Interview with local authority as staff officer

curlywurly80

Really need your help with this! I am an assistant staff officer in a local authority, I have been called for interview in another local authority as a staff officer. I know its competency based and i have done competency based interviews before (lots of them) My issue is that I did a staff officer interview before with my own local authority before and I didnt get it but found it impossible to get anything other than very generic feedback that really didnt help me at all in relation to improving performance. I found the questions really difficult.

What did you (personally) bring to your current job? I talked specifically about different things i had introduced to the office but that did not seem to be what they wanted. I really felt that they wanted me to compare myself to my predecessor (who had been there for many many years) and i felt at a loss.

What would you do if the chairperson of your MD meeting wanted to abstain from a vote. I said that I would always have a copy of the standing orders with me to consult if unexpected situations arose. Also wrong answer. Very very specific questions which floored me.

Then lastly what would do if you had an issue with a member of staff that you was reporting to you. I spoke about tackling the issue asap by speaking to the person but they seemed to want me to go down the PMDS route which is fine if PMDS is around the time that the issue is but you would hardly 'save' the issue until the PMDS?

Any help from someone who has been in this situation would be fantastic

Spear

Moved to a forum that's related to the topic instead.

daithi84

If the chair wants to abstain from a vote there is nothing stopping him, they either vote for or against or abstain same as any councillor. They facilitate the vote and when it comes time to vote they just abstain.

If you have an issue with your supervisor i would ask to have a private meeting to address the issue. You can bring it up in your PMDS review with the supervisor in question but that is supposed to be about your performance. If it was serious you would report the issue to your supervisors supervisor and they would address it with them in their PMDS review or before.

curlywurly80

Thanks a million. I did the interview and i got placed 8 on the open panel and 3 on the local authority one, its a small local authority and i have no idea if i will get offered the job because of course they wont tell me how many vacancies they have at the minute. Its for staff officer

TL123

Hi curlywurly80 just wondering how u found the interview overall, any help with regards to questions or any course you would recommend doing to increase my chance of being successful in an open competition? Any help appreciated