Public Sector Interview Questions & Answers

Asked about my main motivations for wanting to join the metropolitan police. This was also evident in a telephone interview I had had prior to being invited to the assessment centre. During the phone interview they also questioned my understanding of the scheme, what I thought it entailed and what qualities and strengths I thought I could bring to the role.

Following basic competency questions they then asked my opinion of the salary that was being offered for the job and my suitability to the obvious flexibility that would be required to work as police constable, mainly involving shift work. The phone interview lasted about 25 minutes with a member of an external agency who was taking notes throughout.

Describe a time where you have dealt with members of different ethnicities, genders and different age groups where you had to collate to work on a group project. What was the project and how did you cope working with others?

Really research the service in great detail, it's not about knowing who's who but more of what they do and how they operate. It really is about commitment and this is not like any other organisation and you have to demonstrate that will and desire to join. Ultimately it is about making a difference to society and that is what is required.

Know the ins and outs of the job, the specification and what you can add to it. Also research the police mission statement and know what you are saying can be related back to this important statement. All of these will be valued and show that you are dedicated, committed and have a burning desire to join.

During the assessment centre we were all assessed on an individual basis. The first part was an in-tray exercise whereby we were positioned in a room with a laptop for 75 minutes. During these 75 minutes we had to prioritise a number of different issues and write a report regarding the prioritisation.

The next exercise was a role play, we were given 10 minutes to prepare for the role play it was centered around the previous exercise and was based on issues within a fictional town but did represent real life situations. The role play was in front of two officers who were acting as assessors.

From the role play, the next exercise was to present my findings from my in-tray exercise to a fictional Councillor who was having issues that were mentioned. I had to prove to this individual that i had chosen to prioritise the right issues and achieve co-operation from them moving forward.

The penultimate exercise was testing that involved a laptop 2 x 10 minute tests. One numerical and one verbal reasoning, both were relatively straightforward and similar to those that had been completed before reaching this stage.

Finally there was an interview that followed suit to the telephone interview, reiterating my motivations for wanting to join, why I valued this unique programme and what I thought I could bring to the role. Again it was about my fit to the job and how they felt I would be able to handle different situations.

The INTERVIEW itself was one on one and competency-based. It lasted 40 minutes. Questions included one on my present employment, one on what attracted me to a civil service career, and one on what the biggest challenge would be if I joined and how I would overcome it.

Otherwise, I was asked 4 or 5 questions on examples of when I had demonstrated an aspect of one of the competencies that are examined at interview. Note that it is not on the competencies themselves (e.g. 'when have you delivered at pace?' - these 9 competencies are available on the fast stream website) that the questions are asked, but on the little sub-competencies which go into each of them (e.g. 'when have you dealt with challenges in a responsive and constructive way?'). These sub-competencies are too numerous for most people to write a compelling story for each, so I think the best thing to do is prepare a story or two for each competency and then think about how to tailor it depending on what you are asked.

The competency questions. I had prepared examples that demonstrated the 4 (or 2, depending how you count) main competencies examined at interview: Managing a Quality Service/Delivering at Pace and Collaborating and Partnering/Building Capability for All. But I was instead asked about the components that make up each of these (e.g. 'being open to learning'); I hadn't always thought of how I had specifically demonstrates these components, so I ended up having to think of some of my examples on the spot and they were not so structured or persuasive.

Think hard about examples of the DETAILS of competencies for the interview. Practice telling engaging stories using the STARLET technique.

Practice making presentations, and also writing to time (an example for the Policy Recommendation is available in one of the Fast Stream online leaflets).

Bear in mind that the time will soon start passing very quickly. And that although tea breaks (and tea!) are in theory provided in between each exercise, sometimes you just won't have time for a breather. It is (at the risk of stating the obvious) intense and tiring.

Besides the interview proper, there was lunch (a buffet, with Q and A from a current fast streamer), a group exercise, a leadership exercise, a policy recommendation exercise and a re-test of the numerical and verbal tests you will have done online.


In the GROUP EXERCISE, six candidates had to choose which two of six policy options to put forward (each of us having one to promote, one which was OK, and two which needed to be opposed). We also had to produce a set of points (not to be handed in, but the assessors can hear what we decide on) justifying our choice to a minister (or superior) in light of the policy priorities we had been given.

There was no chair, although there is a stopwatch which it is good to volunteer to take. The people in my group were all pretty talkative and bad at timekeeping: for example, it took a lot of intervention by me and another member to get us even two minutes left at the end to agree on the justification. People would just get carried away with debates on single points, and the timing meant that the best and second best policies we chose were selected pretty much arbitrarily, according to who was talking most at that point. Anyway, that's a one sort of fairly likely scenario you might encounter, and maybe you can anticipate strategies for dealing with them. At any rate, if things get a bit chaotic like that it needn't come as a surprise to you.

Following the Group Exercise, we returned to individual desks and had a written exercise in which we had 20 minutes to choose the best policy option in terms of value for money, justify our choice, and highlight up to three principal risks it entailed and how these might be countered. Remember to turn over the instruction sheet to find the explanation of what is meant by 'value for money', which is somewhat counter-intuitively described as 'not really a financial consideration' or something similar! It is worth getting the idea though, as the concept of 'value for money' is meant to be about more than just numbers. It is based on consideration of 3 Es which were, I think, economic sense, efficiency, and effectiveness. A description can probably found on one of the Fast Stream online resources.

The last bit of the Group Exercise involved a handwritten self-assessment (everything else is on a computer) which took 15 minutes. There were four questions. They asked me about two competencies: making effective decisions and collaborating and partnering (of course, it is not clear if this choice of two changes each time). For each of these two, I was first asked to select which aspect (which 'sub-competency') I felt I achieved best during the exercise, and specifically how I did this. I was then asked which I felt I could most improve on, and what I would do about it over the intervening time if I were to be facing another Group Exercise in four weeks' time. So, look out accurately for areas of high and low performance during the exercise, and if there is an area you do badly in then at least you can get extra marks just for noticing it and responding constructively.


The LEADERSHIP EXERCISE basically followed the description in the FSAC leaflet. Half an hour preparation, ten minutes presentation, and twenty minutes Q and A. The focus is broadly on management. My situation involved taking charge of a team that was trying out a new programme related to health. A lot of the most salient problems, or the problems at the root of all the others, were about relationships and division of workloads within the team, but the overall aim of the presentation was to tell the assessor, who poses as your superior, in a structured way about my plans for all the challenges facing them - and of course, here it is good to open with an 'opening bang' and close with a 'closing bang'.

The questions were partly designed to bring up areas not covered by the presentation (which along with the friendliness of the assessor made this 30 minutes much less painful than expected), and partly designed to help me talk about the policy itself. The latter sort asked about new challenges or more specific ideas related to the policy itself, which test out your on-the-trot thinking. E.g. 'what do you think is the aim of this policy?', 'the minister has just said that ______ should have the right to know if ________ [but it will also bring significant drawbacks if the information is available]. How do you intend to respond to that?' or 'and how, specifically, do you intend to address the reluctance of some organisations to go along with these reforms?'.

the leadership exercise was also followed by a self-assessment following the same format used above, but this time testing Collaborating and Partnering/Building Capability for all, and Leading and Communicating.


For the POLICY RECOMMENDATION EXERCISE, the main part is writing (in prose not bullet points) an analysis of two options against four or five criteria defined by a superior (e.g. social impact/regeneration; environmental; value for money; and public perceptions). You choose one option to recommend, and justify your choice. It is recommended that you save about 15 minutes at the end of your 1h45 to do the second part, which is a brief in note form for, in this case, the minister to use at a high-level committee meeting to justify this choice.

My interview lasted around 25 minutes. It was quite stop starty, and that was quite unnerving and difficult. I was asked to demonstrate what abilities in my previous experience and education showed I was capable of undertaking a job role in which I would have to communicate with the public under difficult circumstances. I was asked about what I knew about the company, I researched this a lot and am glad I did even though it didn't mean I got this role.

Describe a specific incident of when you had to deal with communication problems in your previous work experience? How did you overcome this problem? What were the results?

Be prepared to be interrupted and don't let it fluster you like I did. For my interview they wanted very specific examples of ways you've demonstrated the companies values. A lot of the time I gave too much information and was stopped throughout.

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I was asked on my previous work experience and asked to provide examples of situations I had been involved in that showed my ability to work with others, show assertiveness and good judgment, ability to write a good report and being able to be articulate in communication. There was a one to one interview that was followed by a written task in which I was given a scenario and asked to write a report and make recommendations to an adviser who was to implement the findings of my report. Yes, there was an overall format that had to be followed and finally the group activity had to be undertaken to enable the assessors to ascertain the suitability of candidates to work with others. The whole assessment exercise took half a day and the people who carried out the written exercise were not the same as the those who carried out the interviews or the group activity. The recruitment team sought to be fair and very transparent in their recruitment exercise!

The most difficult one were the examples I needed to give in order to determine the level of my competency to carry out the job. These were a bit more difficult because probation work is more hands on and demands direct supervision of ex-offenders which makes it a bit tricky if one has not been in the police force or prison service.

Be prepared to for the assessment and strive to remain composed at all the times. There is need for one to work very quickly in dealing with the scenario presented as time is limited and flies faster than one can imagine. Whilst the pressure is immense it is important that one has a good night's sleep and is relaxed by the time they get to the interview. Always try to remain relevant to questions asked and don't try to over-elaborate one's answers. If the interviewer wants a further information to an answer given they will ask a further probing question of to help you along.

We were split into four groups of six each and asked to study a scenario in which each candidate had to participate in giving their views as to how they can best handle the situation and why they chose to handle it the way they did. It was nerve wrecking trying to study the scenario in very limited time and asked to come to a decision under the hawkish gaze of the recruitment team in an atmosphere in which one knows that they are contesting with those who are sitting on the table with them for a limited number of positions to be filled.

After getting through the online application process, you will be invited to their assessment centre. It is a full day assessment centre which involves three main tasks: one-to-one interview with a TeachFirst staff/ambassador; group case study and; presentation of your chosen lesson title. The first of these is usually the one-to-one interview where you will be given a series of competency questions from their lists of competencies:
Humility, respect and empathy (HRE)
Knowledge
Resilience
Leadership
Planning and organising
Interaction
Problem solving
Self-evaluation

The interview is relatively straightforward if you have prepared a couple of different examples for each competency. The assessor was patient and very friendly. The great thing about the TeachFirst interview is that they give you a chance to come back to questions if you don't feel confident with it at the time, this gives you a chance to think about it whilst going through other questions. The questions themselves are predetermined and goes through each competency so it is very important that you have prepared these. However, they have no access to your online application so you can use your answers which you provided on there. I would say that this part of the interview was the easiest for me as I prepared thoroughly.

1) Please give an example of a situation that you have created which was leading to, or resulted in a negative outcome. Explain how the measures you put in place helped to improve the situation.

2) Please give an example of the time when you had a positive influence on someone.

My best advice would be to go through each competencies and list different examples for each one as well as finding ways to incorporate those competencies in the group task and lesson plan. Also, during the day it is vital that you just relax, be yourself and have fun.
Lastly, the best thing you can do to be successful at this assessment centre is PREPARE, PREPARE AND PREPARE!

The assessment centre is relaxed and very informative. There were about 15 of us at the time and we were given breaks in between the different tasks. This gave us time to talk amongst ourselves as well as do some last minute preparation. We were given detailed instruction in the morning of what we were required to do during our time there. It was really well organised and everything ran smoothly. The staff there were very helpful and it felt that they wanted us to do the best we can. The atmosphere didn't feel at all tense.

After you've done your one-to-one interview, you are then assigned to a group of maybe 4-7 people depending on the number of the participants during the day. The group tasks involves discussing different solutions to a problem and deciding on an answer as a group. You are given a few minutes to read over an information pack. The best way to get through this is by making quality contributions as well as involving other participants into the conversation. Do not take over the whole discussion or interrupt other participants whilst they are speaking.

The last task of the day is the lesson preparation. A week or two before your assessment centre you are given a choice of lesson titles and out of these you must prepare 1 lesson which you will present to two adult assessors (acting like kids) for exactly 7 minutes. It's really important that this lesson is both creative and engaging. You must also be able to control the situation when it comes to bad behaviour or lack of attention. However, this certainly was the most fun part of the day!

Overall, TeachFirst is looking for someone that match their criteria so just make sure you know and apply the list of competencies throughout the selection process. You will also be given self evaluation forms which is crucial to identifying your strength and weaknesses. My advice is just to make the most out of the day and be yourself!

Interview panel of 2 members, consisted of two sections. First was devoted to why I wanted to the NHS, here i had to prove that I knew a lot about the current issues the NHS are facing and show that I was passionate about improving NHS standards, focusing on the patient. The second was experience based, for example "give me an example of a time when you demonstrated the ability to work well in a team".

"Describe a situation when you had to make a difficult decision, what was the outcome of this decision?"

Show passion for the NHS and show that you have a lot of knowledge on the current issues that the NHS faces. Throughout the whole process it was essential to always focus on the patient when undertaking any task, each decision made should benefit the patient.

Had to role play as a NHS manager for the day, had to write various reports, attend a 1-1 meeting with a colleague, a group meeting and another 1-1 which a superior asked you to attend on their behalf.

My one to one interview went really well. It felt quiet informal and mainly centred around my motives and ambitions, and I was asked a lot about my personal experiences that had led to me wanting to train as a Mental Health Social Worker. I had to discuss why I felt Mental Health is an important area of health and social care, and then it was very clear to me that they expected us to ask questions ourselves at the end so it was lucky I had prepared for this and had a few questions ready to spark some discussion at the end of the interview.

"Should a service user be able to chose who their social worker is?"

Make sure you've got some relevant work experience before you apply as much of the activities you do will be centred around how you would handle tough situations which you only learn to do by having that background knowledge. Prepare a list of questions you want to ask and really research the area so you have examples and statistics to draw upon when you're in the group discussion and so on.

The assessment centre day consisted of each of us being give a personal timetable of the day's activities. The first thing was a 1-2-1 interview discussing my motives for applying and my career goals. This was followed by a role play where an actor played the role of a service user and I played the role of the social worker. She played the role of an alcoholic woman who had Bipolar and had had her daughter removed from the family home and I had to try and get her to engage with me despite her hostility and mania. After the role play I went to a reflection room with an assessor to discuss what I had done right and what I could improve on. There was then a written task where you were given a scenario to read and have to answer exam-style questions in the allotted time highlighting key points and actions that could be taken to resolve the scenario. We then had a group debate based on different case studies, and then went off in pairs to be simultaneously interviewed by a service user.

I knew prior to the date that this was a role play assessment consisting of 4 scenarios relating to the prison environment. There were 3 other candidates. We were taken to a room and told there would be 5 scenarios. We were given 15 minutes to make notes on all of these. We were then given 2 minutes to look specifically at the first scenario. We were then taken to a corridor and asked to stand outside our designated room and knock when we were ready to enter. Inside each room was one other individual - a role play actor - and a discrete camera used by a marker who was watching our performances live and marking according to the 6 competencies : non verbal communication, suspending judgement, respect for diversity, assertion, exploring and clarifying and showing understanding. We were allowed a maximum 10 minutes in the room. After this time, we were told to leave and go back to the note-making room where we were given 2 minutes to revise for the next scenario.

The most difficult scenario involved a girl playing a prisoner who would not stop swearing and insulting me. It was difficult because no matter what I tried, she wouldn't stop cursing. I knew I must be doing something wrong but I didn't know what. This made it very difficult to address the problems she was having because, due to the prison rules outlined in the pack we were given, we had to address any inappropriate language.

Be yourself. I had watched a "how to pass your prison officer role play assessment" video and I wish I hadn't. I think for this particular assessment, as long as you know the 6 criteria they are marking you on and how to demonstrate those behaviours, you'll do fine. Afterwards, I knew the mistakes I had made and wished I had done less preparation as the video was not focused on the prison environment. I therefore believe that I showed too much compassion for this organisation and not enough assertion.

We had to enter 5 rooms for 10 minutes each. Each room had a different role play actor acting out a different situation. I was playing a prison officer throughout. The first involved me meeting with my mentor on my first day. The second involved an upset member of staff. The third involved a prisoner which was suspected of carrying a sharp object. The fourth was a prisoner who hadn't received her methodone. The fifth involved gang culture and a mobile phone.

The video interview took place after successful online tests. The interview was based around the civil service key competencies asking for evidence of leadership, collaborating and partnering, innovation, diversity and working under pressure. 8 questions asked from a pre recorded video and then was given 2 minutes to answer each immediately after. This process was nerve wracking initially but the interview was set up well to ease you into it and feel as comfortable. This allowed me to give accurate answers detailing my experience to the best of my ability.

To what extent are you effective at adapting to changing circumstances? And what evidence do you have?

Take your time and try not to concentrate on what anybody else is doing. You are put in a room with 40 other candidates all typing at the same time and can be quite off putting. Try to zone out and concentrate on what you are doing. Also have strict time management. The day is designed to pressure you so try to not think about the last exercise of it went worse than expected.

The assessment centres are held in both London and Newcastle. Mine was held in London and was given expenses for traveling and staying over the night before. The centre itself was a half day event held in parliament street and consisted of 3 separate tasks. The first was an hour and a half report writing test in which I was given detailed proposals for 2 new government schemes. From this information I had to create a report and a data sheet detailing my advice on the pros and cons of each proposal and my concerns and recommendations. The second task was a group task where we were all given information on 6 different schemes and told separe tasks to argue for. After this we attended a 40 minutes meeting with other candidates and had to decide together which 2 would be implimented. The final task was a leadership expercise/ role play where I had to present for ten minutes to my "senior manager" my plans for taking over a new team and project. This was followed by 30 minutes of questioning and a self assessment.

I was interviewed by two ladies. Both within the industry, but not specific within the role I was applying for.
Questions about me and what I've done (great opportunity to fill in some points about how your skills match up to skills relevant/needed for the role)
Usual competency based questions were included - example of team work, time you demonstrated leadership, How do you manage your time well?
General questions about role - Why Network Rail, What interests you about the project management scheme, how will you cope with the University course in the first year?

Interview lasted around 40 minutes.

Very comfortable interview. The questions didn't try and catch you out - they tried to make you feel comfortable and if you looked stuck on a question/didn't answer question fully, they asked a follow up question to get the points out.

Industry based questions - can't remember them all - I checked after and they were general Project management jobs - such as describing risk management. Put me on the spot as I wasn't expecting that at all.

Be prepared. Prepare knowledge of what challenges the company may be facing, on the projects they are currently working on.

For assessment day - read the finance section of a finance section on an a-level revision website (basic understanding will help you)
Fell confident during it - it isn't as intense and scary as it may seem, everyone is very friendly. You also get a great lunch at the staff canteen!

Assessment centre was based in Warwick.

It consisted of:
one to one interview
group exercise
presentation exercise


Presentation exercise - I would recommend brushing up on knowledge of break even/ revenue/ profit/ loss - as you will need to work out lots of data and compare.
- It is a fun exercise - important to read through all documents first, to ensure you get an overall understanding of all the information (this will make more sense once you're there)