Civil Service recruitment has an unusual property that most candidates fail to exploit: it tells you exactly how you will be marked. The Success Profiles framework, the Behaviour descriptors, the levels expected at each grade and the scoring scale are all published. Very few employers are this transparent, and almost no other application process lets you write directly to the marking criteria.
Yet most applications are written as though none of that existed. People submit warm, general statements about their enthusiasm for public service, then wonder why they were sifted out by someone who was ticking off criteria on a form. The panel is not looking for the best person in some general sense. They are scoring specific evidence against specific descriptors, and the candidates who understand that consistently outperform better-qualified people who do not.
This guide covers how the framework actually works, what each stage assesses, and where marks are won and lost.
Success Profiles: the five elements
Success Profiles replaced the old competency framework in 2018. It has five elements, and any given advert will use some combination of them, never all five at once:
- Behaviours. The actions and activities that result in effective performance. There are nine, described at seven levels aligned to grade. This is the element you will meet most often.
- Strengths. The things you naturally do well and enjoy. Assessed at interview, usually unannounced, and deliberately resistant to preparation.
- Ability. Aptitude, assessed through online tests such as judgement, verbal and numerical reasoning.
- Experience. Knowledge and achievements relevant to the role, usually evidenced through your CV and personal statement.
- Technical. Professional or specialist skills where the role requires them, such as accountancy, digital or statistics.
A common error, repeated across a lot of online guidance, is to list "potential" as one of the five. It is not. The fifth element is Ability, and it matters because it is often assessed first, before a human reads anything you wrote.
Read the advert to see which elements apply. It will state them explicitly, along with the Behaviours being assessed and often the level. That list is your preparation plan.
The nine Behaviours
The full set, which every candidate should be able to name:
- Seeing the Big Picture
- Changing and Improving
- Making Effective Decisions
- Leadership
- Communicating and Influencing
- Working Together
- Developing Self and Others
- Managing a Quality Service
- Delivering at Pace
Each is published at seven levels, roughly mapped to grade: Levels 1 and 2 for AA and AO roles, Level 3 for EO, Level 4 for HEO and SEO, Levels 5 and 6 for Grade 7 and Grade 6, and Level 7 for the Senior Civil Service.
The levels are the part candidates most often ignore, and it is expensive. The same story can be a strong Level 2 and a weak Level 4, because the higher descriptors expect you to have worked across boundaries, influenced others, or taken responsibility beyond your own desk. Before writing anything, find the descriptor for your Behaviour at the grade you are applying for, and write to those specific words.
Three Behaviours are misread more than the rest. Changing and Improving is not about coping with change, it is about actively improving something. Delivering at Pace is not about being busy, it is about prioritising and maintaining momentum. Communicating and Influencing is not about explaining clearly, it is about changing what someone thought or did. There is a full breakdown of all nine, with worked examples at the right level, in the Behaviours guide.
How the process runs
Campaigns vary, but the shape is usually consistent:
Find the advert on Civil Service Jobs. It will list the grade, the elements being assessed, the Behaviours, the essential criteria and what you need to submit.
Submit the application. Typically a CV plus either a Statement of Suitability, individual Behaviour statements, or both. Word limits are usually stated per section, commonly 250 words per Behaviour and 500 to 1,250 for a statement.
Online tests. Sometimes before the sift, sometimes after. These are a screen: passing them gets your writing read, but they build no case for you.
The sift. A reviewer scores your written evidence against the criteria. This is where most applications end.
Interview. Usually Behaviours and Strengths, sometimes with a presentation, written exercise or technical element. Increasingly held remotely.
Offer, then pre-employment checks, which include security clearance and can take a considerable time.
How you are scored
Each Behaviour, Strength or criterion is scored separately, usually on a scale of 0 to 7, where 7 is outstanding and 0 means no evidence was offered. The scores are then combined.
Two consequences follow, and they should shape how you allocate your effort.
First, a brilliant answer cannot rescue an empty one. If an advert lists four Behaviours and you write superbly on three and thinly on the fourth, the fourth drags your total more than the strong ones lift it. The highest-return use of your time is almost always improving your weakest section, not polishing your best.
Second, 4 is typically the minimum acceptable score, but on competitive campaigns clearing 4 everywhere is often not enough. The cut is drawn wherever application volume requires. The aim is to give the sifter a reason to award 5 or 6, and the difference is usually not the quality of your experience but what you chose to include: specificity, coverage of the whole descriptor, your reasoning as well as your actions, and a result with a number attached. The scoring guide works through a side-by-side comparison of the same story written to score 3 and to score 6.
Writing the application
Structure against the advert, literally. One paragraph per criterion, in the order listed, using the advert's own wording to open each. It feels mechanical. It scores well, because a sifter working through a large volume can immediately find and credit each piece of evidence.
Use "I", not "we". Departmental writing habits push people towards the collective. A panel cannot score a team. Reserve "we" for context and use "I" for everything you did.
Spend your words on action and reasoning. A rough split of a fifth on context, three fifths on what you did and why, and a fifth on the result works well. Most weak statements invert this and burn half the allowance on background.
Quantify where you honestly can. A percentage, a time saving, an error rate, a volume. Where you genuinely cannot, give a concrete consequence instead: a decision taken, a complaint avoided, a practice adopted elsewhere.
Expand your acronyms. Sifters are frequently from a different department and will not know your internal team names.
The Statement of Suitability guide covers structure and word allocation in more detail, with a worked extract.
At interview
The interview scores the same way, against the same descriptors, but two things change.
Structure has to be audible. A panel taking notes needs to hear when you move from situation to action to result. This is why the STAR method is worth using deliberately rather than subtly, and why the worked STAR examples are useful preparation.
Expect to be probed on what you wrote. Panels often work from your application, asking follow-up questions on the same examples. Anything you stretched on the form becomes uncomfortable in the room, which is a practical argument for keeping written evidence accurate.
Then the interview usually switches to Strengths, and the change of gear catches people out. Strengths questions are short, present tense, and about what you enjoy and naturally do well: what would colleagues come to you for, what do you find draining, do you prefer starting things or finishing them. Answering these with a prepared two-minute STAR example is the most common mistake, and it scores badly, because the panel is listening for authenticity and consistency rather than evidence. The Strengths guide explains how to prepare for questions you cannot rehearse.
The Civil Service Code
Worth knowing before any interview: the Civil Service Code sets out four core values, integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality. Impartiality has a specific meaning here, covering the requirement to serve governments of any political persuasion equally well.
You will not usually be asked to recite these, but questions about ethical judgement, handling ministerial pressure, or acting when you disagree with a decision are testing whether you understand them. A candidate who can talk about impartiality as a practical working constraint rather than an abstract value stands out.
Where candidates most often lose marks
Answering the wrong Behaviour. A strong Working Together story submitted under Leadership scores poorly, because it is marked against the Leadership descriptors and found thin. Read the definition before choosing the story.
Ignoring the level. Writing Level 2 evidence for a Level 4 post is the quiet killer, and it is entirely avoidable.
Leaving a criterion unaddressed. If it is listed and your application does not visibly cover it, it scores zero. Tick each one off against your draft before submitting.
Unevidenced claims. "I have excellent stakeholder management skills" is unmarkable. Replace it with what you did and what happened.
Treating the tests as a formality. They eliminate the largest share of the field, and a meaningful number of candidates fail them by attempting a timed assessment on a phone in a spare fifteen minutes. See the online tests guide.
Reusing one example everywhere. If four Behaviours are assessed, prepare four distinct examples. Recycling signals a thin evidence base and dilutes both answers.
Generic motivation. "I want to make a difference" is what everyone writes. Something specific about a policy area, a piece of departmental work, or how government actually operates is stronger, and more likely to be true.
Where to go next
Each stage has a detailed guide:
- All nine Behaviours, with examples: what each is really asking, the level framework, and worked answers.
- How applications are scored: the 0 to 7 scale and what separates a 4 from a 6.
- Strengths questions: why prepared examples score badly, and how to prepare anyway.
- Statement of Suitability: structure, word allocation and a worked extract.
- Online tests: judgement, verbal and numerical, and where practice pays.
- Fast Stream: the graduate scheme process, including the assessment centre.
The step most candidates skip is saying their evidence out loud. Behaviour examples are written first and spoken later, and written evidence rarely survives that transition without becoming stiff, over-long or oddly defensive. You can practise Civil Service style Behaviour and Strength questions and get feedback on structure, length and delivery before a panel hears them.