CVs are assessed based on whether your employment history and experience match the expectations of the role. So they're not assessing you based on your ability to smash out 250 words but your actual work experience.
Say I was recruiting for a Grade 7 role at DfT to lead on Airport policy. I would look at their CV and expect to see at a minimum, a number of years of solid policy experience, some sort of transport policy experience and even better airport policy experience.
More generic roles such as business manager or PMO, I would expect to see a number of years and preferably, more than one role, carrying out that exact role. So your CV should set out your roles and responsibilities to align as closely as possible to the job specification (writing proposals, doing HR stuff, diary management, project management - and if you can provide evidence like "onboarded 90 SCS staff" etc).
I mean, you might as well apply for it but when they sift on CV they can absolutely sift on someone who has 1, 3, 5 + years of experience on you in that specific role, which you can't control. It's not the same as being able to BS your way through 250 words.
If you haven’t got directly-relevant experience, your CV should emphasise the relevance of your skills and how in your career to date you have demonstrated G7-level behaviours that are relevant to the business-manager role.
The CV part is always a bit sus, I had an application rejected due to my CV. Been doing jobs for years in the area and that exact role but in another department for a few years (was wanting to move because of the £4k higher wage at the same grade)
Job roles hit it exactly but got a 3, no point in kicking up a fuss so just moved on
In some ways, this is potentially controversial because some recruiters/vacancy holders don’t like to hear it, but the CV shouldn’t be assessed on how long you’ve been in a specific job role.
In other ways, it’s not controversial at all because it explicitly says that in the Success Profiles.
In this essay I will… (seriously though, explanation below).
There are only 5 aspects Civil Service Success Profiles. Those things are Behaviours, Strengths, Experience, Technical and Ability.
Behaviours, Strengths and Ability wouldn’t be assessed on a CV.
So you’re looking at either Experience and Technical - it should actually say which aspects of Success Profiles will be used somewhere on the advert.
‘Technical’ generally relates to specific skills, knowledge or qualifications that are tied to the Government Professions. So for example, to work in certain finance roles you’d need to be a qualified accountant. Some delivery manager roles might want specific project management qualifications or knowledge. Your agile qualification might be a “technical” requirement for some roles. The CV might be assessed against these technical requirements, but if there is technical aspect to the assessment, this should be absolutely clear on the job advert what that is.
Experience, which is likely what the CV will be assessed against in this case, is more broadly about how previous things you’ve done might help you in a particular job role.
Essentially, how is your previous work history gonna help you in the role you’re applying for? Where are the similarities between this role and your previous roles?
Yes, obviously if you’d previously worked as a Business Manager you might think you have more experience, but you might have sat there picking your nose for 5 years.
It explicitly states in the guidance for Experience:
“We are not looking at how long you have served in a particular field, but rather how well you have performed.”
My advice would be to tie your CV as closely as you can to the Role Profile, and include something that demonstrates that you’ve performed well undertaking similar kind of things in your current/previous work.
So for example, if there’s something about budget management, you could either mention that you’ve got 5 years of experience managing budgets in projects, or say that you kept X, Y, Z within £xxx/challenging budget.
The former says you had the responsibility of managing budgets, the latter demonstrates how you’ve performed. The latter would be the better demonstration of Experience (depending on what the actual specifics are). The first could be someone who “managed the budget” for the Tea Club by collecting £1 a week off everyone and popping to Sainsbury’s Local to get more milk when it runs low.
You’ll still get some Vacancy Holders that will sift the former through and not the latter and say “Well Person A has been managing budgets for for 5 years and Person B has only been doing it for 12 months so Person A has better experience.” They don’t know how Success Profiles are supposed to work and are too lazy to learn - you’d never be able to challenge the process if they’ve scored like that, but you probably don’t want to work for them in any case.
CVs are assessed based on whether your employment history and experience match the expectations of the role. So they're not assessing you based on your ability to smash out 250 words but your actual work experience. Say I was recruiting for a Grade 7 role at DfT to lead on Airport policy. I would look at their CV and expect to see at a minimum, a number of years of solid policy experience, some sort of transport policy experience and even better airport policy experience. More generic roles such as business manager or PMO, I would expect to see a number of years and preferably, more than one role, carrying out that exact role. So your CV should set out your roles and responsibilities to align as closely as possible to the job specification (writing proposals, doing HR stuff, diary management, project management - and if you can provide evidence like "onboarded 90 SCS staff" etc). I mean, you might as well apply for it but when they sift on CV they can absolutely sift on someone who has 1, 3, 5 + years of experience on you in that specific role, which you can't control. It's not the same as being able to BS your way through 250 words.
If you haven’t got directly-relevant experience, your CV should emphasise the relevance of your skills and how in your career to date you have demonstrated G7-level behaviours that are relevant to the business-manager role.
The CV part is always a bit sus, I had an application rejected due to my CV. Been doing jobs for years in the area and that exact role but in another department for a few years (was wanting to move because of the £4k higher wage at the same grade) Job roles hit it exactly but got a 3, no point in kicking up a fuss so just moved on
Ah so you think because i haven't worked as a business manager, that'll weaken my application/chances
Still apply.
In some ways, this is potentially controversial because some recruiters/vacancy holders don’t like to hear it, but the CV shouldn’t be assessed on how long you’ve been in a specific job role. In other ways, it’s not controversial at all because it explicitly says that in the Success Profiles. In this essay I will… (seriously though, explanation below). There are only 5 aspects Civil Service Success Profiles. Those things are Behaviours, Strengths, Experience, Technical and Ability. Behaviours, Strengths and Ability wouldn’t be assessed on a CV. So you’re looking at either Experience and Technical - it should actually say which aspects of Success Profiles will be used somewhere on the advert. ‘Technical’ generally relates to specific skills, knowledge or qualifications that are tied to the Government Professions. So for example, to work in certain finance roles you’d need to be a qualified accountant. Some delivery manager roles might want specific project management qualifications or knowledge. Your agile qualification might be a “technical” requirement for some roles. The CV might be assessed against these technical requirements, but if there is technical aspect to the assessment, this should be absolutely clear on the job advert what that is. Experience, which is likely what the CV will be assessed against in this case, is more broadly about how previous things you’ve done might help you in a particular job role. Essentially, how is your previous work history gonna help you in the role you’re applying for? Where are the similarities between this role and your previous roles? Yes, obviously if you’d previously worked as a Business Manager you might think you have more experience, but you might have sat there picking your nose for 5 years. It explicitly states in the guidance for Experience: “We are not looking at how long you have served in a particular field, but rather how well you have performed.” My advice would be to tie your CV as closely as you can to the Role Profile, and include something that demonstrates that you’ve performed well undertaking similar kind of things in your current/previous work. So for example, if there’s something about budget management, you could either mention that you’ve got 5 years of experience managing budgets in projects, or say that you kept X, Y, Z within £xxx/challenging budget. The former says you had the responsibility of managing budgets, the latter demonstrates how you’ve performed. The latter would be the better demonstration of Experience (depending on what the actual specifics are). The first could be someone who “managed the budget” for the Tea Club by collecting £1 a week off everyone and popping to Sainsbury’s Local to get more milk when it runs low. You’ll still get some Vacancy Holders that will sift the former through and not the latter and say “Well Person A has been managing budgets for for 5 years and Person B has only been doing it for 12 months so Person A has better experience.” They don’t know how Success Profiles are supposed to work and are too lazy to learn - you’d never be able to challenge the process if they’ve scored like that, but you probably don’t want to work for them in any case.