Course description

Civil Service applications follow their own rules. Adverts ask for behaviour statements with tight word limits, personal statements matched to essential criteria, online assessments and interviews that mix behaviour and strengths questions, all built on a framework called Success Profiles. This course explains each part in plain words and shows you, step by step, how to put together an honest application that gives you the best chance at every stage.

It's a full course, not a quick tour. There are 10 sections and 50 written lessons. You follow a builders' merchant administrator applying for his first Civil Service job: from a first application that wasn't sifted in, through learning the behaviours, rewriting his statements and practising with a retired civil servant, to an interview, a place on the merit list and a job offer. Every section has a worksheet, answers, a cheat sheet and ready-made templates and workbooks.

What you'll learn

• How Civil Service recruitment works: merit and fair and open competition, Success Profiles and its five elements, and the grades from Administrative Officer upwards.
• Reading the advert: essential criteria, the lead behaviour, the candidate pack, eligibility, security checks, guaranteed interviews and reasonable adjustments.
• The nine behaviours: what each one means and how to read the indicators for your grade.
• Behaviour statements: finding examples, using STAR in writing, showing the right level and cutting to the word limit.
• CVs and personal statements: writing for an anonymised sift and answering every essential criterion.
• Online assessments and the sift: what to expect, how statements are scored, and how to learn from feedback.
• Interviews: behaviour and strengths questions, follow-up questions, presentations, video interviews and other exercises.
• After the interview: scores, merit lists, offers, pre-employment checks and the Civil Service Code.

Who it's for

Anyone applying for UK Civil Service jobs, including people applying from outside for the first time, school leavers and graduates, career changers, people returning to work, armed forces veterans and civil servants going for promotion. It ends with a final project: a decoded advert, your own behaviour statements and personal statement, and an interview plan with a timed mock.

What will I learn?

• Understand how Civil Service recruitment and Success Profiles work
• Read a Civil Service advert and candidate pack and plan your application
• Understand the nine Civil Service behaviours and the indicators for your grade
• Write behaviour statements that show the right level within the word limit
• Write a CV and personal statement that answer the essential criteria
• Prepare for online assessments and understand how the sift is scored
• Answer behaviour and strengths questions and give a presentation at interview
• Understand results, merit lists, offers, checks and the Civil Service Code

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