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

I have known people score 3 different scores on the same application and get through a sift for an seo post but not an eo post so go figure that one out.

That’s easy to figure out! By sending out the exact same application for multiple roles, you’re clearly not tailoring it to the role and the specific requirements of each role. It’s completely possible that by sending a SEO-targeted application for an EO post, you’re missing the level of finer detail required for a EO role as sifters are looking for what you did personally vs leading through others. It’s more individual casework vs team management/strategy.

I think this is what I find so baffling, the candidates I have interviewed from the CS seem utterly useless at competency interviews - the waffling was extreme - being concise is clearly not a quality they value.

Glad I found this thread as I, too, am fed up with CS recruitment. Just had two rejections without getting to interview. Now wondering whether I should be applying for HEO rather than SEO roles. SEO is on par with my current pay in the arts sector, although to be fair HEO would probably still be worth moving as my pension is almost non-existent.

@ColouringPencils unfortunately civil servants are generally paid less than private sector employees, don’t expect your current pay to transfer across. You may get more money for your skills in jobs outside of the civil service, but take a pay cut in CS. Only certain people are allowed salary uplifts eg analysts.

Talking of pay, I’ve just found my payslip from 2016, in 7 years my wage has gone up a grand total of £250 per month. That equates to £1.55 an hour. My responsibilities have tripled as they’ve cut my team by 50% and we have vacancies we cannot recruit into due to pay not keeping up with the private sector. Not surprising, Im leaving my job in 2 weeks time and moving into the private sector for a 53% pay rise!

@Frightenedbunny what’s stopping you from applying for new jobs though? Especially on promotion as your responsibilities have increased.

I’ve been in the civil service forever. I’ve been trying to get promotion for over a year but have just about given up on that now, I’m struggling to even secure interviews at my current grade and I have over ten years of extremely relevant experience in some difficult/high profile roles. I spend hours tailoring my examples to the job description. I’ve got extremely good relationships with former bosses, so most of my applications are read and edited by a director or deputy director before they are submitted. It’s very rare I get through to interview stage. these are some reasons why.

There are vast numbers of existing civil servants looking for jobs, all the Brexit and Covid work is over and roles are being moved out of London. Recruiters are overwhelmed with tons of applicants.

This Government is running out of steam. There’s no new policies or ideas coming through to create new jobs.

The process is hideously subjective as people have said and you have to basically answer questions like you are a sociopath who thinks they are awesome at everything.

where I have got interview at least half the time the job goes to an internal candidate. They have to put these roles out to interview but they already know who they want to fill it. One told me they’d never hire someone into a leadership position that they didn’t know (after a gruelling application process, two interviews and an assessed role play).

in one case I applied for a job I’d done successfully years before. It had been regraded because it was a bloody difficult job. When I was doing it I got an exceeded marking every year. Didn’t even get an interview. There was an internal candidate who got the job so at least they didn’t waste as much of my time as some of the others.

For reason I won’t bore you with I can’t stay in my current job. it has actually had a huge effect on my mental health. I love what I do but basically can’t do it any longer.

Thank you for being so honest and sharing your story.

I’ve got another interview - but actually I’m not sure I can even face it. I will give it a go as obviously all interviews are good experience but I’m pretty disheartened already

@Uselesslyuseless i completed almost 3 years in an interim position with a promotion, because of restructuring roles became redundant. I reapplied for another role on same grade but failed the interview. Hence why I’ve now secured another promotion in private sector.

So much sympathy! I’m applying for nhs non clinical roles and coming from the nhs. I’ve no idea how non nhs people would meet the criteria. One application had 7 pages of essential criteria to evidence! I did it but 2,900 words is mad. I only did a sentence or small paragraph for each essential criteria. Today’s was only 4 pages to meet and 1,390 words. I’ve done 3 applications this month and one interview so far where I was told I was over qualified. I’m exhausted! My current workplace is toxic and I just want to leave. The process is so time consuming.

In my experience, for the role you are applying for the hiring manager will pick the person they liked most in the interview and then write up their scores and assessment to reflect that.

So long as you are getting interviews, I would not give up. You simply need to hit it off in the interview and come across as a good match for the office and the manager you would be working under.

I'm in a public sector job, management level. Not CS. I applied for CS so many times, the recruitment is just absolutely ridiculous, the role I'm in now has all the public sector benefits but I didn't have to jump through ridiculous hoops to get here.
Try other public sector roles, council jobs etc. I know so many people in management positions in CS who never should've got those jobs, it sickens me tbh

I have a civil service interview this week and honestly dreading it, echoing how awful their process is

Glad I found this thread. Just came here to say I wholeheartedly agree with the overall consensus of the discussion; CS recruitment is utterly, utterly exhausting and demoralising. It's far too complex - disproportionately so for the salary offered - with far too many ridiculous hoops to jump through. The whole process takes months. I know of multiple people for whom it took almost a year between applying and actually starting the role. That's ridiculous.

I can spend days if not weeks writing and tailoring essay after essay for their application process, only to then wait weeks for a response at best. No job application should take that long. The process does not favour the best candidates, but rather those who can write the most self-aggrandising waffle and "flowery" stories about their past work achievements. Many people simply don't excel at that. Furthermore, name-blind recruitment only hinders and excludes candidates. I have several significant achievements that I can not detail in the application because to do so would clearly identify me. So again I'm at a disadvantage.

How are they persisting with this process? A quick Google search reveals hundreds and hundreds of people admitting that they find the process tiring, exhausting and frustrating. Someone should send this thread to their HR team.

I get the feeling of being utterly demoralised by the process. I'm in the CS now and am so ready to move on to a new department and challenges after working part-time while the DC were small. But I struggle to get interviews for jobs I know could excel in. I think my 10 plus years in the same role count against me. I'm wary of investing too much time into the process anymore as the disappointment is crushing. I can't turn the clock back and I cringe at the self-important nonsense spouted by many of new starters at the CS.

Definitely look at local govt. Particularly with your skills and background.

I"m pretty senior in local govt and can still work very flexibly around children

@crystalvapor name blind recruitment doesn’t mean you can’t set out your achievements, even if they are identifiable. It refers to removing personal details.

Add in your achievements.

Update: I had the interview and got the job! At SEO level.

It is possible to progress within CS and I think consistency is key if you’re not receiving invitations to interviews.

I’m an internal applicant but I don’t think my internal experience necessarily trumped any external applicants. I used external experience for 2 of my interview examples. My internal experience is very similar to the job spec but it’s a different area of the business, so I was still highlighting transferable skills vs mirroring the job description exactly. I even brought in things from my degree, so overall felt it was a fair interview that covered my experience from a 360 degree perspective vs just my civil service experience.

Furthermore, name-blind recruitment only hinders and excludes candidates. I have several significant achievements that I can not detail in the application because to do so would clearly identify me. So again I'm at a disadvantage.

You're taking that way too literally, you can put those achievements down.

name blind recruitment is to prevent unconscious bias due to protected characteristics or socioeconomic status etc. Eg I mentioned my degree but not the university it’s from

You can definitely work with that to outline your achievements. I would say it’s more identifying for internal applications for external applications anyway, cause even if you remove identifying information you might have had a high profile/recognisable role where the panel might click who you are

@sharpchrome congratulations.

I'm talking about pretty niche, industry-specific singular awards and recognisations, contributions to projects and publications in my sector. The kinda thing where there's a good chance that the sift/interview panel would either know immediately who I am if they saw these on my application, or could find out in 10 secs with a quick Google search.

Can you put those kinda things down? It seems to me that if people are unclear about what they can and can't put down, then it's not a very clear process or requirement.

@crystalvapor yes absolutely, honestly in my experience the whole "blind recruitment" thing is arse covering that no one over thinks. I put all my job titles and organisations down which identifies me, but I want them to know I was the lead of X in X organisation because it matters, you'd only have to google my job role to find me.

Agree with @ksjsb . If I say I represented X organisation by speaking at Y conference it might make it easy to look me up but a) I’m not going to not include it if public speaking is a key part of the role and b) I would assume there would be some internal guidance about not looking up candidates online if you can work out who they are.

I have temped on contracts in civil service and applied about 6 years ago for a role and didn’t get past their first round interview thing.

It’s notoriously difficult to get into unless you know exactly what they want ensure you know what behaviours they’re looking for and look at the success profiles. I had a colleague of mine who’d been in non government roles get a permanent HEO role over lockdown but she got advice from a fellow colleague about what to do and got it first time round.