Examples of Communicating and Influencing — Civil Service

Communicating and Influencing is one of the nine Success Profiles Behaviours. Panels test whether you can tailor a message to your audience, listen actively, and secure a specific outcome. Below are worked STAR answers, level descriptors and common questions.

Level descriptors by grade

AA / AO — communicate clearly with colleagues and customers; ask questions to check understanding.
EO — adapt style for different audiences; contribute confidently in meetings.
HEO / SEO — influence peers and senior stakeholders; distil complex material.
G7 / G6 — influence at SCS / cross-Whitehall level; frame arguments in political and delivery context.
SCS — set the narrative for a directorate; influence ministers and external partners.

Worked example — EO/HEO

Question

Describe a time you communicated a difficult message to a senior stakeholder.

Situation: A Grade 6 sponsor had requested a report format that would have doubled my team's weekly workload without adding decision value.
Task: I needed to push back credibly while keeping the relationship — she was our main route to ministers.
Action: I asked for a 20-minute meeting rather than replying by email. I opened by acknowledging the intent, showed a mock-up of a lighter alternative, and quantified the workload cost of the original. I offered to trial both for one month.
Result: She agreed to the alternative on the spot; it became the standard weekly report and saved the team roughly 6 hours a week.

Worked example — G7

Question

Give an example of influencing a decision without formal authority.

Situation: Two departments were about to procure separate case-management systems that would duplicate ~£2M of spend and prevent data sharing on a shared caseload.
Task: I had no line of authority over the other department but wanted a single joint procurement.
Action: I built a one-page value case with the other department's finance lead, sequenced 1:1s with both Directors before any joint meeting, and offered our commercial team's capacity to run a single tender. I explicitly gave credit to the other department's SRO in the paper.
Result: Both Directors agreed a joint procurement; final contract came in £1.7M below the combined original budgets and enabled shared case data from day one.

Common Communicating and Influencing questions

Describe a time you communicated a difficult message to a senior stakeholder.
Give an example of influencing a decision without formal authority.
Tell us about a time you had to explain something complex to a non-expert audience.
Describe a time your first attempt to influence didn't land. What did you do next?
Give an example of adapting your communication style to a different audience.

Practise this behaviour with STAR feedback

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