The nine Civil Service behaviours, with interview questions for each

Understand how your work supports your team's purpose, your department's priorities and the public interest, and let that understanding shape what you do.

By grade: At AO/EO this means knowing your team's purpose and who your work affects. At HEO and above, use evidence of how departmental or ministerial priorities changed a decision you made.

• 1. How does your current work connect to your organisation's wider objectives?

  Practice focus: Names the actual objective, then shows the connection changed something: what you prioritised, how you designed a piece of work, or a risk you flagged. Go beyond simply reciting the mission statement.

• 2. Tell me about a time understanding the wider context changed how you approached a task.

  Practice focus: A concrete before-and-after. You planned to do X, learned the wider priority, did Y instead. The behaviour is the adjustment, not the awareness.

• 3. Tell me about a time you considered the impact of your work on people outside your team.

  Practice focus: Identifies a real second-order effect on the public, another team or a partner organisation, and an action taken because of it: a consultation, a changed rollout, a heads-up given early.

Look for better ways of working, be open to change, and carry improvements through rather than just pointing at problems.

By grade: At AO/EO, use evidence of suggesting improvements and adopting change constructively. At HEO and above, show how you designed change and brought people along.

• 1. Describe a time you improved a process or way of working.

  Practice focus: Spotted the problem yourself, involved the people affected, tested small before rolling out, and measured the result against a baseline. Forcing a change through because the data supported it misses half the marks.

• 2. Tell me about adapting to a change you did not choose.

  Practice focus: Raised concerns through the right route, then worked the new way properly while the decision stood. Explain how you adapted honestly rather than describing quiet resistance or performative agreement.

• 3. Tell me about an idea you suggested that was not taken up.

  Practice focus: How you took the no. Sought the reasons, kept the relationship, sometimes returned with a better version later. The panel is testing resilience and grace, not the idea.

Use evidence and knowledge to make clear, timely decisions at the right level, and stand behind them.

By grade: AO/EO: follow guidance well and escalate genuine edge cases sensibly. HEO and above: weigh imperfect evidence, consider trade-offs, and make a documented, defensible recommendation.

• 1. Tell me about a difficult decision you made with incomplete or conflicting evidence.

  Practice focus: Interrogates how the evidence was produced rather than picking a side by seniority, weighs options explicitly, takes expert input without outsourcing the call, and owns the outcome.

• 2. Tell me about a time you had to decide something quickly without your manager available.

  Practice focus: Judged what the guidance covered, made a proportionate call, told the manager promptly afterwards, and recorded it. The mark is for knowing your level, not for boldness.

• 3. Tell me about a decision you got wrong.

  Practice focus: A real one. What the reasoning was at the time, when you realised, what you did to put it right, and what changed in how you decide now. Blaming the information is the classic miss.

Show direction and purpose, take responsibility, and bring other people with you. A management title is not part of the definition.

By grade: AO/EO: initiative and positive influence inside the team counts as leadership. HEO and above: setting direction, being visible, and carrying accountability for outcomes, including bad ones.

• 1. Tell me about a time you led a piece of work without formal authority.

  Practice focus: Took initiative on a problem nobody owned, brought colleagues along through involvement rather than instruction, and accepted accountability for the result.

• 2. Tell me about a time you took responsibility when something went wrong.

  Practice focus: Owned it early, in person, without spreading blame. Explain how you fixed the immediate harm and then addressed the cause.

• 3. Tell me about a time you helped someone else succeed.

  Practice focus: Deliberate support with your fingerprints on it: coaching, creating the opportunity, giving away credit. The other person's outcome is the evidence.

Communicate with purpose, in language your audience can use, and influence honestly: no spin, no steamrolling.

By grade: AO/EO: clear, courteous, plain-English communication with the public and colleagues. HEO and above: tailoring the case to senior and resistant audiences and shifting real decisions.

• 1. Tell me about a time you influenced a senior or resistant stakeholder.

  Practice focus: Understood the objection before pushing back, reframed around the stakeholder's priorities, used evidence without hiding behind it, and got a real outcome. Focus on the relationship and evidence rather than simply winning an argument.

• 2. Tell me about explaining something complex to a non-specialist.

  Practice focus: Plain words, an ordering that starts from what the listener needs, a check that it landed, and a second attempt in different terms when it did not.

• 3. Tell me about a time you had to deliver an unwelcome message.

  Practice focus: Direct, early and face to face where possible. No burying the point in paragraph four. Honest about the reasons, and stayed in the conversation for the reaction.

Build supportive, trusting relationships and work effectively across team, department and organisational boundaries.

By grade: AO/EO: pulling your weight, helping colleagues, adapting to different styles. HEO and above: partnerships across departments and with external organisations, held together through friction.

• 1. Tell me about a time you worked with others to complete a task.

  Practice focus: Your specific role in the first person, credit to colleagues, active coordination, and the shared outcome. Answers that never leave "we" cannot be marked.

• 2. Tell me about building a relationship with a difficult partner or team.

  Practice focus: Invested time before needing anything, found the shared aim, adapted style, and kept the relationship through a disagreement. Escalating at the first friction is the anti-pattern.

• 3. What do you do when a colleague is struggling?

  Practice focus: Notices early, offers specific help, and stays honest: no covert covering that hides a real problem. Escalates supportively if the struggle continues.

Keep developing your own capability deliberately, and invest in other people's.

By grade: AO/EO: owning your development and informally helping colleagues learn. HEO and above: building capability in a team, coaching, and honest development conversations.

• 1. Tell me about a skill you developed deliberately.

  Practice focus: A named gap, a plan, the practice, and evidence it worked. "I learn something every day" is not an answer; "I could not run meetings, so I did X for three months" is.

• 2. Tell me about feedback that changed how you work.

  Practice focus: Real feedback, ideally uncomfortable, taken without defensiveness, with a specific change that stuck. Bonus marks for having sought the feedback rather than received it.

• 3. Tell me about helping a colleague develop.

  Practice focus: Deliberate help over time: showing rather than doing-for, stretch tasks handed over, patience with early mistakes. The colleague's progress is the result.

Deliver a service that meets user needs to a professional standard, and keep it meeting them when things get difficult.

By grade: AO/EO: accurate casework, honest timescales, and knowing the limits of your authority. HEO and above: designing and running services, managing risk and competing demands.

• 1. Tell me about providing excellent service to a customer or member of the public.

  Practice focus: Started from what the person needed rather than the script, did something concrete beyond the minimum while staying inside process, and ends with the outcome for the person.

• 2. Tell me about balancing quality against a deadline.

  Practice focus: Named what could safely flex and what could not, negotiated scope or time early, and protected the parts of quality that affect users. "I did both by working the weekend" dodges the question.

• 3. A priority lands and pulls resource from your existing workload. What do you do?

  Practice focus: Triage by risk, honest communication of new timescales to those affected, quality monitored on the squeezed work, and escalation with options rather than complaints.

Deliver timely, quality outcomes, take responsibility for them, and stay focused when the pressure rises.

By grade: AO/EO: organising your own workload and hitting deadlines with accuracy intact. HEO and above: delivering through other people, unblocking, and holding pace across a programme.

• 1. Tell me about delivering a piece of work to a tight deadline.

  Practice focus: A deliberate plan, early communication when the deadline was at risk, quality checks kept up at speed, and a result you personally owned. Long hours are not the marking criterion.

• 2. Tell me about a time you had too much to do.

  Practice focus: A real prioritisation method, a conversation about what moves, and no silent dropping. Explain how you communicated the changes as well as how you ordered the work.

• 3. Tell me about keeping a piece of work on track when it started slipping.

  Practice focus: Spotted the slip early through actual tracking, diagnosed the cause, adjusted the plan or the resource, and told whoever needed to know before they found out.