Dreadful Civil Service Recruitment - Role Play?!

BigAunty

Has any posters had experience of role play as a method of recruitment for the Civil Service?

I just had one of my worst ever interview experiences by being sprung a 'role play' session on the day.

Before this masquerade commenced, I was given some basic info to prepare me for it.

I had to pretend to be a customer service rep for a fictitious company and deal with a fake complaint from a pretend customer. This pretend telephone customer was in fact a civil servant sat in front of me.

She was pretending to be annnoyed with the fictitious service while confirming she hadn't read the terms and conditions nor understood the type of service she had 'bought'.

However, during the charade I appeared to either be too stupid, or there wasn't enough information present on the brief, to answer many of the questions asked by the 'customer', nor would the 'customer' provide me with any information when I tried to clarify the position.

I basically ended up trapped in a Monty Python sketch. Is this really how the Civil Service recruits?

PasturesNew

Recruitment is never about getting the best person for the job. It's about HR justifying their existence by creating the latest/newest hoops for people to jump through, ensuring that people only "just like them" will get through.

I'd fail at any role play..... they'll have been testing/measuring you against some set of rules that they'll have learnt to do in some of their internal training programme in managing angry people on the phone etc.... which you've no chance of ever guessing right, unless you are already "just like them" and have previously been employed by them and so have been on the training course you were forced to go on ....

It's annoying that organisations don't want the best people for jobs, they simply want more sheep.

Then they'll bleat in the media about a "skills shortage".... no, you're just trying to measure people against impossible markers.

missbiggles1

I'm sorry you had a bad interview but the scenario you describe does sound very much like one you could find yourself in IRL so not unreasonable.

What level of job was this for?

daytona0

I had one of these a few months ago. No problem at all. I didn't get the job and the feedback they gave me suggested that I hadn't done one or two things correctly. Notably, I didn't try to sell a product at the end and the fictitious customer, whilst happy with the problem being solved, didn't feel that there was much rapport. Both were minor points which they could have coached me on (if that was even needed).

The same company actually employed one of my ex colleagues, a woman who had came to our company with limited English and kept making a hash of data protection (asking for name and address details) and rapport! I was tasked with coaching her, along with half of the other people. I also had a relevant professional qualification and more experience in the field.

So I was more inclined to believe that my face just didn't fit, or I was too ambitious. Either way, screw them!

Darksparkle

Haven't personally had to do it but know quite a few who have (usually a mock meeting used to show negotiating skills).

However it is only one part of the assessment along with online tests, competencies, interviews etc.

BigAunty

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I'm sorry you had a bad interview but the scenario you describe does sound very much like one you could find yourself in IRL so not unreasonable.

What level of job was this for?

AO.

I already know that role play is a typical recruitment activity but what I didn't realise was that it was just such a terrible device until it was unleashed on me, nor did I realise that I would react so strongly against it.

It was just so bloody sloppy and uncontrolled.

I'm expected to be able to create a rapport with someone pretending to make a phone call in front of me without using a phone?

What next for Civil Service reccruitment - an exercise that requires candidates to employ the power of mime?

missbiggles1

BigAunty wrote: »

AO.

I already know that role play is a typical recruitment activity but what I didn't realise was that it was just such a terrible device until it was unleashed on me, nor did I realise that I would react so strongly against it.

It was just so bloody sloppy and uncontrolled.

I'm expected to be able to create a rapport with someone pretending to make a phone call in front of me without using a phone?

What next for Civil Service reccruitment - an exercise that requires candidates to employ the power of mime?

A bit like real life then.

Again, sorry it didn't go well.

motivate6

I had do a role play in the past when they sprung it on me at the interview. I was only given five minutes to prepare and it was a total nightmare. So I totally understand your situation.
I had a interview recently where I had to do a role play but this time I was told in advance and I was prepare. I past the role play but I did not past the interview.

I am going through the interview process at the moment and it is hard.

motivate6

I had do a role play in the past when they sprung it on me at the interview. I was only given five minutes to prepare and it was a total nightmare. So I totally understand your situation.
I had a interview recently where I had to do a role play but this time I was told in advance and I was prepare. I past the role play but I did not past the interview.

I am going through the interview process at the moment and it is hard.

duchy

BigAunty wrote: »

AO

I'm expected to be able to create a rapport with someone pretending to make a phone call in front of me without using a phone?

?

In all honesty that doesn't sound unreasonable for a phone role .....would you have felt better if they'd given you a headset ?

p00hsticks

BigAunty wrote: »

However, during the charade I appeared to either be too stupid, or there wasn't enough information present on the brief, to answer any of the questions asked by the 'customer', nor would the 'customer' provide me with any information when I tried to clarify the position.

I've no personal experience of this type of recruitment, but if the post was for a contact centre or help desk type of role, this does sound like a reasonable sort of exercise to me.

In such roles you'll often (at least to start with) be in a position where you don't know the answers to all the questions you are asked.

And you only need to look at some of the boards here to see how bad many people are at clearly explaining what problem/issue/question they have about a subject and what they want done.

Demonstrating the ability to field customer questions without BSing them when you don't know the answer, and extracting key information from waffling customers are key skills that it would be important to test.

And how you respond to such a test out of the blue could also be seen as providing a view on how you cope under pressure and demonstrate your initiative.