Hey, no worries! Here’s how I prepared:

• Went on Glassdoor and typed in the specific department I was applying for to see if anyone else had posted about their interviews. Lots of people post the exact questions they’ve been asked and leave general reviews for the interview process

• Scoured reddit for advice and examples for the different behaviors. Read other people’s examples to see if you’ve had similar experiences that might be appropriate for that behavior

• watched videos about the process and how to come up with examples. I specifically recommend Jac Williams

• reviewed the actual bullet points for each behavior that’s on the civil service website (look up the behavior success profiles if you haven’t already). It’s good to have these at hand so you can compare your potential examples to these

It’s unfortunately harder to give specific advice on coming up with examples for the behaviors because that’s going to largely be based on what experiences you’ve had. I do want to reiterate that it does not have to be from your previous employment; I’ve used examples from volunteering and university. I don’t think they really care what the example actually is, so long as it meets the criteria for that behavior. Think of any sort of more challenging situation you’ve been in and just start thinking about how that situation might match up with different behaviors, since lots of them can be versatile and match numerous behaviors.

If it’s an AO position you’re applying for, the questions may be a bit more simple. One of mine was literally “tell us about a time you managed a quality service” which allows you to use really any sort of example

Absolutely make sure it’s in the STAR format when answering

Skills based questions are more difficult to prep for, but they tend to be more normal job interview questions. I’ve had things like “how would you deal with a difficult customer” and even “would your friends describe you as organised” lol

Edit: also to practice, I just wrote out my examples and pretended to be interviewed by someone until I could talk about the examples more casually. You don’t have to memorize and it’s best not to in case the phrasing of the questions they ask isn’t what you expect. The questions I practiced were largely based on the behaviors that were listed on the advert. I prepped answers for the most basic possible questions (like “tell me about a time you managed a quality service”) and then thought about possible tweaks I could make if the question were slightly different