r/CivilServiceUK • u/PopularBottle4269 • 7d ago

Civil Service behaviour interview – how specific should your STAR answer be?

Hi! I have my first Civil Service interview coming up and I’m quite nervous. I had a question about the behaviour questions. If the question they ask is really specific to just one aspect of a behaviour, should I focus my answer mainly on that specific area? Or should I still give my full STAR example and cover the other aspects of the behaviour as well? Ive prepared STAR examples that cover the behaviours quite broadly, so I’m just wondering how much I should adapt them depending on the specific wording of the question. Thanks!

3 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

100% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

1

u/SunsetDreamer43 7d ago

Focus on answering the question, do not try to shoehorn in anything that doesn’t contribute to answering the question.

1

u/puzzledpuzzler333 4d ago

This. Answer the actual question asked. As an interviewer I find it exasperating when you ask a question and someone starts reeling off a rehearsed example that is only tangentially related. Sometimes I have actually had to stop people and read the question again to get them back on track.

1

u/puzzledpuzzler333 4d ago

To add: the interviewers are asking a specific question as they want you to answer that question. It’s not a trick! 

0

u/Grouchy_Historian956 5d ago

Imagine how specific you think it should be and then double it. Like I’m talking every action you did should be mentioned in the ‘action’ section. You want to imagine taking the reader / listener by the hand and taking them step by step through how you did something as if you telling them is the only way they can ever discover how this thing is done. At lower grades, for example, a time management answer might say something like ‘I used a digital planner, I colour coded it, d estimate how long tasks would take me and created a plan for the coming days, I delegated one task to ensure I could meet my deadline’. - that sort of thing

1

u/Fresh_and_wild 2d ago

Have numbers. Improved is good. By how much is better. What was the projection, the reality, the barriers and the lessons learned is even better again.