The nine Civil Service behaviours, with interview questions for each
Every behaviour question in every department maps to one of nine published definitions. This guide covers each one: what it means, the questions it produces, and what the marking rewards.
Quick answer
The nine Civil Service behaviours are Seeing the Big Picture, Changing and Improving, Making Effective Decisions, Leadership, Communicating and Influencing, Working Together, Developing Self and Others, Managing a Quality Service and Delivering at Pace. Your vacancy tests a subset, named in the advert, at a level matched to the grade. Below: each behaviour with example questions and what panels score.
AA and AO organise their own work; EO handles casework with judgement; HEO and SEO lead activity and influence others; Grade 7 sets direction. Same nine behaviours, a higher bar each step, so pick examples that match your grade's level.
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Panel question · Behaviours (HEO/SEO)
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Tell me about a difficult decision you made using incomplete or conflicting evidence.
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How behaviour levels and scoring work
Each behaviour is defined at six levels in the published framework: AA and AO at Level 1, EO at Level 2, HEO and SEO at Level 3, Grades 7 and 6 at Level 4, and the Senior Civil Service above that. The behaviour name on your advert stays the same; the descriptors the panel marks against change with the grade.
That is why the same story can score a 6 at EO and a 3 at SEO. The marking asks whether the example shows the complexity of the level: organising your own work at Level 1-2, leading activity and influencing stakeholders at Level 3, setting direction at Level 4. Pick examples one notch up from your current day job, not three.
Panels typically mark each behaviour on a 7-point scale, with 4 as the pass floor and the total deciding the merit order. One question per behaviour, plus probes. The probes are where borderline scores become passes, and they almost always dig into the Action section.
The framework, behaviour by behaviour
All nine behaviours with example questions
Three example questions per behaviour, with what panels score. The definitions paraphrase the framework; the marking notes describe what separates a 4 from a 6.
Seeing the Big Picture
3 example questions
Seeing the Big Picture
3 example questions
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, panels expect departmental or ministerial priorities to have changed a decision you made.
1. How does your current work connect to your organisation's wider objectives?
What panels score: Names the actual objective, then shows the connection changed something: what you prioritised, how you designed a piece of work, a risk you flagged. Reciting the mission statement scores nothing.
2. Tell me about a time understanding the wider context changed how you approached a task.
What panels score: 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.
What panels score: 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.
Changing and Improving
3 example questions
Changing and Improving
3 example questions
Look for better ways of working, be open to change, and carry improvements through rather than just pointing at problems.
By grade: AO/EO answers score for suggesting improvements and adopting change constructively. HEO and above are expected to design changes and bring people along.
1. Describe a time you improved a process or way of working.
What panels score: 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.
What panels score: Raised concerns through the right route, then worked the new way properly while the decision stood. Quiet resistance and loud compliance both score poorly; honest adaptation scores well.
3. Tell me about an idea you suggested that was not taken up.
What panels score: 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.
Making Effective Decisions
3 example questions
Making Effective Decisions
3 example questions
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.
What panels score: 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.
What panels score: 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.
What panels score: 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.
Leadership
3 example questions
Leadership
3 example questions
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.
What panels score: 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.
What panels score: Owned it early, in person, without spreading blame. Fixed the immediate harm, then the cause. Panels rate the speed and completeness of the owning far above the elegance of the fix.
3. Tell me about a time you helped someone else succeed.
What panels score: Deliberate support with your fingerprints on it: coaching, creating the opportunity, giving away credit. The other person's outcome is the evidence.
Communicating and Influencing
3 example questions
Communicating and Influencing
3 example questions
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.
What panels score: Understood the objection before pushing back, reframed around the stakeholder's priorities, used evidence without hiding behind it, and got a real outcome. Winning by email chain scores nothing.
2. Tell me about explaining something complex to a non-specialist.
What panels score: 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.
What panels score: 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.
Working Together
3 example questions
Working Together
3 example questions
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.
What panels score: 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.
What panels score: 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?
What panels score: Notices early, offers specific help, and stays honest: no covert covering that hides a real problem. Escalates supportively if the struggle continues.
Developing Self and Others
3 example questions
Developing Self and Others
3 example questions
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.
What panels score: 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.
What panels score: 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.
What panels score: Deliberate help over time: showing rather than doing-for, stretch tasks handed over, patience with early mistakes. The colleague's progress is the result.
Managing a Quality Service
3 example questions
Managing a Quality Service
3 example questions
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.
What panels score: 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.
What panels score: 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?
What panels score: Triage by risk, honest communication of new timescales to those affected, quality monitored on the squeezed work, and escalation with options rather than complaints.
Delivering at Pace
3 example questions
Delivering at Pace
3 example questions
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.
What panels score: 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.
What panels score: A real prioritisation method, a conversation about what moves, and no silent dropping. Panels score the communication as highly as the ordering.
3. Tell me about keeping a piece of work on track when it started slipping.
What panels score: 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.
One example, two formats: statements and spoken answers
The same behaviour is usually tested twice: a written 250-word behaviour statement at application, then a spoken answer at interview. Build each example once, properly, and use it in both formats. In writing: one sentence of situation, actions in the first person, a measurable result, every sentence earning its place. Spoken: the same skeleton at around two minutes, ready for probes into any Action sentence.
The failure mode is preparing on paper only. A statement that reads well runs long out loud, and probes do not follow your script. Say each example aloud until the two-minute version is comfortable, then practise being interrupted. Our STAR method guide covers the structure in detail.
Avoid these
The four most common behaviour-answer mistakes
Reciting the definition instead of giving an example
Panels have the definition in front of them. They need one specific, real situation with your actions in it. If your answer would be true of any competent person, it contains no evidence.
One story stretched across every behaviour
Behaviours are marked separately, and a story bent to fit three questions usually evidences none of them well. One distinct example per announced behaviour is the preparation standard.
Pitching at the wrong level
An EO example about departmental strategy mismatches the Level 2 descriptors just as badly as an SEO example about tidying a spreadsheet mismatches Level 3. Match the complexity to the grade.
Collapsing under the probe
The follow-up almost always digs into Action: "what exactly did you say?", "what would you have done if that failed?". If the example is real, probes are easy. If it is polished fiction, this is where it shows.
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FAQ
Civil Service behaviours, answered
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