Working Together: Civil Service Behaviour Examples by Grade

GOV.UK defines the behaviour in these words: “Form effective partnerships and relationships with people both internally and externally, from a range of diverse backgrounds, sharing information, resources and support.” Civil Service Careers prints the same definition on its Behaviours page. Everything else on this page builds on that definition and on the grade-band examples that follow it.

On GOV.UK each list completes a sentence that ends “are when you:”, which is why the examples begin with a verb in lower case. They are reproduced exactly, including GOV.UK’s own punctuation. Find the band that matches the grade in your advert; the headings are GOV.UK’s.

The lists move from being a good member of a team, to building links between teams, to building networks, to shaping a collaborative culture. The middle column quotes the wording that first appears, or matters most, at that band. The right-hand column is our reading of it and is not official guidance.

The same phrase appears in the list at all six bands (the Deputy Director list adds one comma). Only the wording around it changes.

Our reading: at AA and AO you understand it; at EO you ensure it is clear; at HEO and SEO you make it clear to all team members; from Grade 7 you create the environment, set the expectations and create the culture. A second subject, wellbeing, is also present at every band, from being “aware of the need to consider your own wellbeing and that of your colleagues” at AA and AO to ensuring it “is valued across the organisation” at Director. An example about a team result can also show how the people in it were looked after.

We looked for official example interview questions for this behaviour on GOV.UK and on Civil Service Careers and found none. What the official pages do say is short. GOV.UK says you “may be asked to give examples of when you have demonstrated a particular behaviour”, or “how you would behave in a given situation”. A Defra recruiter writing on the department’s GOV.UK blog says behaviour questions “may start with ‘Tell me about a time when…’”.

The six questions below are example questions we wrote from the descriptors, one for each grade band. Each is built from a single GOV.UK example, shown beside it so that you can see where the wording comes from. We do not claim that any department asks them. Use them to rehearse, and expect your panel to word its own.

Two points on using them. First, a panel can turn any of these into a hypothetical (“How would you…”), which GOV.UK expressly allows for. Second, each question is narrower than the behaviour. A good answer to one of them shows that line of the list clearly and touches others on the way; it does not try to recite the whole list.

GOV.UK’s advice on structure is one sentence: “In your own examples, consider using the STAR method which allows you to set the scene, show what and how you did and the overall outcome.” The table below is our suggestion for what each part should carry when the behaviour is Working together. It is drawn from the definition and the examples above, and it is ours, not an official template.

Then check the draft against your band. Take the list for your grade from the tables above, or use the tool, and go line by line. Mark a line as shown only when you can point to the sentence that shows it. Lines with no sentence behind them are either gaps to fill or parts you have chosen not to cover, which GOV.UK allows.

If the tool does not load, the six tables under “the GOV.UK examples in full” carry exactly the same lines.

GOV.UK lists six ways a behaviour can be assessed: an application form requiring written examples, the Civil Service judgement test, a personality test, an interview, an assessment centre and job related simulations. Your advert says which apply.