How to apply 

You’ll need to enter important personal details, including your right to work in the UK. We use these to check you’re eligible to be a programme facilitator.
We’ll assess your experience and your behaviours using the Civil Service Success Profiles framework (GOV.UK, opens in a new tab).

You’ll be asked to complete 2 behaviour-based questions and one experience question. You might find it helpful as part of your preparation to think about the structure of your responses for the behaviours assessed. A common approach you might consider using is the ‘STAR method’:

Situation – describe the situation you had to deal with
Task – explain the task you needed to complete
Action – outline the actions you took to complete the task
Result – confirm what happened as a result of your action and what you learnt from the experience

To learn more about the STAR method visit the National Careers Service (opens in a new tab).

There’s a 250 word limit for each question, so you may find it helpful to draft your responses in a Word document before putting your final answers into your application form.

Our Reasonable Adjustments Scheme supports individuals who may face disadvantages in the job assessment process due to a diagnosed or undiagnosed disability, long-term condition, or even a short-term need arising from an illness or injury. As part of the application form you can let us know if you would like reasonable adjustments support in the assessment process. Find out about reasonable adjustments.

If your application is successful, we’ll invite you to attend an assessment process.

This assessment process has been designed to reflect the reality of the programme facilitator role. It will assess you to see if you have the behaviours and strengths we’re looking for.

The assessment will involve:

• a facilitation exercise
• an interview

The facilitation exercise will measure how well you can present information and communicate with a group. You will be provided with the topic in advance of the assessment process so you can prepare. On the day of the assessment process after you have delivered your exercise you will be asked some follow-up questions to reflect on your experience. This assessment helps us to assess your communication and interaction skills which you will use in the role when delivering programmes.

The blended interview covers a mixture of behaviour-based and strengths-based questions. Behaviour-based questions will explore your past experiences and achievements. Strength-based questions will focus on what motivates and energises you.

Preparing for your interview

Behaviour-based questions: Behaviours are the actions and activities that people do which make them effective in a job. We’ll use the Civil Service Success Profiles framework (GOV.UK, opens in a new tab) to assess the following behaviours.

• Developing Self and Others
• Communicating and Influencing
• Working Together

Familiarise yourself with the behaviours you will be asked to demonstrate and think about the most relevant and strongest examples you can give on the day.

When you are preparing for your interview, you might find it helpful to think about the structure of your responses to the behaviour-based questions. A common approach you might like to consider using is the ‘STAR method’:

• Situation – describe the situation you had to deal with
• Task – explain the task you needed to complete
• Action – outline the actions you took to complete the task
• Result – confirm what happened as a result of your action and what you learnt from the experience

You can read more about the STAR method here (opens in a new tab).

Once the assessor has asked you a behaviour question, you will be given time to think about how you want to respond. This is so you can think of your most relevant and best example for each question without the pressure of needing to answer straight away.

You can bring notes into your interview to refer to when responding to the behaviour-based questions. However, these should only be used as prompts for your examples.

Strengths-based questions: Strengths are the things we do regularly, we do well, and that motivate us.

Before your interview, take some time to consider why you would like to become a programme facilitator and think about the personal strengths you could bring to the role. You might find it helpful to ask family or friends what they think your strengths are.

These questions you’ll be asked are designed to assess your natural preferences. They are designed to be as clear as possible and can be interpreted exactly as they are said, there are no hidden meanings.

Here are a few examples of strengths-based questions. You will be asked different questions in your interview.

• Do you think it’s important to be able to explain things so that others can understand? Why is that?
• Imagine you have several urgent tasks on your to-do list for tomorrow. How would you plan your day?

You will be assessed on 7 strengths.

You can read more about strengths-based questions here (opens in new tab).

For all of the assessments you do not need to have any prior experience of working as a programme facilitator. We’ll give you more information about what to expect when we invite you to attend the assessment process.