Would disagree with the Oxbridge comment personally, although that obviously depends on what department/area/grade you're looking to get into, but it certainly helps to be in the Civil Service to progress/move as there are plenty of jobs that are advertised internally across it.

Knowing people can be useful in regards to networking and being aware of opportunities, but I'm not sure it's quite as 'old boy's club' as people might think and you'd be surprised at how open and fair the competition for posts is...I'm certainly yet to be given a nod and a wink in regards to easy progression and I'm into my seventeenth year of service!

The How to Apply page of the Civil Service Careers website is worth reading through - when it comes to actually applying, every post will require an application that matches the behaviours selected as suitable for it*...as you've mentioned you'll need at least a 4 in each one** to progress past the sift.

Is she following the STAR method***? You also need to get out of the habit of saying 'we', this is all about what you did to meet that example (I find that incredibly hard to do personally). In short, look at the Behaviours document and be sure that the examples you're providing match what they're looking for for each one.

Can't promise miracles but am happy to have a look over examples if you want?


* Seeing the Big Picture, Communicating and Influencing etc
** Acceptable demonstration - adequate positive evidence provided
*** Situation, Task, Action, Result

There's definitely a toilet joke to made here Hob.

lastant wrote:

Would disagree with the Oxbridge comment personally, although that obviously depends on what department/area/grade you're looking to get into, but it certainly helps to be in the Civil Service to progress/move as there are plenty of jobs that are advertised internally across it. Knowing people can be useful in regards to networking and being aware of opportunities, but I'm not sure it's quite as 'old boy's club' as people might think and you'd be surprised at how open and fair the competition for posts is...I'm certainly yet to be given a nod and a wink in regards to easy progression and I'm into my seventeenth year of service! The How to Apply page of the Civil Service Careers website is worth reading through - when it comes to actually applying, every post will require an application that matches the behaviours selected as suitable for it*...as you've mentioned you'll need at least a 4 in each one** to progress past the sift. Is she following the STAR method***? You also need to get out of the habit of saying 'we', this is all about what you did to meet that example (I find that incredibly hard to do personally). In short, look at the Behaviours document and be sure that the examples you're providing match what they're looking for for each one. Can't promise miracles but am happy to have a look over examples if you want? * Seeing the Big Picture, Communicating and Influencing etc ** Acceptable demonstration - adequate positive evidence provided *** Situation, Task, Action, Result

Thanks a lot for this. When she's on to her next one I'll hopefully send something over to you. Much appreciated.

Scout wrote:

lastant wrote:

Would disagree with the Oxbridge comment personally, although that obviously depends on what department/area/grade you're looking to get into, but it certainly helps to be in the Civil Service to progress/move as there are plenty of jobs that are advertised internally across it. Knowing people can be useful in regards to networking and being aware of opportunities, but I'm not sure it's quite as 'old boy's club' as people might think and you'd be surprised at how open and fair the competition for posts is...I'm certainly yet to be given a nod and a wink in regards to easy progression and I'm into my seventeenth year of service! The How to Apply page of the Civil Service Careers website is worth reading through - when it comes to actually applying, every post will require an application that matches the behaviours selected as suitable for it*...as you've mentioned you'll need at least a 4 in each one** to progress past the sift. Is she following the STAR method***? You also need to get out of the habit of saying 'we', this is all about what you did to meet that example (I find that incredibly hard to do personally). In short, look at the Behaviours document and be sure that the examples you're providing match what they're looking for for each one. Can't promise miracles but am happy to have a look over examples if you want? * Seeing the Big Picture, Communicating and Influencing etc ** Acceptable demonstration - adequate positive evidence provided *** Situation, Task, Action, Result

Thanks a lot for this. When she's on to her next one I'll hopefully send something over to you. Much appreciated.

Yeah this is all good stuff. I looked at 20-odd applications a couple of weeks back for a post in my team, so happy to look over examples as well.

I have a job interview on Tuesday for a facilities assistant at the local college.  I was surprised to even get the interview tbh as they were looking for trade experience (preferred) and I have none.  Presumably it was the other aspects of my experience that they were more interested in.

I know how to change lightbulbs and bleed radiators and whatnot but I'm slightly concerned that they'll start asking me shit and I won't have a clue how to answer.

Would anyone have any idea what kind of questions I might get asked?  I didn't oversell myself as some sort of handyman genius or anything so I'm not expecting them to ask me to rewire an office but I'm not really sure what to expect.

It really depends on the job description as to what it will involve. I handle facilities management for our company but it just amounts to emailing the landlord when repairs need doing. If it does involve vocational type stuff maybe they'll ask if you're interested in being trained up to do x and you can just say 'yes'. I've seen facilities roles advertised as being entirely WFH so I wouldn't worry just because of the job title.

A wee bit of knowledge about water supply might help, Scout. Filtration, valve checks, etc. Legionnaires disease prevention. That type of stuff. The estates job I went for in here sounds similar and I lost it on not having enough knowledge on that stuff.

Microsoft have slowly and quietly developed employee tracking tech (time spent, documents opened, email contacts, etc) that is embedded in the entire Office 365 suite. And it’s all turned on by default. This is probably illegal in the EU, and needs looking into.

Long-ish Twitter thread about it here:
https://twitter.com/WolfieChristl/status/1331221942850949121

Including this stuff in cloud-based productivity software is a no-brainer, for the organisations that might want it, but having it all active by default is fucking creepsville.

Yarp.

Good thing we are in that EU eh?

poprock wrote:

… and almost certainly contravening a pile of EU employment laws.

Hopefully it's intended for good. The cortana stuff I've seen has been reminding me that I check my emails to often, I don't reserve enough time in the day for focused work, and it tells me how many times I have successfully not allowed work to interfere with my down time. Maybe I'm naive but I'd like to think they have done this for the right reasons. Always the possibility that unscrupulous companies will miss use the data. Hopefully MS will restrict access to the data to the employee, not the employer.

Got the job at the college.  Start training in a couple of weeks.  So that's a massive weight off the shoulders.  Especially at times like these.

Might even treat myself to a PS5 in the new year.

Nice one Matt!

Great news, congrats Matt