Advice on preparing for an SJT (Situational Judgement Test)

If you are likely to be asked to take an SJT you can prepare for it by…

• reading through the Realistic Job Preview for the grade you are aiming towards (or the next grade to it) and selecting out the types of situations and dilemmas that you could be faced with in that grade;

• thinking carefully about the actions that it would be most effective for you to take if you were faced with each of these situations or dilemmas, and listing these;

• thinking of the alternative solutions that would be less effective when dealing with each situation or dilemma, and listing these;

• rating all your answers to any situation or dilemma, so that you have worked out what you consider to be your best option, your next best option, your third best option, and so on;

• discussing your solutions and ratings with somebody whose judgement you respect (and refining these, if necessary, in the light of that discussion).

And then you can continue your preparation by…

• reading through all the advice on acquiring evidence for the competencies required at that grade, and then repeating the above process for any new situations or dilemmas that you identify;

• reading through the information on key tasks and personal competencies for that grade, and then repeating the process for any new situations or dilemmas that you identify;

• thinking through your experience in your current grade and identifying any operational or ethical dilemmas you have faced, and repeating the process for any situations or dilemmas that you identify that are different from those found by the other methods;

• reading through the examples of the types of situations and dilemmas that might be faced by Grade 7s and using these to identify similar situations or dilemmas that you might face in the grade you're targeting, and then repeating the process for any new situations or dilemmas that you identify.

Complete your preparation in the days leading up to the SJT by…

• reading through your lists, concentrating on remembering the optimal solutions.

• In order to help you identify many of the relevant situations and dilemmas for the grade in which you are interested, the following are some of the situations and dilemmas that might be faced by a Grade 7:-

• how to react when your staff make mistakes;

• what you do when a colleague is off sick or is undermining your efforts through inefficiency;

• how to respond to mundane work in a new job;

• how to brief a colleague at short notice;

• how to react when two colleagues start arguing;

• how to react when your line manager delays your work;

• how to react when more senior colleagues interpret information differently from you;

• what to do when you are asked to brief somebody on something you know little about;

• how to react when your work is undermined by another government department;

• what to do when you've accidentally leaked confidential material;

• what to do when you suspect corruption;

• how to react when your manager disagrees with your written brief;

• how to react when a minister you are briefing chooses the “wrong” option.

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