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Applying for posts
The Council’s entire Recruitment & Selection process is competency based, which means that it is based on the skills and abilities required in a job role to ensure effective performance.
In the past people applying for jobs may have written in application forms “I’m good at…. or I have excellent communication skills”. This is no longer enough. You have to be able to provide examples or give evidence of situations or tasks that you have carried out during work experience, in a previous role or outside of the workplace that demonstrate that you have the skills that are required for the post.
We suggest that an effective way of demonstrating how you meet the competencies required for the post is to use the STAR model. Under this model, you describe the situation, the tasks that needed to be completed, the action you took and the result of your action. For example, if meeting deadlines is a key competency of a post, you could demonstrate this using the STAR model as follows:
Situation - Due to a colleague being on holiday the office was really busy with lots of different things that needed to be done by different deadlines.
Task - I had to make sure that I completed the tasks in the right order to ensure that I didn't miss any deadlines.
Action - I checked with my manager so I knew which tasks were most urgent, I used my diary so I knew what I needed to do on each day and I did a checklist of the things I needed to do each day and ticked them off as I completed them.
Result - Whilst it was really busy when my colleague was on holiday I managed to complete all tasks to deadline because I planned my time. It was quite difficult to get everything done so in the future I may check if there would be anyone who could help me at times when there are lots of deadlines to meet.
In order for us to shortlist applicants for interview, it is essential that they give examples that show us that they have the skills required for the post. No other information is taken into account at this stage of the process so if you don’t tell us, we don’t know and have to assume that you don’t have these skills.
So, give yourself the best possible chance of being selected for interview by ensuring you are able to fill out a competency based application form.