Competency Writing

DanH84 · 26 Sep 2016 at 10:45

Hi all,

I'm currently applying for a HEO position within the civil service. I'm writing my competencies up and I'm using the STAR method as best I can but I was wondering if there were any competency writing pros out there who had any tips/could have a look over my competencies for me and tear them apart a bit. I'm doing my best to meet the competency markers but with the 250 word limit I need to make sure I am providing sufficient clarity for the people assessing the competencies.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Josh · 27 Sep 2016 at 09:50

Good luck with it, the people on the other end who grade the competency can do rather odd things, I have been graded a 2 (low) in one competency but the exact same competency got scored 6 (highest) for an identical job in a different location.

Not sure about any pro's who could look it over but using STAR is the bets method as it's the method that they ask for.

As said good luck with the application but be prepared the expanded upon or have different situations if you get to the interview stage, it's formatted just like the application and you will either be asked to expand upon the competency you gave or "think of a different time when...".

I've seen the wrong person get a role due to a good competency score and interview but lack knowledge or skills for the role over the best person for the role with experience but had a worse written application and didn't interview well.

DanH84 · 27 Sep 2016 at 23:07

Hah inconsistencies with grading is worrying but then who knows. I've been successful at eo sifts previously so hopefully I'm not too awful. Will just have to see how it goes now. Thanks

TJM · 4 Oct 2016 at 18:43

If it isn't too late, I'd be happy to help. I recently went through the process (successfully) for a grade 7 role.

Some basic pointers:

The language used in the definition of the competency should be gently worked into your example.
Focus on what you did and how you convinced others to go along with it. Don't do 'A happened then B happened then C happened.'
Finish off the example with how it developed your skills (particularly your interpersonal skills - interview boards love that stuff).

DanH84 · 5 Oct 2016 at 20:45

Thank you. I have already submitted the competencies now, this vacancy is within HMRC and has had a much quicker turnaround time than most civil service jobs I had previously seen.

I was very aggressive in editing my competencies down, typically I have spent far too much time scene setting but this time I was able to par that down to a minimum with both the Making Effective Decisions and Leadership and Communicating competencies. I did talk in both about overcoming resistance and getting people to buy into new processes and how I managed this. Possibly I didn't manage enough reflection at the end but overall I was happy with how they came out.

I received an email this afternoon from HMRC saying I was one of the top candidates in the verbal and numeric reasoning tests so I've obviously managed to scrape into a high enough percentile to progress to the next stage of having my competencies assessed. I'm fairly happy about that as I'm sure there would have been a very high volume of applicants (stage 4 - no previous tax quals HEO grade) so I imagine the bar was set relatively high to minimise the numbers needing to go to sift.

Fingers crossed and thanks for the offer of help!

Freefaller · 6 Oct 2016 at 09:49

When I had an interview for a Grade 7 job, the interviewing panel all were noting down my answers in the STAR methodology. So they do stick to it (well at least the ones I've interfaced with have). I guess it makes it easier for the HR sausage machine to churn out the right answers/candidates. I was offered the role, but something else came up at the time which was more interesting - but I have found it to be quite a good way of capturing competencies and use it more now.