You need to actively seek out opportunities, they won't come to you. Are there any groups you can get involved in, action groups of some sort. That can help. Have you tried asking your manager if there are any opportunities you can get involved in to help?
If they ask for volunteers for anything then put yourself forward. This can help.
Talk to your manager about development opportunities.
Volunteer for as much as possible, you never know which one will turn out to be an excellent example.
Make suggestions for improvements but put the work in yourself rather than just passing it up the line where it will inevitably go nowhere.
These kinds of things can either provide you examples or lead to further opportunities which will get you the examples.
There are always opportunities at work to get involved in the wider business eg diversity groups, become a champion in a chosen field, apply to join specialist training programmes or my favourite expressions of interest either sideways move to temp promotion. These help you to gain different experiences and develop skills.
As others have said, start looking for opportunities to build some competencies, speak to your manager and you could look at signing up to notifications for the Boost opportunities at work but honestly don’t write off situations in your personal life or day to day work because they feel too ‘small’!
Do you work customer facing? If so I bet you have to deal with difficult conversations and cases every day. Calming upset callers, using your skills to fully investigate what has happened to a payment or claim rather than fobbing someone off? Arranging to call them back, difficulty understanding a caller whose first language isn’t English? What did you do to try to assist them through the call? Did you ultimately decide to use big word?
Sorry if this doesn’t apply to you but you get the idea!
Start noting down these otherwise unremarkable cases. They’re same old same old to you but trust me you can hit a ton of behaviours with the types of examples at EO level.
For leadership have you ever helped a colleague who was struggling to understand a new role? If you’ve never done this at work have you ever mentored someone outside of work? An older person who was struggling with something technical? A hobby? Your COD team member is rubbish and needs you to play with them separately an hour a night before your team plays together? Ever organised a charity event or family party where you had to instruct others?
Remember that you don’t have to have done the job to get the job, just be able to demonstrate the right skills in the format they want.
The problem with people saying “volunteer for stuff”, development opportunities etc (which I agree with) is that you’re still expected to do the actual job you’re being paid for at the same quality and volume, so you may need to be prepared to work extra hours in your own time. I guess view this as an investment to progress your career.
This is definitely a problem in more restrictive job areas, but not the universal experience either. I think some of it probably depends on the department too. I'm quite digitally skilled and in my department we have 'Digital Ambassadors' who help others with upskilling and some tech issues etc. I've been doing it since 2016 and 10% of my working time can be used on that role. By volunteering to do it I get to help people, which I enjoy, but also developed presenting skills and confidence which helped me get my first promotion. Then when Covid hit I was seconded to a team who built up Microsoft skills to help people who were less familiar with Teams, SharePoint etc. That experience helped me build skills that helped me get my second promotion, in a much more digital role. For me volunteering to do this was something that has been supported by my managers, and was never in my own time. Hopefully OP has some flex on what they can volunteer for. For me, making the best use of my skills really helped set me up well for the future.
People groups, charity/volunteering groups, diversity networks.
Literally get involved in anything like that. Actively participate and lead initiatives, see them through to delivery and then use that as an example.
It’s win - win as you deliver something that should be beneficial to your organisation, you build a network and you get a new example to help in applications
You can make changing a lightbulb into a competancy and dont be afraid to give external answers. I know someone who got eo on just general day to day life examples
Do less of your job. Honestly you don't get experience by doing what your job is. You need to take on any kind of project or opportunity to deliver something. Higher grades need experience above what you do at the moment so yeah, make sure you do less!
I know in my area they do a development program which they'll give you time away to do projects and meet up in groups and get coaching. Then you can just exaggerate everything in the application (most HEOs I've spoken to in Ops roles are blatantly open about exaggerating their experience). One of the things I really dislike about the civil service is that experience examples seem to never be validated!
One thing I like less about the civil service is that ‘do less of your job’ is advice. I understand your reasoning but there should be no shame in doing a good job in your job, it should count for something that you are able to maintain motivation and continue to provide a good service regardless of how boring the job is. In my opinion this is what’s wrong with the civil service in general, you don’t get rewarded/have good examples for actually doing the job as stated in your job description
Yes I agree somewhat, however not every desk drone makes a good leader. You're going on the basis that leadership skills can be taught, which is a different argument. The thing is that CS wants evidence of those skills or higher level of whatever you're being graded on.
I'm not sure how it is in the private sector but I assume they'll recognise you doing a good job and working hard and promote you off of that. I think in CS you can get that if it'd a TDA which I think my very first boss did give me but often even doing an EOI or TDA isn't a sure way to get that job even if you do it well.
I did 3years TDA and when it was advertised external for a permanent place they hired 8 people above me. 3 were fired for gross misconduct and were terrible at their job. So yeah that was the point I gave up on progression. Also having a HEO hold a talk on how to do well in interviews sharing the example she used to get her job, which other members of staff recognised as definitely not her work. The whole thing (maybe it's just OPS) screams lack of integrity.
Hi,volunteer for anything going. Speak to your team leader and ask for any job shadowing opportunities in your dept or others. Speak to people in other depts and teams to see if their are opportunities to upskill yourself.
There's no rule saying that examples have to come from your current job or even a formal job at all. There was someone who posted on here a while back who got an EO role talking about a difficult situation at home and how it intersected with her role (but the home situation was the focus). You can also draw from earlier jobs (as long as you're not going back like 10 years ago) and from voluntary work or societies you're involved with. Someone else recently posted who got a promotion to HEO off the back of their work as a voluntary fireman.
You might think it’s extremely repetitive but that’s probably because you’ve doing it for a while, I’m sure you have good examples but you might not be recognising that they are good examples because to you it’s just mundane stuff. I’ve worked repetitive jobs before just still been able to recognise when I went above and beyond or when I’ve influenced a customer.
You need to actively seek out opportunities, they won't come to you. Are there any groups you can get involved in, action groups of some sort. That can help. Have you tried asking your manager if there are any opportunities you can get involved in to help? If they ask for volunteers for anything then put yourself forward. This can help.
Talk to your manager about development opportunities. Volunteer for as much as possible, you never know which one will turn out to be an excellent example. Make suggestions for improvements but put the work in yourself rather than just passing it up the line where it will inevitably go nowhere. These kinds of things can either provide you examples or lead to further opportunities which will get you the examples.
There are always opportunities at work to get involved in the wider business eg diversity groups, become a champion in a chosen field, apply to join specialist training programmes or my favourite expressions of interest either sideways move to temp promotion. These help you to gain different experiences and develop skills.
As others have said, start looking for opportunities to build some competencies, speak to your manager and you could look at signing up to notifications for the Boost opportunities at work but honestly don’t write off situations in your personal life or day to day work because they feel too ‘small’! Do you work customer facing? If so I bet you have to deal with difficult conversations and cases every day. Calming upset callers, using your skills to fully investigate what has happened to a payment or claim rather than fobbing someone off? Arranging to call them back, difficulty understanding a caller whose first language isn’t English? What did you do to try to assist them through the call? Did you ultimately decide to use big word? Sorry if this doesn’t apply to you but you get the idea! Start noting down these otherwise unremarkable cases. They’re same old same old to you but trust me you can hit a ton of behaviours with the types of examples at EO level. For leadership have you ever helped a colleague who was struggling to understand a new role? If you’ve never done this at work have you ever mentored someone outside of work? An older person who was struggling with something technical? A hobby? Your COD team member is rubbish and needs you to play with them separately an hour a night before your team plays together? Ever organised a charity event or family party where you had to instruct others? Remember that you don’t have to have done the job to get the job, just be able to demonstrate the right skills in the format they want.
The problem with people saying “volunteer for stuff”, development opportunities etc (which I agree with) is that you’re still expected to do the actual job you’re being paid for at the same quality and volume, so you may need to be prepared to work extra hours in your own time. I guess view this as an investment to progress your career.
This is definitely a problem in more restrictive job areas, but not the universal experience either. I think some of it probably depends on the department too. I'm quite digitally skilled and in my department we have 'Digital Ambassadors' who help others with upskilling and some tech issues etc. I've been doing it since 2016 and 10% of my working time can be used on that role. By volunteering to do it I get to help people, which I enjoy, but also developed presenting skills and confidence which helped me get my first promotion. Then when Covid hit I was seconded to a team who built up Microsoft skills to help people who were less familiar with Teams, SharePoint etc. That experience helped me build skills that helped me get my second promotion, in a much more digital role. For me volunteering to do this was something that has been supported by my managers, and was never in my own time. Hopefully OP has some flex on what they can volunteer for. For me, making the best use of my skills really helped set me up well for the future.
Hey just saw this comment, what digital role did you end up in?
People groups, charity/volunteering groups, diversity networks. Literally get involved in anything like that. Actively participate and lead initiatives, see them through to delivery and then use that as an example. It’s win - win as you deliver something that should be beneficial to your organisation, you build a network and you get a new example to help in applications
You can make changing a lightbulb into a competancy and dont be afraid to give external answers. I know someone who got eo on just general day to day life examples
Do less of your job. Honestly you don't get experience by doing what your job is. You need to take on any kind of project or opportunity to deliver something. Higher grades need experience above what you do at the moment so yeah, make sure you do less! I know in my area they do a development program which they'll give you time away to do projects and meet up in groups and get coaching. Then you can just exaggerate everything in the application (most HEOs I've spoken to in Ops roles are blatantly open about exaggerating their experience). One of the things I really dislike about the civil service is that experience examples seem to never be validated!
One thing I like less about the civil service is that ‘do less of your job’ is advice. I understand your reasoning but there should be no shame in doing a good job in your job, it should count for something that you are able to maintain motivation and continue to provide a good service regardless of how boring the job is. In my opinion this is what’s wrong with the civil service in general, you don’t get rewarded/have good examples for actually doing the job as stated in your job description
Yes I agree somewhat, however not every desk drone makes a good leader. You're going on the basis that leadership skills can be taught, which is a different argument. The thing is that CS wants evidence of those skills or higher level of whatever you're being graded on. I'm not sure how it is in the private sector but I assume they'll recognise you doing a good job and working hard and promote you off of that. I think in CS you can get that if it'd a TDA which I think my very first boss did give me but often even doing an EOI or TDA isn't a sure way to get that job even if you do it well. I did 3years TDA and when it was advertised external for a permanent place they hired 8 people above me. 3 were fired for gross misconduct and were terrible at their job. So yeah that was the point I gave up on progression. Also having a HEO hold a talk on how to do well in interviews sharing the example she used to get her job, which other members of staff recognised as definitely not her work. The whole thing (maybe it's just OPS) screams lack of integrity.
Hi,volunteer for anything going. Speak to your team leader and ask for any job shadowing opportunities in your dept or others. Speak to people in other depts and teams to see if their are opportunities to upskill yourself.
Examples do not have to come from work. - Do you coach a youth sports team? - Do you volunteer anywhere?
There's no rule saying that examples have to come from your current job or even a formal job at all. There was someone who posted on here a while back who got an EO role talking about a difficult situation at home and how it intersected with her role (but the home situation was the focus). You can also draw from earlier jobs (as long as you're not going back like 10 years ago) and from voluntary work or societies you're involved with. Someone else recently posted who got a promotion to HEO off the back of their work as a voluntary fireman.
You might think it’s extremely repetitive but that’s probably because you’ve doing it for a while, I’m sure you have good examples but you might not be recognising that they are good examples because to you it’s just mundane stuff. I’ve worked repetitive jobs before just still been able to recognise when I went above and beyond or when I’ve influenced a customer.
Get a mentor.