I’ve been in the Civil Service for about 26 years, working in Departments such as DFID (International Development, now FCDO) and DfT (Transport), and now I’m based at the centre of Government here in the Cabinet Office as a Senior Finance Business Partner.

I am a qualified accountant with CIMA and currently manage a team of 12 people. I am a mentor for the Government Finance Function and have just recently qualified as an Executive Coach.

You might think that Government Accounting is just about filling in spreadsheets. While that is part of the job, the real work is about helping people make better decisions. That means making sure that every pound we spend ultimately helps a member of the public or solves a problem effectively.

A number of things are important to the role. From a leadership perspective, it’s about setting the direction and ensuring that finance is seen as an enabler to the business.  We need to be supporting Directors General, Directors and budget holders to deliver Departmental priorities in an effective and efficient way. This means building excellent working relationships with other teams. 

Next, it’s communication – interpersonal and communication skills are really important, including experience of advising and influencing at senior levels.

And finally, supporting individuals in their professional development and career planning ensures that the next pipeline of talent comes through the finance function.

In my role, I also do a lot of interviewing. Many candidates are smart and qualified, but they fail because they focus on the wrong things.

In the Civil Service, we focus heavily on behaviours to determine whether people meet the standard required of the role they are applying for. This means we care less about what they did and much more about how they did it.

Some top tips include the need to avoid just listing tasks.

An example here is to include a comment stating ‘I managed a £50m budget’. This is just a fact and gives the reader no insight into how you did it or the challenges you faced.

You therefore need to tell me more about ‘how’ – I want to know how you managed that budget when things went wrong. How did you influence a senior leader who didn’t want to listen? How did you decide which data to prioritise when you were short on time? 

Also, don’t tell me you are a ‘good communicator’ – instead describe a time you had to deliver bad news to a stakeholder and how you managed their reaction.

The STAR Method is a good framework to use for this – Situation, Task, Action, Result. Make sure you aim to spend 70% of your time on the Action part.

My advice for anyone trying to join the Civil Service or wanting to move up would be to focus on your soft skills. Whilst qualifications do matter, the ability to lead a team through a difficult change is what will get you noticed, raise your profile and open that door to promotion.

The Civil Service is huge, with so much variety between Departments. You can work on everything from climate change to national security. If you want a job where your work has a direct impact on the country, this is the place to be.