognise some of the deficiencies of the system described here but one thing has not been fully explained.
The vast majority of jobs never get offered to external candidates. I don’t mean it’s a stitch up for an internal candidate but they are only offered ‘across government’. So you can hop about working your way up between DWP/MOD/MOJ etc with dozens of choices but if any department wants to recruit externally there are major policy hurdles. The CS will try to reshuffle existing staff instead.
This means most HO-G5 level vacancies are filled on promotion leaving vacancies at junior levels. The big external campaigns are for frontline, junior, customer facing, uniformed, shift working, London based jobs.

The only jobs in my area which go external are junior and operational or have some technical or professional qualification that is rare in existing staff. The last 8 HO-G7 managers we took on were internal promotion. All replaced by external recruitment of 8 EO grades.
So. If you can manage a junior grade for a while you only need to do 6m and there will be a massively larger choice of internal roles. Everyone I know at SO-G5 started ‘at the bottom’ apart from the fast trackers.

I don’t mind ‘success profiles’. The last campaign I worked on had 700 applications for national EO vacancies. We need a structured way to sift and interview.
Anyway. Best of luck!

@MabelMoo23 @Member589500 is right. Apply for EO jobs, tailor your examples to the EO competences i.e. dumb down examples if necessary and get in. Once in, you can get a mentor who can help with getting promoted. You can jump grades e.g EO to SEO, once you are in it is easier.