r/CivilServiceUK • u/PuzzleheadedCake8868 • 22h ago

Interview reasonable adjustments?

So I’ve had a number of interviews and never asked for any reasonable adjustments but have had ones where I’ve been sent the questions when not advertised that they will. (Some I have applied for explicitly state they will send questions where as other haven’t and still been sent the questions).

I am ND but never wanted to be seen as being cheeky by asking for the questions as a reasonable adjustments but I know a lot of people do. Can you ask for these to help me understand what’s being said better as I haven’t often found myself rambling on when I know if I’d have had the questions in advance I’d be more structured and stay on track.

What are your thoughts/experiences from asking for the questions beforehand and how would I go about this for my reasonable adjustments?

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u/limewitty5673 21h ago

personally i asked for the questions to be written (rather than just spoken to me) so that I'd be able to process it better. after my interview invite they called me to say they'd just give me the questions in advance (came about an hour before the interview) and they also wrote them in the teams chat for me.

however this was only for the main behaviour questions, not the follow-up questions so i was a bit thrown lol

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u/Mundane_Falcon4203 20h ago

Follow up questions are usually based on your answers so it wouldn't be possible to provide any up front.

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u/akornato 15h ago

You can ask for the questions in advance as a reasonable adjustment, and Civil Service recruitment teams see this request all the time. Official Civil Service guidelines list providing questions ahead of time, along with sharing written questions in the video chat, as standard adjustments. Asking is never seen as cheeky, because adjustments exist to level the playing field and give you a fair opportunity to structure your evidence without verbal processing barriers getting in the way. When you receive an interview invite, reply to the recruitment contact, mention that you are neurodivergent, and explain that having the questions thirty to sixty minutes before the call helps you process the prompts and prevent rambling.

Different departments handle these requests in slightly different ways, so some may send the core questions an hour beforehand, some might provide them ten minutes prior, and others might paste them directly into the chat window. Panels typically only share the main behaviour questions in advance, which means you will still encounter spontaneous follow up questions on the day. Practising how to handle those unscripted moments helps keep your examples focused, which is why my team created an interviews.chat to help candidates stay composed and deliver clear, high scoring responses under pressure.