Civil Service – Answering Strength Based Questions. Elizabeth Conley, Senior Interview Coach at Interview Skills Clinic helps you prepare for a Strength based Civil Service interview? You are likely to be asked Strength questions as part of the Civil Service blended recruitment assessment under Success Profiles. In this video I will tell you what a Strength is, the difference between Strength and Behaviour questions and the relationship between the two type of questions. I give you tips on how to prepare for Strength questions in your interview. In part two, you can listen to some typical Strength questions so that there familiar with them before the interview.
You can read more information on Strength questions in this article
Watch our latest Civil Service Strength Video giving you a demonstration on how to answer a Strength question on Resilience.
Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel to receive more helpful tips and strategies for acing your next interview! Remember, practicing and preparing is key to success in a Civil Service interview. So, make sure to practice your answers to the Civil Service interview questions and get ready to showcase your skills and experiences. If you need one-one coaching you can book a Free Consultation on our website
00:00 What are Civil Service Strength based questions
00:41 What are Civil Service Strength questions
01:02 How do I know what Civil Service Strengths I will be asked
02:36 Example of Civil Service Strength questions
04:59 Read full post and Book Free Consultation
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Hi, I've a video interview with the H.O. What type of questions should i expect from the interview? Thanks.
What if you haven't missed a deadline? Can you describe your process of how you avoid missing deadlines?
Civil Servant, HMRC, and Council Jobs in the UK are made of Judgmental Racist Recruitment Processes.
AVOID it if you can. It’s a waste of time applying for these jobs.
Unless if you have a family member who already works for the organisation to corruptly help you with your application tipping the Recruitment Team.
The wages are not even great and the Recruitment process is not genuine
HMRC has its own Youtube channel they turned off the Comment sections so we don’t expose the truth about their recruitment process.
Has anyone ever rung HMRC or a Council in the UK before ? It’s the same as applying for a job with them.
Simply a horrible experience ! ! !
You will be asked Behaviour questions which you need to prepare for with STAR examples aligned to the Behaviour criteria for your grade. Somewhere on the job specification, near the end there will be a paragraph which says that candidates will be assessed using Success Profiles. Then it will specify how you will be assessed. It could mention a combination of Experience, Technical, Behaviours, Ability or Strengths. Experience questions may be Situational. I hope this helps, good luck with your interview.
Hi Elizabeth, if the job ad and interview instructions said : Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
Changing and Improving
Working Together
Delivering at Pace
Does that mean they will only ask Behaviorial – STAR type questions? Or should I expect some Strength based questions too? What about situational questions – hypothetical questions – what would you do if you….? Many thanks
Hi Elizabeth! For the strength questions, will we only be assessed on the strengths that come under the behaviours being assessed?
Also, am I right in thinking that some of the strengths overlap? So effectively, if you have prepared an example it could potentially account for more than one strength- for instance, authentic and emotionally intelligent. Hope this kind of makes sense! Thanks in advance 😊
Hi Elizabeth, thank you for uploading this video, they’re very helpful, in my opinion the strength based pre-recorded interviews in my experience deal with body language & facial reactions to the answers, yes the answer is important, but natural enthusiastic answers with positive body language is the key to getting to the next stage of the process.
Wasting time on this is exactly why the civil service is criminaly inefficient, that and refusing to do their job
Are behaviour based and strength based different and both needs to be answered in a star method?
The word 'one' is properly pronounced 'WUN' – but northerners seem insensibl. including Bank of England chief.
Very Strange.
When attending a CS interview, do we need to answer strength questions with the STAR method? Or just answering the question with our own examples is OK? thanks.
Would you still use a STAR example for a strength question? Thanks for your advice.
In most Civil Service interviews candidates will be told the Behaviour before being asked the question. If not, you can certainly ask if you are not clear what Behaviour the question refers to. For example: ‘Tell me about a time when you were working with stakeholders who had different agendas, how did you build consensus and influence the outcome? This could be a Working Together or Communicating and Influencing Behaviour. If you are being asked Strength questions you will not be told the Strengths before the question. Good luck with your interview.
During the interview, do they tell you what behaviour they’re about to ask questions around, or are we to figure it out ourselves what behaviour the question aligns with? For example my interview will be assessing 5 behaviours, will they tell me “the next questions will be assessing you around behaviour…”
Thank you in advance to anyone able to respond
Fantastic tips !! Thank you.
Hi there : ) I am applying for a CS and in the application the behaviour I will be assessed on is 'Making Effective Decisions'. If I proceed to the interview stage, will they ask questions solely about this behaviour or will they also inquire about the other ones? Thank you in advance 🙂 Do you have any additional resources to help me prepare my application?
Thanks for the video. I am struggling to understand the structure of Civil Service interviews now. I had quite a lot years ago before they switched to Success Profiles and I did really well. But I am understanding correctly that now when you go for an interview, say you have seven questions, ALL of your seven are the ones structured as strength based questions? Or is there a mix of behaviour based and strength based? I thought it was only strength based but with you saying at the start that it was now more of a combo I am not sure
Hi, I have a strength based interview for immigration enforcement officer role. Can you predict what type of questions they’ll ask 😬
Behaviour questions are nothing like 'tell me about a time when you…'. That's the old style of CS interview. You're meant to answer the scenario-based question, and then back up it up with an example as an add-on where possible.
I'm glad you pointed out the page in the success profiles where it matches each strength to a behaviour. Also how you gave insight how to answer a strength based question as I have been so used to answering behaviour based questions only.
Amazing!
Thank you
Very helpful. Thank you.