Interview guidance

• Please email any questions to us at recruitment@gamblingcommission.gov.uk. We’ll respond as quickly as we are able (usually within two working days).
• Please make sure you arrive at least 10 minutes early
• You will be required to bring to the interview documents to verify your eligibility to work in the UK. This can be an EU passport, a passport endorsed with your right to work in the UK or a full UK birth certificate accompanied by proof of your national insurance number. Full details of documents that provide eligibility to work in the UK are available on the UK Visa and Immigration website
• After your identification documents have been checked, you will be taken through to your interview
• The interview panel will consist of at least two Gambling Commission staff members
• You will be asked competency questions for this role
• Typically, the interview takes around 45-50 minutes to complete but may be longer if you have been asked to complete a test or give a presentation.

• Here at the Commission we use competency based interviews that are structured around both our Ways of Working and other technical competencies relevant to the job you have applied for. What is a competency? Put simply, competencies are the behaviours which are shown to be effective to delivery in a particular role. ​

• A competency based interview is an interview in which each candidate is asked the same questions designed to obtain information about the match between the candidate’s competencies and those required for the job. ​

• Because we have a commitment to ensure that the processes we use within selection are consistent, fair and rigorous.​​
• Because there is a strong correlation between the demonstration of competence and performance in a particular role i.e. past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour.​
• From your point of view, you can assess whether the job matches your competencies and whether you are suited to a role.

Outcome focused

• We put consumers at the heart of everything we do
• We take responsibility for an issue and moving it forward
• We deliver results through working collaboratively 

Reaching for ways to improve

• We encourage feedback and ideas
• We are committed to continuous improvement and are open to trying different ways of working
• We celebrate successes and take responsibility when things go wrong

Respectful

• We recognise every colleague’s contribution
• We give each other timely constructive feedback
• We all encourage challenge

Communicate well

• We are clear and concise
• We listen and check our understanding
• We explain our reasons and decisions

Making this a great place to work

• We all help to make the Commission a great place to work
• We value and support each other
• We demonstrate a positive attitude

• They are five key behavioural traits that have been identified to help us achieve our vision. They form an important part of the recruitment and performance review process as they describe how we want employees to do things, rather than what we want them to do. They will help us deliver our vision and achieve our organisational goals. It’s therefore vital that we employ people who fit with and are able to adopt our Ways of Working, which is why they are a key criteria in our recruitment and selection criteria.

• Make sure you are familiar with the Ways of Working and are clear about whether any of them might be more important than others for the role in question.  Make sure you read the full job description (which you can get from the Recruitment Portal) and get thinking of examples in your current role that you know are a good illustration of how you demonstrate our Ways of Working.

• Getting the right fit for their team and department is just as important to the hiring manager as qualifications and experience so they will be concentrating on the Ways of Working although there will be technical questions also.​

• The hiring manager will give you an idea of what will happen next; there may be a second stage to the interview process which might also include an exercise you will need to complete or a presentation you will need to prepare and present.  The hiring manager will give you a good idea of what is expected and what the timescales for this will be.  ​
• If there isn’t going to be another stage then the hiring manager will give you a deadline of when you will hear if you are successful or not and also book some time to give you interview feedback if requested.​

• In a competency based interview, questions are asked that give you the opportunity to give examples of situations when you have demonstrated the behaviours required for the role.   These questions concentrate on the most important parts of your past experience, and will largely be based on our Ways of Working and then technical competencies for that role.  Your responses will then allow the interviewer to ‘match’ you to the job, based purely on what is necessary to be successful in the role.​

• Initially, the interviewer(s) will usually ask you some questions about yourself and your background to get to know you better.  These will be followed up with competency questions to gain information about the key behaviours, often beginning with phrases like:​

‘Tell me about a time when ......’​

‘Describe an occasion when .....’​

‘When has it been important to ....... ?’​

'Can you give an example of when you…..’​

• It is important when answering the question to focus on the role you played, to talk about your contribution and to be as specific as possible with your examples.​
• Remember – the panel interviewing you want you to succeed (we want to fill our vacancies!) so they will ask questions to help you show your strengths. 

• A good way of ensuring you answer questions well is to follow the Star method below.  This will ensure that you give answers that are easy for the interviewers to understand both in terms of the situation but also the part that you played.  Remember if you say “we” rather than “I” it can be difficult to determine what your role was.
• Situation - Set the scene
• Task - Describe the purpose
• Action - Explain what you did
• Result - Share the outcome

• The hiring manager will give you an idea of what will happen next; there may be a second stage to the interview process which might also include an exercise you will need to complete or a presentation you will need to prepare and present.  The hiring manager will give you a good idea of what is expected and what the timescales for this will be.  ​
•  If there isn’t going to be another stage then the hiring manager will give you a deadline of when you will hear if you are successful or not and also book some time to give you interview feedback if requested.​

• As part of the Ways of Working, feedback will be offered to candidates.   Feedback is an important for you as part of the Candidate Experience because it allows you to understand how the recruitment decision has been made. Feedback will help you to understand that the evaluation and decision-making process has been fair and reasonable. It will help you to get useful information about what went well, and what didn’t go well which can help you in the future with other interviews.​
• Feedback Fact - Did you know that unsuccessful candidates who are given feedback are 3 times more likely to be positive about their experience than unsuccessful candidates who were not given feedback!​
• Feedback Fact – Did you know that candidates who take up the offer of feedback are more likely to find alternative employment more quickly than those who do not take up the offer of feedback!

• Where possible please make every effort to attend your scheduled interview. If you need to change your interview, please contact recruitment@gamblingcommission.gov.uk and we will try our best to accommodate your request, though this cannot be guaranteed, and we can only do this if there are still slots available. Please email us as soon as possible to cancel your interview or withdraw your application on our Recruitment Portal

• Yes, you can bring notes to refer to during the interview; this will not affect your scoring, but please do not simply read from these notes during your interview and instead use them to prompt you if required.
• The questions you will be asked are unique to this interview and the same questions will be asked of all candidates. As such you will not be able to prepare a ‘scripted’ response as you will not know the question you will be asked. It is really important that you listen to the specific question and provide the best answer you can.
• To practice, for each example write a bullet point for each of the STAR headings (see above for info on STAR) and practice your answers with a friend or member of your family.

• The panel will have your CV and application form with them on the day of your interview and will have already been involved in the shortlisting process

• No. Unfortunately there is not parking available although there is plenty of parking in Central Birmingham.  We are based within a 5 minute walk of Birmingham New Street Station and 10 minute walk from Snow Hill Station and many candidates find travelling by train an easy way to travel.

Please ensure that you let us know what support you need via email at least 48 hours before your interview so that we can try and accommodate you.

We are a disability confident employer .

• This will depend on when the last interview is held. If you are one of the first applicants to attend an interview it can take a couple of weeks before we can let you know the outcome whilst the remaining interviews are completed.  We aim to inform everyone as quickly as possible.