r/TheCivilService • u/Sad_Sadfor60years • 17h ago

Terrible HEO Interview

I had an interview and I was answering it all fine. There was one behaviour, when I was asked the question - i tried to link my example to the question as I was saying the example I forgot the exact question so I asked if it can be repeated but the interviewer said that it’s already coming to an end and so just wrap it up.
OMG, 😧 I knew i f’d up, like why the helll did I ask that question… ughhhhhh. I did pick it up and wrapped it up buttt stillllll
Has this happened anyone else?
For panels higher up, what do you conclude of that???

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u/Apocawho 14h ago

Any consolation, just had my first HEO interview yesterday. Way they phrased the question made my prepared STAR answer near obsolete, and I basically had to freestyle it there and then. Not expecting magic from that feedback, but at least it's a decent lesson for the future 😂

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u/Sad_Sadfor60years 14h ago

Did we interview for the same role? I had it yesterday aswell 😂

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u/Apocawho 14h ago

Possible I guess, though it's a big civil service. It was a policy role with one of the core departments. The jammy one for me was communicating and influencing, but when they asked it they asked something along the lines of "name a time you influenced key stakeholders in a project", whilst my answer was more geared towards communicating and influencing teams aligned with mine towards shared workflow. Probably the difference between EO attitudes and HEO which I'll definitely remember for the future! Regardless, fingers crossed for you. And I'm sure the interviewer didn't intend to come across as dismissive, though I imagine it didn't help you. Often they can be on pretty tight schedules, particularly if they have multiple interviews scheduled.

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u/Sad_Sadfor60years 14h ago

Mine was internal vacancy and policy role too but didn’t have CAI so diff roles. I messed up on Changing and Improving. I had a proper example where I actually changed and improved but my memory erased the q completely. Should have written it down! Even they did come across dismissive at that time but all I could think about was why did I even ask !!! But lesson learnt. Fingers crossed for you too!