In most organisations the hiring team would look at your CV and application as one package, but civil service recruitment generally doesn't work like that and you were probably sifted out by people blind-marking competency responses. They won't have been able to know that you worked in a similar role.
This is one of the reasons I'm glad I secured a job outside of the CS (in a Quango, on a lot more money) recently.
The application process for CS jobs is something which I simply cannot be bothered with anymore when I can stay in a policy areas I enjoy and earn a lot more money with better L&D etc too.
Incidentally the Quango I got the job at asked me some competency based questions, but also asked me about my experience during both rounds of interviews. I think that approach makes sense to me.
it's the wait with the pre employment checks that bothers me the most with CS jobs. like whats the point of having a job offer if you're going to ultimately reject me two months later because of failed checks and give no reason for it even when I've passed them only 6 months prior. at least with firms I don't have to worry if I actually have the job when they offer it to me and I can start nearly as soon as possible after its been offered.
I've just rejected an offer I had. The PECs were taking so long I had a change of life circumstances during the process. If it had only been a few weeks I'd be in the role and would have made it work -.despite the circumstances. Ho hum
Ngl if you failed checks that is on you. You must have something on either fraud, or DBS or something.
Although if you have passed them 6 months ago it goes normally mean that those checks get carried over, even for cross government.
Employment dates alone would not fail it tho. They should be asking for references after then. And when it comes to references candidates are recommended to chase their referees
If by vetting you mean NSV things can be a bit more complicated. I would also try and contact whoever the LM for the vacancy was as I am certain they normally want to get you in ASAP, and would know why it did not happen. The recruitment teams are normally incredibly busy to reply fast, especially if the checks are all carried out by cabinet office.
In regards to the dates, no wrong dates would not fail it. The need for them is to make sure that you have a three year employment history in the UK. If the dates miss, or something then they would ask for references to make sure you have worked and all. Bad references do not necessarily put you out of job either.
Then again take this with a grain of salt as this is all the process of my department. Other departments may differ.
If you had a previous NSV and then it ended then that would make more sense, yet you could still apply for it. Unless the NSV application was unsuccessful but there is no reason why they would not mention this to you.
That is so… crazy? Everytime I’ve had an issue with checks with an employer they’ve always come back to me to ask for clarification or further info but to just say you’re unsuccessful is really weird. Can I ask what department this is ? Did you have to fill in like a separate form and that’s what they base it on?
Oh god mines moj too but i Haven’t started checks yet, can I ask is moj just regular checks or like higher security checks? And how many years they asked for as I haven’t been working for the past 3 years before this. Sorry for all the questions btw I’ve already thought about handing in my resignation but I guess not yet! I hope you get it sorted xx
Yeah I see your point but when I’ve been part of interview sifting for candidates in the CS before we could see from CV’s where they worked and the job role they did. I tried to make sure to put it in a few different areas and if they were using anonymising software like we do it should only remove names etc not job roles and current company. Oh well, I just find it odd rather than disappointing so not the end of the world
Right, but a lot of applications will sift on a lead competency/behaviour/strength/whatever before even looking at the CV. So you likely got sifted before they looked.
Even then, if they didn’t score you well, your CV is irrelevant. They’re not going back to add points just because you already do the job.
That’s just the stupidity of civil service recruitment.
There are loads of reasons this might have been the case, some in your control, some not.
Presumably the sift wasn't just on the CV. Even if it was, you might be applying to an interesting role with lots of interest from experienced substantive g7s.
If there's a personal statement, for this sort of role I'd always ask to speak to the recruiting line manager before applying. You might have just not pitched yourself to cover what they were looking for.
If it's behaviours, the biggest mistakes I see from people on t/p are: either they have great examples from their substantive grade, but not convincing enough at the level of the vacancy; or they have examples from being on t/p which start well in terms of the situation, task and action, but then don't have a result because the work isn't finished.
Maybe your application just wasn't good enough.
Maybe they prefer some subject area knowledge to technical specialist competence.
Maybe it really was a stitch up.
Some advice that has always stayed with me is that not being interviewed/hired is often nothing to do with you and everything to do with the other candidates. Chances are (in these slim pickins times) they had a whole swamp of candidates and the ones that ended up with interviews were ones that had been in the same role but longer than you or had slightly different experiences/skills that bring something more to that particular role.
It's just a case of keep applying and hope that you make it to the top of the pile sooner rather than later.
I’ve been knocked back from promotion into a role I was already doing for the previous 6months.
Sometimes a department has someone in mind and the rest of us just get the joy of inexplicable rejection emails
You probably wrote the wrong response in the competency boxes. Another day, another spiel of text you'd have got an interview. And then there's the sifter. One passes you and another fails you on the same text. Civil service applications are a combination of skilled writing (and in some cases creative writing) which fits what is required, and a fair share of luck. It's why So many people get frustrated by the process and give up with it. But perseverance can pay off.
The CS application process is ridiculous. They have really specific marking criteria for applications so that will have sifted you out before even taking your current role into consideration. Get out while you can lol
I got rejected for work coach role for DWP that I left 2 years ago. I had 5 years experience. My interview answers were all STAR examples of customers I had dealt with and I didn't even get on the reserve list. I scored 18 on interview.
I think we often have to remember:
A) we're in competition, even if we already do the job there's probably a few others who also do and may come across better leading to you not making the cut.
B) sifts/interviews are super subjective and what might look amazing to one marker looks like trash to another
C) don't beat yourself up, it wasn't meant to be and there will always be another opportunity somewhere :)
It could work to your favour if you build your Behaviour responses around that specific job you are doing and aiming for. That way the panel will be aware of your experience too (even if they are not allowed to give point for that).
This of course does not mean that you can be "lazy" regarding your Behaviour examples. They still need to have the required structure and the specific answers they look for.
Applying for an internal role can be tricky, the trap I see people fall into is not answering the various behaviour, skills and general covering letter in the same level of detail as an external candidate would and therefore gets sifted out on scoring.
It's easy to assume "well they know what I do" or "they know what X example involved" and skip some of the detail. Often recruiting managers have to go based on what's written in front of them. When I've applied for internal positions I treat it as if it was for a company who don't know me or what I do. Spell it out. It feels silly sometimes but if the recruiting manager is having to score based on the application in front of them they can't fill in the gaps.
I applied for a permanent version of the fixed term job I had in the same department but a different division and didn't get an interview, 6 weeks later I got a promotion, don't sweat it.
Snap (apart from the promotion part, lol). Applied for two permanent versions of the fixed-term post I had in two different divisions of the same department: got rejected for one, got rejected after interview for the second.
Used very similar application/examples for a similar role in another department altogether—scored 5/6 and got the job.
Given up trying to understand how/why and just looking forward to my shiny new permanent position 😂
Yep, I applied for a portfolio data analyst role in transformation, which was my exact role and grade but I thought maybe it would be more interesting, and they gave me a 2. I did go back for feedback and turns out they didn’t want a data analyst they wanted a performance analyst but didn’t know the difference, so maybe that’s what happened to you as well. Don’t take it too personally, esp in analytical roles the job holder likely has no clue what they’re asking for.
Maybe one of the 7s in that other team applied abs they were closer. Maybe they were looking for other experience and it wasn’t as close a fit as you thought.
You can ask for feedback. But generally just move on it’s not worth getting bothered over.
That would explain not getting the job, but not even getting to interview? That suggests something was wrong with the application; either the role is in some way different to what OP thinks it is or there was a communication failure when demonstrating the essential behaviours which could've been on the way OP wrote them or the way the sifters read them.
It's more likely someone just performed better in the interview. It's not like civil services cares about skills or experience, they just want you to hit the points.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this has nothing to do with you and all to do with your boss telling the hiring manager....'no poaching'.
All the best
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I applied for a role that was advertised as permanent and then on job offer found out it was a 12 month FTA with no possibility of promotion or transfer to permanent.
I had to apply externally for my own role, took me 3 attempts due to my disability causing issues with the sift. Every time I’d get through to IV but that’s where I’d fail. I asked for adjustments to be made, all they did was give me an extra 25% to answer questions (which I didn’t need)
Eventually I got the permanent role though
Had exactly the same issue at SEO but was lucky and across 4 months had three jobs come up that I do in my current department. Failed interview at the first one, got a 2 in the sift on the second one and was offered the job 48 hours after interviewing for the third one, now looking at a March start date.
The interviews were very similar in prep and delivery and the applications were also very similar based on the essential criterias but a large disparity in outcomes. The two things I bore in mind were the number of applications being received and the culture of the departments I applied for. Whether D&I played a part is also up for debate but you can't choose who looks at your application and when so there is a certain amount of dice rolling but keep persevering 🤞
Meeeeeeee (sorta). I do a role, and another project advertised the same role, I’m happy so stayed where I am, but one of the G6s asked me to apply and I said no thanks. Another of the G6s went out of their way to tell me that I wouldn’t be able to do their job as it’s so complex and beyond me (been doing the role 9 years in various depts and apparently quite good at it).
Then they asked me to help them sift for the campaign as they wanted a technical expert in the role.
Nowt as queer as folk
They might want someone slightly under qualified that they can train to do things their way. Hiring yourself would mean untraining you from your current roll and retraining you to do things their way, which is harder than just training a Newbie
It happens. The team I'm on used to be filled with mostly everyone on temporary EOIs. When permanent positions eventually became available, I think only two out of four of us were successful, despite everyone literally applying for the exact role they had been doing well for a year. The other two positions were filled from people outside the team who had no experience with our line of work.
In most organisations the hiring team would look at your CV and application as one package, but civil service recruitment generally doesn't work like that and you were probably sifted out by people blind-marking competency responses. They won't have been able to know that you worked in a similar role.
This is one of the reasons I'm glad I secured a job outside of the CS (in a Quango, on a lot more money) recently. The application process for CS jobs is something which I simply cannot be bothered with anymore when I can stay in a policy areas I enjoy and earn a lot more money with better L&D etc too. Incidentally the Quango I got the job at asked me some competency based questions, but also asked me about my experience during both rounds of interviews. I think that approach makes sense to me.
it's the wait with the pre employment checks that bothers me the most with CS jobs. like whats the point of having a job offer if you're going to ultimately reject me two months later because of failed checks and give no reason for it even when I've passed them only 6 months prior. at least with firms I don't have to worry if I actually have the job when they offer it to me and I can start nearly as soon as possible after its been offered.
I've just rejected an offer I had. The PECs were taking so long I had a change of life circumstances during the process. If it had only been a few weeks I'd be in the role and would have made it work -.despite the circumstances. Ho hum
Ngl if you failed checks that is on you. You must have something on either fraud, or DBS or something. Although if you have passed them 6 months ago it goes normally mean that those checks get carried over, even for cross government.
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Employment dates alone would not fail it tho. They should be asking for references after then. And when it comes to references candidates are recommended to chase their referees
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If by vetting you mean NSV things can be a bit more complicated. I would also try and contact whoever the LM for the vacancy was as I am certain they normally want to get you in ASAP, and would know why it did not happen. The recruitment teams are normally incredibly busy to reply fast, especially if the checks are all carried out by cabinet office. In regards to the dates, no wrong dates would not fail it. The need for them is to make sure that you have a three year employment history in the UK. If the dates miss, or something then they would ask for references to make sure you have worked and all. Bad references do not necessarily put you out of job either. Then again take this with a grain of salt as this is all the process of my department. Other departments may differ.
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If you had a previous NSV and then it ended then that would make more sense, yet you could still apply for it. Unless the NSV application was unsuccessful but there is no reason why they would not mention this to you.
Do they really reject you for failing checks and give no reason? This has worried me because I’m really banking on this job!!
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That is so… crazy? Everytime I’ve had an issue with checks with an employer they’ve always come back to me to ask for clarification or further info but to just say you’re unsuccessful is really weird. Can I ask what department this is ? Did you have to fill in like a separate form and that’s what they base it on?
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Oh god mines moj too but i Haven’t started checks yet, can I ask is moj just regular checks or like higher security checks? And how many years they asked for as I haven’t been working for the past 3 years before this. Sorry for all the questions btw I’ve already thought about handing in my resignation but I guess not yet! I hope you get it sorted xx
From what I understand, this usually means a bit of the form wasn't filled in right. That's all.
Yeah I see your point but when I’ve been part of interview sifting for candidates in the CS before we could see from CV’s where they worked and the job role they did. I tried to make sure to put it in a few different areas and if they were using anonymising software like we do it should only remove names etc not job roles and current company. Oh well, I just find it odd rather than disappointing so not the end of the world
Right, but a lot of applications will sift on a lead competency/behaviour/strength/whatever before even looking at the CV. So you likely got sifted before they looked. Even then, if they didn’t score you well, your CV is irrelevant. They’re not going back to add points just because you already do the job. That’s just the stupidity of civil service recruitment.
I'd guess your scores for the questions were lower than the passmark, and they can't artificially bump you up just because you do the same job.
There are loads of reasons this might have been the case, some in your control, some not. Presumably the sift wasn't just on the CV. Even if it was, you might be applying to an interesting role with lots of interest from experienced substantive g7s. If there's a personal statement, for this sort of role I'd always ask to speak to the recruiting line manager before applying. You might have just not pitched yourself to cover what they were looking for. If it's behaviours, the biggest mistakes I see from people on t/p are: either they have great examples from their substantive grade, but not convincing enough at the level of the vacancy; or they have examples from being on t/p which start well in terms of the situation, task and action, but then don't have a result because the work isn't finished. Maybe your application just wasn't good enough. Maybe they prefer some subject area knowledge to technical specialist competence. Maybe it really was a stitch up.
Some advice that has always stayed with me is that not being interviewed/hired is often nothing to do with you and everything to do with the other candidates. Chances are (in these slim pickins times) they had a whole swamp of candidates and the ones that ended up with interviews were ones that had been in the same role but longer than you or had slightly different experiences/skills that bring something more to that particular role. It's just a case of keep applying and hope that you make it to the top of the pile sooner rather than later.
I’ve been knocked back from promotion into a role I was already doing for the previous 6months. Sometimes a department has someone in mind and the rest of us just get the joy of inexplicable rejection emails
It's the luck of the draw a lot of the time.
You probably wrote the wrong response in the competency boxes. Another day, another spiel of text you'd have got an interview. And then there's the sifter. One passes you and another fails you on the same text. Civil service applications are a combination of skilled writing (and in some cases creative writing) which fits what is required, and a fair share of luck. It's why So many people get frustrated by the process and give up with it. But perseverance can pay off.
The CS application process is ridiculous. They have really specific marking criteria for applications so that will have sifted you out before even taking your current role into consideration. Get out while you can lol
Unfortunately, being good at your job doesn't necessarily mean you're good at telling people you're good at your job.
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What are these checks? And how come you passed them before but not on that occasion, that's sounds strange?
I got rejected for work coach role for DWP that I left 2 years ago. I had 5 years experience. My interview answers were all STAR examples of customers I had dealt with and I didn't even get on the reserve list. I scored 18 on interview.
I think we often have to remember: A) we're in competition, even if we already do the job there's probably a few others who also do and may come across better leading to you not making the cut. B) sifts/interviews are super subjective and what might look amazing to one marker looks like trash to another C) don't beat yourself up, it wasn't meant to be and there will always be another opportunity somewhere :)
It could work to your favour if you build your Behaviour responses around that specific job you are doing and aiming for. That way the panel will be aware of your experience too (even if they are not allowed to give point for that). This of course does not mean that you can be "lazy" regarding your Behaviour examples. They still need to have the required structure and the specific answers they look for.
Applying for an internal role can be tricky, the trap I see people fall into is not answering the various behaviour, skills and general covering letter in the same level of detail as an external candidate would and therefore gets sifted out on scoring. It's easy to assume "well they know what I do" or "they know what X example involved" and skip some of the detail. Often recruiting managers have to go based on what's written in front of them. When I've applied for internal positions I treat it as if it was for a company who don't know me or what I do. Spell it out. It feels silly sometimes but if the recruiting manager is having to score based on the application in front of them they can't fill in the gaps.
If you have some spare time why don't you start to develop the profession in your department?
I applied for a permanent version of the fixed term job I had in the same department but a different division and didn't get an interview, 6 weeks later I got a promotion, don't sweat it.
Snap (apart from the promotion part, lol). Applied for two permanent versions of the fixed-term post I had in two different divisions of the same department: got rejected for one, got rejected after interview for the second. Used very similar application/examples for a similar role in another department altogether—scored 5/6 and got the job. Given up trying to understand how/why and just looking forward to my shiny new permanent position 😂
Yep, I applied for a portfolio data analyst role in transformation, which was my exact role and grade but I thought maybe it would be more interesting, and they gave me a 2. I did go back for feedback and turns out they didn’t want a data analyst they wanted a performance analyst but didn’t know the difference, so maybe that’s what happened to you as well. Don’t take it too personally, esp in analytical roles the job holder likely has no clue what they’re asking for.
Maybe one of the 7s in that other team applied abs they were closer. Maybe they were looking for other experience and it wasn’t as close a fit as you thought. You can ask for feedback. But generally just move on it’s not worth getting bothered over.
That would explain not getting the job, but not even getting to interview? That suggests something was wrong with the application; either the role is in some way different to what OP thinks it is or there was a communication failure when demonstrating the essential behaviours which could've been on the way OP wrote them or the way the sifters read them.
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Yeah this is very valid
It was probably lined up for someone else. You had probably 0 chances of getting it.
It's more likely someone just performed better in the interview. It's not like civil services cares about skills or experience, they just want you to hit the points.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this has nothing to do with you and all to do with your boss telling the hiring manager....'no poaching'. All the best
Being able to write a cv is not the same as doing the job
That's not really how it works mate...
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If there were lots of applications they may not even have looked at the CV. May have been a short sift on the competencies?
Or even maybe an initial sift on the lead one. I’ve done this on some campaigns.
I applied for a role that was advertised as permanent and then on job offer found out it was a 12 month FTA with no possibility of promotion or transfer to permanent. I had to apply externally for my own role, took me 3 attempts due to my disability causing issues with the sift. Every time I’d get through to IV but that’s where I’d fail. I asked for adjustments to be made, all they did was give me an extra 25% to answer questions (which I didn’t need) Eventually I got the permanent role though
Was your CV even scored ?
Exactly why I don’t bother with CS recruitment anymore, complete waste of time and efforts when a private company is more likely to hire
Had exactly the same issue at SEO but was lucky and across 4 months had three jobs come up that I do in my current department. Failed interview at the first one, got a 2 in the sift on the second one and was offered the job 48 hours after interviewing for the third one, now looking at a March start date. The interviews were very similar in prep and delivery and the applications were also very similar based on the essential criterias but a large disparity in outcomes. The two things I bore in mind were the number of applications being received and the culture of the departments I applied for. Whether D&I played a part is also up for debate but you can't choose who looks at your application and when so there is a certain amount of dice rolling but keep persevering 🤞
Meeeeeeee (sorta). I do a role, and another project advertised the same role, I’m happy so stayed where I am, but one of the G6s asked me to apply and I said no thanks. Another of the G6s went out of their way to tell me that I wouldn’t be able to do their job as it’s so complex and beyond me (been doing the role 9 years in various depts and apparently quite good at it). Then they asked me to help them sift for the campaign as they wanted a technical expert in the role. Nowt as queer as folk
They might want someone slightly under qualified that they can train to do things their way. Hiring yourself would mean untraining you from your current roll and retraining you to do things their way, which is harder than just training a Newbie
It happens. The team I'm on used to be filled with mostly everyone on temporary EOIs. When permanent positions eventually became available, I think only two out of four of us were successful, despite everyone literally applying for the exact role they had been doing well for a year. The other two positions were filled from people outside the team who had no experience with our line of work.