Behaviours
Communicating and Influencing: Civil Service Examples and Interview Questions
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Panels score the second word: influencing. Did someone's position, behaviour or decision actually move because of what you did? Candidates prepare evidence of communicating instead, presenting clearly and keeping people informed, which is why articulate people score 3s and 4s on this behaviour while feeling the interview went well.
What panels are actually scoring
Four things, in rough order of weight.
Movement is the strongest signal. Someone started at "no", "not like that", or "not my priority" and ended somewhere else because of you. If everyone in your story agrees with you throughout, you have accidentally deleted your influencing evidence.
Deliberate choices about how. Why a conversation rather than an email, why you led with their problem rather than your request, why you took the difficult message in person. Choosing the channel and framing on purpose, with a "because", is descriptor-level evidence in one sentence.
Honesty under pressure. Delivering the unwelcome message yourself, clearly and with the reasons, rather than softening it into meaninglessness or passing it upward.
Audience adaptation. Technical content translated for non-specialists, or the same message framed differently for two stakeholders, with the reasoning visible.
The questions panels ask
- Tell me about a time you persuaded someone to change their approach or position.
- Tell me about a difficult conversation you had to handle.
- Give an example of delivering a message someone didn't want to hear.
- Tell me about a stakeholder who was reluctant to engage. How did you bring them round?
- Give an example of explaining something complex or technical to a non-specialist audience.
- Tell me about a time you adapted your communication style for a particular person or situation.
- Tell me about a time your communication approach didn't work. What did you change?
A real answer, rewritten: from 3–4/7 to 6/7
The question: "Tell me about a time you had to bring a reluctant stakeholder on board."
FailVersion 1: scores around 3–4/7
"In my role I was rolling out a new request form that our team needed other teams to use, so that work arrived with the right information instead of us having to chase missing details. One team leader was reluctant — his team had their own way of sending requests and he didn't see why they should change.
I handled it professionally. I sent him a clear email explaining the benefits of the new form, including how it would ultimately save his team time as well as ours. I attached guidance I had written and offered to answer any questions. When he still seemed unconvinced, I arranged a meeting where I presented the reasons for the change and talked through the guidance step by step. I remained patient and polite throughout, listened to his concerns, and reassured him that the form was straightforward once you got used to it. I also kept my manager informed of the situation in case it needed escalating.
Eventually his team started using the form, and the quality of the requests we received improved. My manager was pleased with how I had handled a tricky stakeholder. It taught me the importance of clear communication and patience when introducing change."
Read it as a panel member. Every action is a broadcast: an email explaining benefits, a meeting presenting reasons, guidance talked through. The stakeholder's actual objection is never discovered. He is "reluctant", his concerns are "listened to" and then reassured away, and we never learn what they were. "Eventually his team started using the form" could be the meeting, or attrition, or the manager quietly intervening after being kept informed. The panel cannot tell, so they cannot score it. Communication happened; influence was never demonstrated.
PassVersion 2: scores around 6/7
"I was rolling out a new request form our team needed other teams to adopt — requests were arriving with missing information and the chasing was costing us hours a week. One team leader refused: his team had their own template and he saw the change as extra work imposed on them for our benefit.
My first move was to stop broadcasting and find out what the actual objection was. Rather than another email about benefits, I asked him for fifteen minutes and opened by asking how requests worked from his side — because 'reluctant' usually means a real cost I hadn't seen. There was one: his team submitted requests in bulk on Fridays, and my form forced them to be entered one at a time. The change genuinely was worse for him. That reframed the whole conversation — I acknowledged it directly, which changed his posture immediately, and I offered a trade: I'd build a bulk-upload version of the form for his team specifically, if he'd trial it for a month. I chose to concede the format rather than push compliance because I needed his requests' quality more than I needed uniformity — and because his team was the biggest submitter, so winning them won the rollout.
He agreed to the trial. Two weeks in, I sent him data comparing his team's query-rate before and after — down by two-thirds — because I judged evidence from his own team would persuade him where my assurances hadn't. He extended the trial himself, and then did something I hadn't asked for: recommended the form to the two remaining hold-out teams at their joint meeting.
Missing-information chasing dropped by around 70% across all submitting teams, and the bulk-upload option I'd built as a concession became the default version everyone preferred. What I took from it: influencing isn't explaining your case better — it's finding the other person's real cost, paying it where you can, and letting their own evidence do the persuading."
What changed:
- The objection is discovered, not managed. Version 1 reassures away concerns it never identifies. Version 2 finds a real, legitimate cost, and acknowledging it is the turning point.
- A deliberate channel choice with a "because". Fifteen minutes in person instead of a third email, and the reasoning stated.
- A concession, made strategically. Conceding the bulk format is judgement, not weakness, and the answer says why it was the right trade.
- Evidence chosen for the audience. His own team's query-rate data, because "I judged evidence from his own team would persuade him where my assurances hadn't". That sentence alone is descriptor language made concrete.
- Movement you can verify. He goes from refusal, to trial, to extending it himself, to advocating unprompted. The panel can point to each step.
How Communicating and Influencing changes by grade
- EO: handle the challenging conversation yourself, the unhappy customer or the colleague pushing back, with honesty about what can and cannot be done, and adapt your communication to the person's needs. Pure de-escalation with the underlying problem untouched is the classic EO cap.
- HEO: influence appears. Someone's position moves because of you, and the difficult message is delivered by you rather than passed up. Channel choices become deliberate. Version 2 above is pitched here.
- SEO: the audience gets more senior and the stakes higher. Delivering a message a senior stakeholder does not want to hear, moving someone who disagrees with you, translating technical material for decision-makers.
- Grade 7: influence at organisational level. Briefings and submissions that changed a senior decision, negotiating with other departments, holding a position under senior pressure while staying open to challenge.
Our grade guides (EO, HEO, SEO, Grade 7) cover this calibration across all nine behaviours.
Common mistakes that cap your score
- No resistance in the story. If nobody disagreed, nothing was influenced.
- Broadcasting harder as the strategy. More emails, longer meetings, clearer guidance. Influence starts with discovering the objection, not restating the case.
- The objection never identified. "I listened to his concerns and reassured him", without ever saying what the concerns were, is unscoreable.
- Resolution by attrition or escalation. "Eventually they came round" and "I kept my manager informed" both hand the influencing to someone or something else.
- Mood as the result. "They were happy with the update" is not movement. What did they do differently?
The mechanics behind all of this are in how Civil Service interviews are scored.
Common questions
It means communicating clearly and honestly in a way suited to your audience — and, crucially, influencing: moving someone's position, behaviour or decision through what you did. Panels score the influencing half far more heavily than candidates expect.
Common patterns: tell me about persuading someone to change their approach; a difficult conversation you handled; delivering a message someone didn't want to hear; explaining something complex to a non-specialist; and bringing a reluctant stakeholder on board.
Describing communication with no resistance in it. 'I presented to stakeholders and they were happy with the update' contains no influencing — nobody's position moved. The strongest answers start with someone at 'no' and end with them somewhere else.
Yes — briefings, submissions and correspondence all count, especially where you chose the format deliberately for the audience and the document changed a decision. The best answers often combine channels deliberately: 'I called first because the message needed tone, then confirmed in writing because we'd need the record.'
Yes — influence has no direction requirement. Persuading your own team to adopt something they resisted is real evidence, though influence upward or across teams carries more weight at SEO and above.
As a primary example, risky. As part of one — an approach that didn't work, diagnosed and changed, leading to one that did — it strengthens the answer considerably.
Practise before the real thing
Reading how panels score is step one. The candidates who pass are the ones who practised saying their answers out loud — and got scored feedback against the official Civil Service Behaviours framework before interview day.
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