When interviewing with the new Civil Service Capability Framework, you can expect a more comprehensive evaluation than the traditional competency-based or example-based approach. While you'll still be asked to share specific examples of your experiences, interviewers will also explore other key predictors of your potential performance, such as your skills, motivation, values, and knowledge.
Their goal is to assess your capability, suitability, and readiness for the role by discussing and exploring the Capability Dimensions (as shown at the top of the diagram) with you. These four Dimensions serve as a guide for the interview, allowing you to present a full picture of your strengths and experience. This approach gives you an opportunity to demonstrate a wider range of your abilities, as interviewers will look for different types of evidence, including skills, strengths, knowledge, values motivation, interests (as shown at the bottom of the diagram) as well as your examples (behaviours). Be prepared to showcase how your unique background aligns with the requirements and values of the role by considering each of the following in addition to your examples: Skills: The practical abilities you have, like using Microsoft Word (hard skills) and working well with others or planning (soft skills) Strengths: The areas where you excel and feel confident. Knowledge: Topics or fields where you have deep expertise, gained from education or experience. Values: The beliefs and principles that matter to you and guide your work and interactions. Motivation: What inspires you to do your best, either from within (like feeling proud after completing a project) or from outside (like receiving praise). Interests: The parts of the job or role you genuinely enjoy.
Panel interviews have the advantage of looking for a candidate that can display all of the competencies required, the fully rounded candidate - who is not just good at one area (like getting on with people) but can work in (or lead) teams, solve problems, deliver results, communicate well, and has the relevant specialist knowledge.
If the hiring manager isn't involved, does rapport still matter? I think it does. Even though the interviewee wouldn't be reporting to us, we still want to get a sense of how well you get on with others and with us. Getting a number of viewpoints on one candidate brings balance to the decision making and gives a chance to a candidate who has relevant experience but just didn't click with that one interviewer in the style of interview you mention in the question. Some of those more structured interviews include the hiring manager, some do not. Where the hiring manager is involved, some thought can be given to how the person being interviewed would fit into the existing team. One of the most frequent comments I hear back from hiring managers after interviews is how much they appreciate the different viewpoints and the balance that is brought to the process. The lists and tick boxes mentioned in the question, the competencies and their definitions, help candidates in framing their answers and interviewers in judging those answers. It's a shared set of criteria. Structured interviews help us minimise bias. We are human beings however and it helps if we like you!
Another simple thing you can do, is to take a sip of water. It gives you a chance to think and, at the same time, it lets your interviewers know that you are busy and that they don't need to jump in. You could also repeat or paraphrase the question, which gives you another little bit of time to think. ⠀
⠀ Obviously, you can't do that for every question throughout the interview, but it works well to do so occasionally.⠀
Try to tune into the requirements of the role by doing more than simply reading the job description or candidate information booklet. If you are applying to an organisation that you have not previously worked for, research what the organisation does, what kind of roles they have and, in particular, see what more you can find out about the role you are applying for.
Is there someone in your network who has worked there or someone who knows someone who is working there? What can you find out about the organisations values and mission? What services or products do they offer? All of this research will help you demonstrate your interest in that organisation when at interview and will also help you position your previous experience and achievements in that context. It will also help you prepare relevant questions you can ask at interview. If you invest some time in preparing how your skills and experience matches the requirements of the role, it will help you in several ways. It helps you when writing a summary or personal statement (on the application form) or when writing your cover letter (if submitting a CV). It also informs how you will answer questions at interview. Especially questions such as "Tell me about yourself", "How does your experience match the requirements of the role?" or if you are asked to "Summarise your experience". It also should underpin all of your other answers when at interview, because you need to be able to clearly articulate how your previous work experience matches the requirements of the role and to be able to do so throughout the interview. So use this to select the examples that you plan to use to demonstrate the required competencies. You can also use this summary of how you match the requirements of the role towards the end of the interview. ⠀
For example, do you lead on a project or area of work? Other verbs you could use are chaired, controlled, headed, orchestrated, organised, planned or co-ordinated. Verbs matter - on your paperwork (CV or application form) and at a job interview. Be sure that you are doing yourself and the work that you have done justice in the verbs you use to describe what you did. Choose the verb that most accurately reflects both your contribution and the seniority of your role.
The same advise applies whether you are selecting your examples for use at interview or for use when completing your application form (required for most public sector interviews). Where possible, lead with your most recent work examples. Only use a non-work example when you have no other example that you can draw on to illustrate your competence.
After selecting your examples, you then need to remind yourself of the detail of those work tasks or projects and what you accomplished. The level of detail you provide is very important. Keep the focus on the aspects of the work that demonstrate the competency.
Some questions you could ask are:
Looking at a camera does not come naturally to us, to engage with the machine rather than with the people on the screen. But you want to come across as you would if you were meeting them in person, so remember that you make eye contact by looking at the camera. It is worth practicing, because it comes across to your interviewers quite differently whether you are looking at the camera, or not. This video on my Facebook page shows you what I mean.
When interviewing online, I have had some less than wonderful situations - such as the candidate who ended up in her back garden trying to get a better signal and we could barely hear her over the traffic sounds. Not the best for either her or the interviewers. Set yourself up for interview success by checking out the technology in advance.
I put my laptop on top of a stand or some books when doing an online interview to make sure that the camera is at my eye level - or I have found raising it up another inch or two (3-5cm) can give me the best angle (and make sure there's no double chin!). Same advice applies to phones or tablets.
To help keep you on track, really listen to the question. Repeat the question to yourself, out loud if you want. Take a sip of water to buy yourself a moment to gather your thoughts. Don't just start answering if you are not sure what they are looking for.
It's ok to ask an interviewer to repeat a question or to clarify the focus of a question. It’s really important that you answer the question you are being asked, so asking for the question to be repeated or clarified is absolutely ok and interviewers won’t mind doing this. Better to ask than to answer the wrong question.
I also notice that my interview coaching clients end up emphasising all the details of the work they did while losing focus on demonstrating the competency. So that means you need to edit how you talk about that work and consider what parts of it clearly demonstrate the competency and focus on those parts in your answer.⠀
Don’t let the first time you answer a question out loud be in the interview itself. Instead you should do some of the following:
When you are waiting to be called into your interview, calm your breathing and relax your shoulders. When we are nervous, our voices dry-up, so sip some water before you start the interview. This will also help ground you and bring you into the present moment. At the start of the interview remember to shake hands (if face-to-face), smile, make eye contact and then sit up straight.
Pay attention to your body language before and during the interview - our body language influences how we think and feel about ourselves, which in turn changes our behaviour and changes our outcomes. It’s a little bit of “fake it until you make it”, which research by Amy Cuddy shows is more like “fake it until you become it”.
If your interviewers ask you to describe how you managed a team, they are looking for exactly that, an example of when you managed a team and, specifically, the detail of how you managed that team in a particular situation. You need to outline the detail of the actions you took in managing. Focus mostly on what you did and include a little bit of why you took that approach.
This is where your homework will stand to you, as you really need to be clear and confident of the detail of what you have done, even if the work you are describing is from a few years ago. You need to include specifics and be concrete in the information you include in your answer.
Good interviewers won't let you away with using "we" and will prompt you to keep your answers to what you did and your unique contribution. However, time is being wasted when we have to do this with a candidate, time you could have been earning more marks. You need to be clear about what you did versus what others did to achieve the outcome in your answers. Ambiguity about this will impact your scores negatively.
Yes, I know for many it doesn't come naturally to say "I" and you want to show you are a team player (which I hear frequently from interview coaching clients), but it's only you at the interview and only you looking to get that role or be promoted. So if you find yourself saying "we" a lot, practice saying "I" (and then practice again)!
I recommend that you let the interviewer(s) see as much of your upper body as they would if you were sitting at the table across from them, so that they can see you hand gestures - like the way I am positioned in the photo for this blog post. Especially so, if like me, you talk with your hands! This video on my Instagram page shows you what I mean.
But if, like me, you wear glasses (even with anti-reflective coating) then facing directly into the light source can leave a glare or reflection on your glasses, especially when moving your head as you talk. I find that sitting facing the window, and then moving myself and my device so I am facing a little away from the window (not completely turning my side to the windows, but just having the window at a diagonal) seems to work best for me (and my glasses!). The picture accompanying this blog shows how I appeared on my phone's camera when following all of this advice. This video on my Facebook page shows you what I mean.
Follow this structure for your competency answer:
The interviewers need to understand about the context to help them in judging your actions and the outcome. This should be as brief as you can make it - some candidates explain far too much about the industry or organisation or section, while not spending enough time talking about what they have actually done.
The actions you outline allow the interviewers to match your experience to the definition of the competency and the requirements of the new role. This section should be the longest. Make sure you keep the competency in mind and use the example to demonstrate evidence of the competency. The outcome or results of your actions give the interviewers some indication of the contribution you made, the impact your work had and the quality of your work. The same advice about this structure of an answer applies when completing a public sector application form that asks you to answer competency questions on the form. |
Tina's Blog - Interviewer InsightsMy interview tips are based on my years of interviewing experience and my years of interview coaching. 
|
