Public Sector application forms for higher grades

notsurewhereIstand

Well the good news is I've got an interview, so any public sector interview tips would be appreciated.

lincroft1710

Don't mention golf as a hobby. They'll think you're either a typical a... licking crawler or will want time off in busy periods for inter departmental golf tournaments.

WhiteHorse

eamon wrote: »

The initial advert will be general in appearance. Unsuspecting applicant receives the best part of a large tree through the letterbox, reads through the mighty tome and realises that they don't know how to complete the application form ...

Insert: 'and is revolted by pages of trendy American-style psychobabble'.

... and thus they don't apply for the job.

Mission accomplished. Job given to friend or relative.

Andy_L

notsurewhereIstand wrote: »

When they are being assessed are the ones that clearly demonstrate satisfaction of their requirements, in say a box ticking fashion, the ones that are most likely to get interviews?

Yes, but then that would be the case for any job application private/public or application form/CV

newmumincov

It's most likely going to be a competency based interview as these are very popular in the public sector. If you have any documents called competency framework, behaviours etc then this will give you clues as to what they might ask (it'll say things like teamworking, resilience, prioritising etc). If you don't have one it's worth asking if there is one, otherwise look at the person spec and role spec and see what buzz words jump out at you.

Generally there will be 6 or 7 questions asked of all candidates. These questions will be set so that you can show how you meet the behaviours required so you need to prepare a range of examples that show how you do. Eg. working on a team project, dealing with a last minute setback, how you prioritise your daily workload. They can be pretty mundane examples, but you need to make sure you talk about what you did rather than talking about "we", even in a teamworking example - what did you do to fulfill your particular role as team member to acheive the outcome.

You need to try to give your answers/examples in a way that makes it easy for the interviewers to tell if you've shown that you meet the criteria as there will usually be a scoring system. A useful way to structure these examples is the STAR format

Situation and Task: briefly describe the issue or problem and what needed to be done
Action: describe what you specifically did to tackle the issue or complete the task
Result: what was the outcome? did it all go ok? what was the benefit? did you learn anything? if it didn't work out what did you learn and what would you do differently again.


Usually one is a diversity based question: there are now 9 strands of diversity due to the recent Equality Act although there used to be six. The original six are age, gender, race, religion, disbility, sexuality, and now gender reassignment, marriage/civil partnership and pregnancy have been added to the list, see http://www.slideshare.net/WandaGoldwag/the-six-strands-of-diversity-1760193 and http://www.esfrs.org/equality/entryPages/equalityAct.shtml

In terms of a diversity question it's worth describing what the 9 strands are. One way to answer it is with an example of how you met the needs of people in one of more strand whilst going about your work: e.g. having to make different allowances for elderly or disabled customers.

To ne honest, I know this probably sounds like a complete parlarva, but I've found that this is a very useful way to prepare for interviews, even when they've not been competency based. I went through a phase in 2010 when I seemed to be going to an interview every month. I prep about 7 examples on index cards.

Also if you can't answer a question straight away, it's ok to pause to think, or even to ask if you can come back to it later. The same, if something occurs to you later in the interview, it's OK to add it in. It doesn't make you look bad - quite the opposite, it shows poise.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful and I wish you the best of luck

LondonDiva

Go online and skim their website and check out any corporate objectives. You need to review any changes etc in the area (legislation / policies etc). Also check out whether there is a policy or guidance for the area nationally or on the website and read through so you can demonstrate an understanding of the team.

Have there been any redundancies or restructures in the department or organisation?

notsurewhereIstand

Thanks newmumincov and LondonDiva great advice.

notsurewhereIstand

The job description and person specification didn't have competencies detailed, but the competency questions came up.
I felt I answered them pretty well, there wasn't a diversity question.
Other questions were technical, which was straight forward.
The opener was a general, 'tell us about your career'.

I'm applying for another opportunity, with much better JD and PS documentation, and hope to get an interview for that one, and put this one down as a practice.