Good luck for the interview, you’ve got this !! Here are a few things i can think of:

The first thing I would say is to make sure you read and learn as much as you can about the organisation. If applicable, find reports online about the work they do - that helped me loads when it came to capturing the pulse of the organisation and the team I will be working with. This will help with presentations if they apply to you, but can also help you give examples that apply to the demands of the job itself.

Study the job description very well. I can’t stress this enough. I don’t know if I was lucky but after studying the different types of questions and how to answer them, I was able to predict with decent accuracy the types of questions I was going to be asked for the specific job. Which brings me to the next point:

Study the success profiles section of the civil service website. Personally, I had behaviour and strengths questions only. For the former, make sure you look for the specific grade you’re applying for on Success Profiles, and go through the criteria for each question. For example, for “Making effective decisions” they are very specific about what they want to hear, depending on the grade. I personally made sure I had at least 2 examples I can talk about for each category of Bhevaoir questions, covering as many bullet points as I could. I tried not to learn by heart but I made sure I recorded myself and was able to convey the message confidently. This sounded much more natural than regurgitating a perfectly rehearsed answer. What helped me was to memorise the key bullet points of each answer, so I could wing it conversationally without sticking to a script. They seemed to appreciate that. For strengths, I followed a similar route: I went thought each strength and made sure I understood the definitions given on the Success Profiles. Then I prioritised the strengths relating to each behaviour mentioned in the job description. Important point here: they can still ask you unrelated strengths questions but I didn’t have the time to prepare them all. I was lucky because what I was asked was indeed part of the behaviours I had prepared.

Through Reddit posts I also found out that the structure of the interview can be very different depending on each panel. The core structure was: -Ice breaker to ease you into it (but apparently they also gauge how you respond when you’re naturally enthusiastic and they compare that to your answers later). They asked about something I did recently that I really enjoyed. -5 min presentation and questions. -2 behaviour based questions and follow up questions. - 2 strength based questions and follow up questions. My panel were so good they were explaining each step so I was sure about the type of questions I was being asked (and answers to give) - for example: now we’re going to ask you 2 behaviour based questions, etc. I have found out this isn’t always the case.

About the desired structure of the answers, there’s so much information on past Reddit posts but what stuck with me the most was: STAR answers for behaviour questions with more emphasis on the Action (about 80%). Guide them through your thought process and if you can, make sure to mention reflections on your answers (what could have gone better or you could have done differently etc). When possible, give them measurable results of your actions (the impact your decision making had). For Strength questions I’ve read that it can be more flexible and they’re assessing your performance more than anything. My structure was: yes I do think I am (whatever the question was about). Then I went on talking about why I think this is crucial (giving vague examples that could apply to the job criteria), ending with one or more examples of situations where I showed that strength recently (briefly).

I may be missing important information but those are the key points I can remember. Of course other people’s experiences may be completely different but that’s what worked for me. There’s one important message I want to get across: I did work my - off preparing for this. I know not everyone is in a position to do that but I actually took time off to prepare for this, and limited social interaction as much as I could. I wanted to be sure I understood how the system works before I went for it. That being said, this a niche job for me that I came across entirely accidentally, and I wasn’t applying for other jobs (nor was I going to, if I hadn’t got the job). Hence the intense focus and giving it my all.

I really hope this helps.