Civil Service Interview

yellowlawn

About 6 months ago I applied for a job in the Civil Service and the interview was different from what I am used to and caught me off guard.

They don't ask the usual questions like "Why do you want to leave your current job". "Where do you see yourself in 5 years" etc. They were what I can only describe as scenario based questions. So for example, it says here on your CV that you were responsible for saving X amount for your department. What did you do to achieve this? Or give us an example of how you handled a difficult member of staff etc.

They don't seem interested in your technical ability or knowledge of a particular field. Even if you are technically qualified to do the job you applied for.

Someone mentioned to me once that it's called the S.T.A.R. interview technique. Can't remember what this stands for now.

Anyone with any experience in this, can give me some pointers?

Bogalot

It's competency based, you'd have received information on this before the interview.

If you'd done a Google search on STAR interview technique you would find lots of helpful information.

The key to interview success is good preparation, something to remember in future.

p00hsticks

There is a general 'competency framework' for all civil servants

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-competency-framework

In addition, there may be specialist frameworks for specific areas (e.g. IT)

Job interviews and applications will be geared around your performance against these competencies

Tiddlywinks

Here:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=STAR+interview

IamZlatan

I work in the CS and the place is full of incompetent a-holes, the irony.


In all seriousness though, you can make anything you want up. You don't have to have actually done what you say, they don't check. I once knew a guy who went for a board, of which one of his old managers was on, and he sat there and explained how he had saved the department x amount, by doing this and that. Truth was he didn't, it was his old manager (sitting on the board) who did such.


They have to believe anything you say as long as it ticks the boxes.

Transformers

IamZlatan wrote: »

I work in the CS and the place is full of incompetent a-holes, the irony.


In all seriousness though, you can make anything you want up. You don't have to have actually done what you say, they don't check. I once knew a guy who went for a board, of which one of his old managers was on, and he sat there and explained how he had saved the department x amount, by doing this and that. Truth was he didn't, it was his old manager (sitting on the board) who did such.


They have to believe anything you say as long as it ticks the boxes.

I haven't heard such a load of rubbish in ages - well done you!

IamZlatan

Transformers wrote: »

I haven't heard such a load of rubbish in ages - well done you!

HAHAHAHAHAHA


Do you work in the civil service??

TELLIT01

IamZlatan wrote: »

I work in the CS and the place is full of incompetent a-holes, the irony.

From my experience it's certainly managed by people fitting the description above.
To misquote the saying "Those that can do, those that can't get managment roles in the Civil Service"

dlmcr

IamZlatan wrote: »

I work in the CS and the place is full of incompetent a-holes, the irony.

I'd say this is pretty much bang on. (I am there on a LTD co contract at the moment). My impressions are that it is who you know not what you know that gets you brownie points / ahead and in terms of the work itself it is absolute choas, there is no structure or order whatsoever to things.

There seems to be a massive skills gap because fitting people with the skills needed into a suitable role just isn't a concept that seems to exist in the CS so you get a lot of people doing jobs where you just ask: "why"?

This is then combined with a large number of a certain "type" of incredibly arrogant person whose ability is inversely proportional to their perception of their ability, this is a type of person that seems to uniquely flourish within the public sector in general.

I would never ever consider working in the CS in a permanent role and I would strongly question why anyone would want a career in such a damaging environment.

Gavin83

This didn't take long to turn into another public sector bashing thread!

yellowlawn wrote: »

They don't seem interested in your technical ability or knowledge of a particular field. Even if you are technically qualified to do the job you applied for.

I'd argue that competency based questions are a better way of judging your technical ability or knowledge than generic questions are. What does 'Why did you leave you last job?' say about your ability? Ideally they'd be asking technical questions about your particular field but most companies don't seem to do this. I think building questions around what you've put in your CV is a great idea too. An interview with the standard questions is pointless.

Don't even get me started on the personality questions like 'If you were an animal what would you be and why?' or 'What is your favourite colour?'

To answer you I'd just pick a couple of scenarios that can cover a number of different questions and use those to fall back on. They don't even have to be real, you can make them up. Expect questions surrounding competing deadlines and processes followed. For example I work in IT, I'd expect a question around the deployment of an upgrade and the steps necessary to achieve this. A lot will depend on your particular field. It's not difficult as such, just a different way to interview which can be tough if you aren't used to it. Just take the first as a learning experience as improve for next time.

bouicca21

Seems like pretty standard questions to me - they should all have been predictable from the job and person descriptions.