The Student Room Group

Competencies and ensuring one matches against the grading?

Hi there,

I'm currently in the process of applying for a variety of CS jobs and I've become a little stuck on the competencies, most likely due to my previous poor examples used which has knocked my confidence (the testing was 86%, 84% & 89%), and I'm looking for advice on how to ensure that I match against the grading as well as possible.

The most recent application I made, a couple of months ago, the competency I was asked to complete was 'Leading & communication' and previously they were; 'Managing a quality service' and 'Making effective decisions'.

The latter two, I was successful in writing and got an interview (didn't succeed at interview), however the most recent one I was not and scored rather low on the competency, it was a '2 - Minimal Demonstration' even though I believed I covered both EO & HEO expectations in great detail (well as much detail as 250 words allows) as I based it off a training session I had to give which I presume, in hindsight, it was the wrong situation to use.

I appear to be coming across:
• Building capability for all
• Changing and improving
• Collaborating and partnering
• Delivering at pace
• Leading and communicating
• Seeing the big picture

I believe I have examples for all of them however after the recent confidence knock I'm looking for advice on how I can match accurately against the 1 to 7 mark scheme to ensure I get into an interview. I'm going to adapt 'Managing a quality service' and 'Making effective decisions' as I presume I can reuse previous competency examples?

Any advice or links to in-depth examples/help would be much appreciated :smile:
Reply 1
Original post by PandaSal
Hi there,

I'm currently in the process of applying for a variety of CS jobs and I've become a little stuck on the competencies, most likely due to my previous poor examples used which has knocked my confidence (the testing was 86%, 84% & 89%), and I'm looking for advice on how to ensure that I match against the grading as well as possible.

The most recent application I made, a couple of months ago, the competency I was asked to complete was 'Leading & communication' and previously they were; 'Managing a quality service' and 'Making effective decisions'.

The latter two, I was successful in writing and got an interview (didn't succeed at interview), however the most recent one I was not and scored rather low on the competency, it was a '2 - Minimal Demonstration' even though I believed I covered both EO & HEO expectations in great detail (well as much detail as 250 words allows) as I based it off a training session I had to give which I presume, in hindsight, it was the wrong situation to use.

I appear to be coming across:
• Building capability for all
• Changing and improving
• Collaborating and partnering
• Delivering at pace
• Leading and communicating
• Seeing the big picture

I believe I have examples for all of them however after the recent confidence knock I'm looking for advice on how I can match accurately against the 1 to 7 mark scheme to ensure I get into an interview. I'm going to adapt 'Managing a quality service' and 'Making effective decisions' as I presume I can reuse previous competency examples?

Any advice or links to in-depth examples/help would be much appreciated :smile:


I wouldn't be too concerned about receiving a lower mark just once. I've submitted the same competency, for the same grade in the same department and one time gotten a score of 5, and the other a score of 2. The competency system is a bone of contention within the civil service as there really is very little consistency.

You can get feedback on why that did not score that competency very highly if you send them an email.

I wouldn't worry too much, just apply the feedback and make some changes. It all depends on how lucky you are with whoever ends up grading what you wrote. Good luck :biggrin:
Reply 2
Original post by Marath
I wouldn't be too concerned about receiving a lower mark just once. I've submitted the same competency, for the same grade in the same department and one time gotten a score of 5, and the other a score of 2. The competency system is a bone of contention within the civil service as there really is very little consistency.

You can get feedback on why that did not score that competency very highly if you send them an email.

I wouldn't worry too much, just apply the feedback and make some changes. It all depends on how lucky you are with whoever ends up grading what you wrote. Good luck :biggrin:

It's good to hear that you got differing scores between departments, I did get feedback and I focused too much on something that wasn't relevant to this particular role which is unfortunate as I had two drafts and I picked the wrong one in this instance.

I can see why the competency route is a bone of contention within the CS, it doesn't seem to be the best way when it's restricted to 250 words as I've found myself cutting bits out to bring the word count down but the overall result not displaying the skills 100% to my liking and then it's subjective based on who is reviewing :s-smilie:

I've since rewritten, based on the feedback, and submitted for a different role so we shall see what happens. Thanks for your reply :smile:

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