Civil Service jobs - STAR based questions

zacepi

Hi all,

Thinking of applying for a civil service job, and the online form has sections for describing things like Decision Making and Caring with a 250 word section to fill in based on the STAR system.

On some answers I have prepared I have only got a maximum 50 words. I think I have said everything I need to say in those 50, and to get it up to towards 250 would just be repeating a previous answer.

Is anyone here involved in HR for the civil service and know if it's better to put a succinct reply even if it's well short, or should I just pad it out to 150-200 words?

tnx

Kathy535

If you only have 50 words then you aren!!!8217;t giving enough information. The people sifting your application won!!!8217;t always refer to the other competency examples.

Do you want to post what you!!!8217;ve written here for feedback?

Tiddlywinks

Wow - you managed to describe a situation and task, outline actions and explain outcomes in fifty words? That's taking brevity to a whole new level.

Marvel1

zacepi wrote: »

Hi all,

Thinking of applying for a civil service job, and the online form has sections for describing things like Decision Making and Caring with a 250 word section to fill in based on the STAR system.

On some answers I have prepared I have only got a maximum 50

This alone is 50 words.

Situation
Task
Action - being the bulk of it.
Result

In those 50 words?

KiKi

If it helps, OP, this is what I'd expect to see in a STAR type response (this is completely made up, by the way!). Let's say the question is about a time you went out of your way to help a customer:

"In my last role in a call centre for a utilities company, I had a customer who complained about her bill. I reviewed the bill, which appeared to be correct. However, I saw she'd changed to a lower tariff last month, so asked some questions about it, and she hadn't understood the new tariff only applied when her current contract ran out, insisting she'd been told the lower tariff would apply immediately. I took her details, and promised to call her back later. I listened to the call she had made previously, and she had been incorrectly advised about the tariff change; I then worked out what her bill should be if we made the change immediately. I also looked at her history and saw she was a 'vulnerable' customer (due to her age and disability) who had complained before when she had been sent incorrect bills, so we needed to get this right. Only supervisors could make bill changes, so I explained the situation to my supervisor, and gave her the new calculations, explaining that this wasn't the first time we've made a mistake and so needed to rectify it quickly. She agreed. Although we were exceptionally busy that day, I stayed late to call the customer back personally. I apologised for the error, and explained we'd change the bill for her immediately. She was delighted with the outcome, and thanked me for my help."

(Don't get caught up on whether this is a good example - I'm just showing the level of detail you need.)

Also, don't rely on looking at previous answers to questions. You need to provide an example for every question, preferably a different example each time, or your experience will appear limited.

HTH
KiKi