Civil service interview question

[ColouringPencils]

Hi, I have had a couple of CS interviews previously and was a bit thrown by the format. Now preparing for one at HEO level next week.

I am told they will assess me on 4 Behaviours and 1 Technical skill during the selection process.

I have to do a short task/ presentation, which I think covers the Technical skill, though it may also cover one of the Behaviours.

In my previous interview I had one 'ice breaker' question eg 'why do you want this job?' followed by 3 questions.

Should I be preparing set answer(s) based on the 4 Behaviours they have listed? Or will they ask questions that may allow me to cover a couple of Behaviours? Will they also ask questions about the Technical skill if that is covered by the task?

A task. Likely to provide you with detail ahead of but some departments could be different.

One question per behaviour. Go and look at the behaviour definitions and think of several examples to match those descriptions.

Then a question for the technical question.

That is how we would do it.

At HEO level I would expect a fairly standard format so four questions of about 5/6 Minutes each on each of the behaviours. Have these prepared. Bullet points and STAR. . It’s likely you submitted at least one example to get sifted in to the interview so use that one but prepare the others too. You have to get a pass on each behaviour. They are marked separately so there’s not much scope for covering other behaviours in each example.

The last HEO interview that covered technical was a data one where the applicant was given a scenario and had to speak about how they would tackle the data question.

Definitely prepare for the behaviours, it is where you go into more detail of what you put on your application. There might be one which you haven't answered on but the behaviours are usually given as part of the preparation so you can plan. Use STAR but an extra R 'reflection' is helpful. So here you would say what you might have done differently, if it is changed how you respond to other pieces of work etc.

The ice breaker is not scored but treat it as a way to get something positive about you across. I used the my OU study for one and in the feedback this was commented on as showing motivation, self starting etc.

I have just remembered the ice breaker really threw me last time. It was something like 'tell us about something you enjoy'.

Yes, they have listed what the 4 Behaviours I will be judged on are. So I should make sure I have a specific answer or answers for each one. Thank you.

'Something you enjoy' has come up a couple of times for me. I've answered "working through my degree" and say about the learning for me, challenging but I am getting a lot of it and some topics are genuinely enjoyable. Another time I answered 'taking the kids swimming' as it time to focus just on having fun, no screens, no distractions, focused just on them.

Definitely prep for the behaviours and come up with other answers if you can. So you can say 'this also happened when X and I did the same/used the same'. Really focus on what you did and how your actions lead to the result.

The ice breaker is not marked.
It's designed to see how you communicate about something you can chat about easily. If your natural style is eg quiet and slow speaking manner - they'll not mark you down if you are like that on the 4 behaviours.
If for example you are really animated in your icebreaker then can't answer the behaviour confidently they'll assume not confident on that area

@ColouringPencils make sure you have at least one example for each and include what's in the expanded description. It doesn't have to be an amazing example. It needs to tick boxes on what you did. Use star.
Have a main example & a spare in case the specific example doesn't fit question.
Candidates often fail as answers too vague / hypothetical or too much use if We not I

Thank you all for your input, it was genuinely helpful and I felt so much better prepared this time than in previous interviews. I heard today that I got the job 😀

Great news!