Interview advice for the DWP needed

DMCQUEST

omobaby99 wrote: »

How did your interview go? Any tip for me, I'm having mine next week Friday.

What type of leadership qualities/skills did you talk about ? And did you give series of examples or 1 example that demostrate your leadership qualities/skills?

Were you asked series of questions per competence, 1 question per competence or mixture of both - depending on the competence and your answers?

Thanks

Hi, sorry in the delay in coming back to you but had sign-on problems. I did a couple of competencies and used one example. In my waffle I explained that I had a lot of strengths but had chosen these 2 as KEY!. I don't think they mind whether you use one for more examples, I got the inpression that they were looking to see whether these were strengths and you could/had used them

As samr says, it is one question per competence and then a few follow-ups if you haven't ticked all the boxes. Don't worry if you get follow-up questions, they want to give everyone a chance to say what they can do.

Good luck for tomorrow.

omobaby99

Thanks to both of you. My interview is on Friday - I'll let you know how I get on.

DiggyDown

Hi,

I was reading through the posts because I too have an interview and presentation for the HEO posts on Friday. I just wanted to address one part, I was informed in the information sent with the invitation that the presentation is only for 5 minutes, with 10 minutes left for questionning.

Does anyone know any differently, because in the post everyone refers to 10 minutes not being long for a presentation.

DMCQUEST

My instructions were definitely 10 mins for the presentation and believe me when I say that isn't long enough. Anything you have planned for 5 mins, I bet would take 10 so don't worry about having more time.

The whole thing took about an hour including the post presentation questions and competency questions.

Good luck for Friday.

sportfan

To all previous, present and “future” DWP employees - My experience with DWP – I Finally have a start date!!!! J

Job: Benefit Delivery Officer/BDO/Band B

DEC 2008 – Applied
8TH JAN 2009 – Took tests
13TH FEB 2009 – Attended Interview
24TH FEB 2009 – Wrote to me – passed & on waiting list
7TH & 8th APRIL 2009 – CRB form sent to me to fill in and send back to DWP to send off to Scotland
20th APRIL 2009 – Pre-recruitment checks being done
21ST APRIL 2009 – Request to complete health, character, criminal record forms again (already done at interview but had expired)
14th MAY 2009 – DWP sent my CRB off to Scotland for processing
01 JUNE 2009 – CRB back from Scotland, checks come back all clear
02 JUNE 2009 – Phone call to ask me which location I want to work and start date!

That’s my experience with DWP and all in all, I was on the waiting list for 14 weeks! – I remained positive and very patient and kept on following up everything (CRB, Checks, waiting list position, interview score etc)

Would have preferred a customer faced role but I'm not complaining! (still on waiting list, checks being done for AO positons too)

I’d like to say a special thanks to each and every person who contributed on this forum with their advice, feedback, experiences and help to do with DWP and recruitment process. Special thanks go to those already working for DWP as well those who will be soon (hopefully). I’d like to wish people the best those who are applying/on waiting list/awaiting checks and hope you all get a start date soon (when you get the call, it’s a great feeling) – especially after waiting so long!

Thanks for reading and hope I didn’t bore you too much: P lol

Night

DMCQUEST

This is very helpful for those that may start to loose hope because of the time the process takes. It might be useful to know how often you chased things and how did you do that e.g e-mail or phone. Too much could annoy them and too little could make the process longer.

Well done on getting to the end and good luck in your new job.:beer:

omobaby99

Hi Guys

I had my HEO interview today. And I'm glad that part is over, just have to keep my fingers crossed for the next 2-3 weeks. I like to think I did well. The questions were pretty simple and straight forward. But of cause one has to be prepare to talk about one's examples in details.

PS: And do keep your answers simple.

I also like to say thanks to everyone contributing on this website, especially people from Sheffield - I thing a lot of DWP applicant on this forum are resident of that region - for all their useful infor.

I just like to clearify for those who are about to attend their HEO interview, that the presentation is 5min and 10min for questions, for the London applicant, while it is 10min. presentation and 5min. question time for the Sheffield applicant - I confirmed this today when I attended my interview. This is because they are runing a pilot/trial for this new recruitment procedure - hope is more efficient than the formal process.

Good luck everyone and please keep the ideals coming.

DMCQUEST

ER4CH wrote: »

I recently did the tests for an AO possion. I passed my tests and was invited to an interview on the 23rd. I attended the interview and had recieved no correspondence from them, until today when i recieved a letter saying saying that it confirmed that i had passed the tests with my score.
Does this mean i was unsuccessful at interview?

Thanks.

Does it say "We are now undertaking pre-recruitment checks"? If so then you are successful.

Also see if it says anything about a waiting list.

wabuthu

anyone else applied to dundee?

i've just done my interview today and i think it went well, but with these things you never know....now the hard part is to sit and wait for the results which i was told take between 2-4 weeks! I overhead one of the ladies saying it's because they need to do background checks and wait for the disclosure application form to be processed which is usually what delays things.

the interview was not as straightforward as i thought, i had read through the forums and prepared like one line examples in response to each question.....as it turns out the interview is about 25mins and there were only 4 questions.....so kept being probed to give more responses and explain further...hence each question was taking about 6minutes to answer! this was new for me as i'm usually used to giving short straight to the point answers but such was not the case. the questions are based on the preparation document they send to you before hand, in my case the 4 q's were on customer service, resource saving, managing people and performance evaluation. one lady was asking the questions and the other was writing down the answers, each answer has a full empty page to be filled in with all the things you say! i'd recommend carrying some water just in case they don't have any there because my mouth got quite dry.

as for the people in charge of registering your details before hand, i was wondering if they even finished high school i mean seriously they HAVE NO CLUE about anything, they kept making a million mistakes on my forms and when i'd ask the simplest of questions just to clarify something they'd give me totally wrong answers. The first thing they do in the registration is fill in your details and she put in my town of birth as my surname DUH! and further on asked me to spell my surname...at that point i wondered if she was illiterate i mean seriously! One of the things i totally regret is that on the disclosure form i didn't put my NIN since i couldnt remember it and the lady was like dont worry it'll be okay, i should have thought twice and added it in because now i've checked the website and it looks like it was a MANDATORY question and the woman told me it was optional.

after the interview you fill in like 5 different forms i'd recommend for you to know your gp contact details, your NIN, details of your addresses for the past 5 years...those are all i can think of for now. i was so annoyed because if i knew all of that info was required to be filled into the forms i'd have gone prepared. thats all i can think of for now. i really hope i get the job because i need the extra cash....i just hope i dont sit and wait for 4 weeks just to find out i didn't make it. there's not too many jobs available these days so that doesn't help either

jacksonstjohn

hi
was this interview for an EO post and where the questions asked based on the new dwp competencies? Have had a look at them and it seems that each competency is broken down into mini-competencies!

any help and advice would be appreciated

thanks