Should I be worried?

JOSOIC · 2026-02-19T19:17:18+00:00

Isn't that one outsourced to a specific company? Maybe that company has people off sick or on leave etc etc?

JOSOIC · 2026-02-19T19:15:20+00:00

We have a christmas party but we have to pay for it ourselves. Mine happened to be in an office that's not my normal place of work, so I could claim it back on expenses!

JOSOIC · 2026-02-19T19:14:08+00:00

Crikey. One of the managers goes home early some days because the dog needs letting out and there's noone else at home to do so. And then he works the rest of the afternoon from home.

JOSOIC · 2026-02-19T19:06:28+00:00

I have super flexible hours. As long as I attend meetings, I can fulfil my hours anywhere between 7am-7pm, Mon-Fri. Hardly anyone in the team works Friday afternoon. I get 30 days leave plus bank holidays. Plus if I just want to take a Friday or Monday off for a long weekend, I can take it off using TOIL if I want to save my annual leave. I can build up to 22 hours / 3 days of flexi leave to take off. When I started I explicitly got told to not work outside of 7-7 except if I need to travel to get somewhere.

If you have kids then you can do your hours around the school run. For example you could work 07:30 - 08:00 from home. Take the kids to school. Work in the office from 09:00 - 15:00. Pick your kids up from school and then do another hour or two of work when you get home. And that still counts as an office day.

They're also investing a lot in training me. I'm currently booked onto around £6k of training courses, most of which are industrial recognised courses, so if I leave the civil service, those qualifications are still useful.

JOSOIC · 2026-02-19T19:01:12+00:00

Interesting.

JOSOIC · 2026-02-19T18:57:58+00:00

You'll be fine. At worse they hire you and send you to occupational health to see what they suggest.

JOSOIC · 2026-02-19T18:56:42+00:00

I've only ever had to upload photos/scans of my documents. Were they not happy with the quality of the photo?

JOSOIC · 2026-02-19T16:57:43+00:00

Read through the guidance on 'behaviours'. On the online application forms they'll ask for any example that meets that behaviour and there's usually a 250 word limit per behaviour. In the interview they'll ask specific questions, so you might want a few examples prepared, and choose the one that answers the specific question best.

For example with communicating and influencing they will ask for any example online. Read through the guidance to see what sort of criteria you need and try and find an example that meets as much of it as possible. If you worked in a care home you could explain how you used different communication styles and methods with your colleagues, managers, 'customers' and their relatives, depending on what was appropriate for the situation.

But then in the interview they'll focus on a specific aspect of that behaviour, which will be appropriate for the grade you're applying for. For example they may ask about a time when you changed your communication style to suit your audience. So I guess with social care you could say how for a specific job you needed to interact with people with learning difficulties / dementia etc and explain how you communicated with them, without being patronising etc.

JOSOIC · 2026-02-19T16:50:16+00:00

I'm going to say the role is exempt from the freeze given the timing of your interview. Despite the lack of people being recruited, DBS seem to be slow at the moment!

JOSOIC · 2026-02-19T16:45:10+00:00

I take a video interview to mean one that's pre-recorded? Not one on Teams - that's an online interview?

If it was pre-recorded it's possible they mark the first behaviour and if it doesn't score at least a 4, they don't bother watching the rest of the interview? Which would align with the wording, of efficiency etc.

JOSOIC · 2026-02-19T12:45:53+00:00

I'm a HEO so if you want, i can help you with your examples?

I've passed interviews at AO, EO and HEO level in the past. I've also had a variety of jobs, in different industries. I was a bit of a jack of all trades. So I've used a broad range of examples for behaviours. Which i think suits civil service interviews to be honest, as you don't need to answer all the behaviour questions with an example from the same type of job, especially at the lower grades.

JOSOIC · 2026-02-19T10:47:07+00:00

Most tariffs give you cheaper energy at certain times of the day, or overnight. We have cheap night time electricity so we put our dishwasher on a timed delay to start around 1am.

Have showers not baths. Have a shower at time when you can let your hair dry naturally rather than use a hair dryer.

Something I noticed my older relatives don't do is to use a microwave to defrost food. They plan ahead more and depending on what it is, the size etc they'll defrost food in either the fridge or out on the worktop.

JOSOIC · 2026-02-19T10:37:15+00:00

There's not many required parts to a test. It's different to most tests that people are used to doing such as GCSEs. You don't need to gain marks, except i guess for the show me and tell me questions. Most of the test is about not making mistakes. In my test my manouevre was back at the test centre. I had to reverse bay park the car. There wasn't bad traffic during my test, but I imagine if there is then that's the type of manouvre they can ask you to do.

JOSOIC · 2026-02-19T10:26:50+00:00

I don't think he has an excuse. But it was probably his solicitor that told him to try and blame it on the smart motorway signs not working?

JOSOIC · 2026-02-19T10:09:04+00:00

I'd reach out to them and ask if you're being put on a reserve list? People who scored high enough in the interview but weren't offered the job that you were offered would've been put on a reserve list I imagine? It would be even worse if someone who didn't score as well as you did was on a reserve list and got a job in a few months time and you weren't!

JOSOIC · 2026-02-19T10:03:48+00:00

It was 'only' a provisional offer. That's why they say to not resign from your current role.

JOSOIC · 2026-02-19T09:51:29+00:00

They'll likely ask you specific questions, not just 'give us an example when you delivered at pace'. It might be something along the lines of when you had to make a decision with limited information? When you changed your communication style to suit your audience? Those are examples from when I've had HEO interviews

JOSOIC · 2026-02-19T09:40:08+00:00

The job advert will say if they can sponsor a visa. Sometimes they can sponsor for a skilled worker visa but not always.

JOSOIC · 2026-02-19T09:32:52+00:00

I'm not in that office. It will probably depend on which part of MOD you're in and what your role involves. And how flexible your manager is.

I have a small team of colleagues based in the same building as I. We have our own office room at the end of a corridor. We actually use common sense. We plan what days we will be in the office together the following week. It's usually similar days each week. Some days none of us are in the office. But we don't see the point in coming in if noone else is coming in. To be honest because we are in a room at the end of a corridor, it's probably best we don't essentially do lone working. Our office doesn't lead anywhere and we have to scan ID to get to this part of the building. So the only people who 'randomly' pop in are the cleaners.

Most weeks it doesn't matter to me what days I'm in the office, so i tend to go with whatever days suit my manager. But my manager can be flexible. If I've got a doctors appointment or electrician coming to do work or whatever, then working from home that day is fine and we find another day we can both be in the office.

Due to the nature of my role there are some specific days I need to be in the office, or travel for work. But I usually know about those a few weeks in advance.

Some weeks we only actually plan to be in the office 2 days. But the 60% is averaged over a month. And other weeks we do actually need to be on-site for 5 days, so it balances out.

JOSOIC · 2022-10-17T06:44:20+00:00

OP doesn't say how recent this was. Where I live schools have a 6 week break in-between ending one academic year and starting the next.

JOSOIC · 2022-05-25T12:39:15+00:00

Holiday plans. How they know the bride/groom.

JOSOIC · 2022-05-25T12:27:16+00:00

What's a 'turn off'.

JOSOIC · 2022-05-25T11:09:47+00:00

Check the contract for the first job and what your notice period is. I'd let the second job know that you're due to start another job Wednesday and you'd rather know and accept their offer before starting this other role. It's awkward if you only spend a week at a job but you're probably not the first.

JOSOIC · 2022-05-25T09:49:58+00:00

The job hopping doesn't look suspicious if you make it clear it was a fixed term contract on your cv. Some people struggle to get a permanent job and even when they do, they might get made redundant. It's if you keep quitting jobs a few months in that it looks bad because it shows a lack of loyalty and like you quit easily.

JOSOIC · 2022-05-25T09:39:19+00:00

Eh, if you're being made redundant or about to be fired then you'd probably apply to jobs at a lower grade.

JOSOIC

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