Civil service TP application

[Stressmess]

I work in the civil service and have done so for many years. I have just had the realisation that I am being left behind. I have made the mistake of staying in my job role for too long and that being loyal and the go to person has done me no favours. I have seen contemporaries of mine jump grades, in some case several grades. I had my opportunity at interview several years ago and I missed the mark and was completely gutted by it.

Where I am there doesn't seem to be any opportunity to go anywhere. Anyway a TP opportunity has come up in the same Dept but a different area and most of it covers what I am already doing and have a lot of experience in. Anyway my problem is while I am a great worker, I have difficulty in putting that across and selling myself. Can anyone help me get that across?

The three competencies are: 1. Setting direction - seeing the big picture, 2. - Engaging people - leading and communication/collaborating and parterning and 3 - Delivering results - delivering at pace and 3 big blank pages to fill in! It's just knowing where to start. The main feedback from my interview was that my examples lacked detail.

I would be so grateful if someone could help. Tia.

Is this the application? 250 words for each competence? Or the interview?

GenAI is your friend.

I’d provide excerpts from the JD, Civil Service Behaviours and marking criteria, alongside your Cv and ask it to create some answers. You can edit the outputs but you should find this much easier.

do you use the STAR method?

situation, task, actions an results

Is there someone at work who can be a mentor and help you work on your examples?

My DH is regularly working with colleagues on developing their competencies / STAR examples.

I don't think this is very good advice because you need to word your answers in a specific way and hit the indicators to score the points.
OP- get the framework up and look at each of the indicators under each comptetency.

You need to make sure you have good examples of times when you yourself have taken a specific action/ resolved an issue/ created a system or whatever that showed your ability to meet the competencies.

As someone else has said, use the STAR framework. Don't fall into the trap of spending too much time describing the situation. Most of your words should be used to describe what you did. Eg I identified that the workflow was not efficient due to problem x. To resolve this, I took action y and z. I also did A and B and the result was C.
Make sure you write something for every indicator under the competency and don't fall into the trap of writing "we did"- you won't get the points unless it's "I did".

You'll have to do this bit alone as no-one can tell you which examples to use. Once you've done this, approach a line manager outside of the recruitment process and ask them to provide feedback.
I hope this isn't teaching you to suck eggs. If you really don't know where to start, speak to your line manager. Best of luck!

What grade are you and what grade are you applying for? Have you asked to speak to the line manager for an informal chat about the role?

Thanks for your replies so far. This is for the initial application. Just the three competencies to be tested and three blank pages.

Sorry I have never heard of GenAI. What is it, where do I find it and how will it help me?

I know all about the star format but it's just how to actually put things in to words that baffles me.

No, I have no work mentor. The thing with my work is that it is a small team and a predominantly older bunch who aren't interested in progression. I think the problem with my previous interview is that I went in with no coaching and told them what I thought they wanted to hear and missed the mark. I would be keen for that not to happen again.

GenAI is generative artificial intelligence. It is essentially like software that can create writing. You give it information then it makes stuff up for you. I really don't think it's a good idea to use it here.

In what specific way is getting this into words baffling you? Have you got your indicators from the civil service framework for each of the competencies? This is available online. Have you got an example you want to use for each competency?

If your line manager isn't helpful with this, ask someone else (another manager, preferably one with recruitment experience rather than someone on your team). Generally I find people are really helpful with applications as we've all been there before.

Oh also speaking to the line manager about the role as someone else suggested is a good idea. This might give you a good idea of some examples to use for your competencies which are more suited to the role.
They obviously wouldn't be able to help you with your application, but it will still be useful for you to understand what exactly the role will entail.
What grade is the job you're looking at?

Does you department have Yammer (or whatever it's called these days)? I'm in HMRC and there's a brilliant Yammer group where people can ask for advice and colleagues offer to look over written applications for you. Worth checking out whether you have similar maybe?

@Stressmess I find it really difficult to write this sort of thing. I have the relevant work experience, and I can actually write well, but when faced with the ambiguous question and blank page I just cannot seem to start and get into it. Perhaps you are like me with this?

The way I get around it is to write it short blunt statements/bullet point first, rather than narrative paragraphs, and then go back over it to convert into a narrative description.

So, "setting direction, seeing the bigger picture".
Situation: I was working as a jobtitle on xyz project.

Task: For this I was tasked with
point one, point two and point three.

Action: Here, take the vacancy job description which probably has a collection of essential and desirable characteristics. Take each one individually and think to yourself, on the example I'm writing about, how did I display this characteristic - write each out as a bullet point, changing it from the job description bullet point into an action you did.
I did this.
I managed this.
I was able to complete this.
I demonstrated this.
When faced with a challenge I did this.
Etc.
When you have it listed out as a collection of single statements then you can go back through it, edit and convert it into a narrative paragraph.

Result: Bring this back to the subject. Think to yourself, if I was going to say "I was able to see the bigger picture whilst setting direction", how would I include my own detail in the statement.

Read it through at the end and think to yourself, if I was recruiting this vacancy and needed someone who met these essential criteria, does this example show me enough detail? The "action" section will be where you might need to include more on exactly what actions you completed.

Great advice! You've explained this really well. (I hope that doesn't sound patronising; it's not meant to!!

@Glitterandunicorns No doesn't sound patronising at all, I hope it's of some use to you/others. I always really struggled with writing these because the topics are so vague! Like "seeing the bigger picture while setting direction", what on earth 🤷🏻‍♀️ I could always much easier write something more like "tell us about your project management experience". I've left the civil service now and for recent job applications I'm just asked to send a CV, much easier!