The Questions You Might Get Asked at EO/HEO Thread for the Civil Service

Excellent post thanks so much. Would these be moreso examples of what a HEO might be asked at interview? Going for an EO interview next week and just trying to get a sense again what might be asked.

My advice is going to go against the grain but I would recommend learning the competency bullet points off and being very comfortable knowing them rather than specific questions. The risk with learning specific questions is that often when someone us asked a Q outside of the specific ones they have pre-leadned they tend to fall to pieces.

Should prepared answers for each competency in an interview be different to those on your application form? Or is it ok to use these again/expand on them?

You're likely to be asked specifically about the example on the form in some cases too so definitely make sure you have those well prepared.

One question that threw me at a HEO interview a few years back was "How would you deal with an overachieving staff member?".

Everyone always has there underperformance question ready but this one was the first I'd heard on high performers.

Thank you for these. I have my interview this week and frankly my anxiety is through the roof. I swear this has to be the most stressful and complicated process of hiring staff I've ever seen.

It's litrally in the original post.

I had an EO interview last year which I passed.

I had two examples prepared for each competency and some of those could be used for a couple of different competencies.

One question which kind of threw me (and I think it was just the phrasing) was that I was asked to describe an occasion where I'd had to change someone's mind about something.

On reflection I could have used an example I had lined up about conflict resolution or training but it threw me a bit so I sort of stumbled a bit with an ad-hoc example I came up with.

I was also asked how I'd deal with managing a team as I had no official management experience so I said that my previous informal management skills would be my starting point and that I'm sure that there were courses available that I could improve on those skills and also defer to another EO or HEO for advice if I really was out of my depth in a situation.

I came through the interdepartmental competition and found the actual interview stuck pretty closely to the competencies. There were a couple of generic questions thrown in about how to handle an underperforming co-worker, how you mange conflict, what was the biggest mistake you made in work etc., but it was fairly standard. I found the difficulty came in the scrutiny of my answers and examples. "Was that appropriate considering X" or "why didn't you take Y approach".

The presentation on the other hand I felt that they full on attacked me 😁 Really drilling down into every point I made and demanding my rationale for each small aspect. In my presentation I made a recommendation to start a working group to address an issue and one of my interviewers flatly said "that just sounds like a bit of a talking shop". I wriggled my way out of it by talking about expected deliverables and so on, but that one blindsided me! I did well in the end and came 8th in the panel, but I didn't leave the interview full of confidence.

Hi there…great thread …any body have any experience of Public Service Irish competency testing and maybe some of the questions they ask…or even better… a list of them…a very nervous interviewee here 🤢