Invisible wrote:

OK, so let's take these apart one at a time then.

> Works with others:
> The ability to be able to work collaboratively with others inside and 
> outside of a team is an important skill for this role.
> 
> 1. Please describe a time when you have worked with others in order to 
> solve a complex problem or fault
> - What was the problem or fault?
> - How did you work collaboratively with others to solve the problem or 
> fault?
> - What was your role in the team? What contribution did others bring to 
> the team?
> - What was the outcome?

OK, this is going to be a problem.

In a professional capacity, my work consists of me sitting in a little 
box, doing my thing, with nobody actually communicating with me. 
(Indeed, if people were to *talk* to me, my job would become 
significantly easier.)

I like how point #3 basically rules out any situation where you were 
merely "in" the team but you didn't actually do anything, or where you 
were "part of a team" but you did all of the actual work. Were it not 
for that, I could use, say, the programming project I did at uni. We 
were tasked with designing and programming a small application - but 
since I was the only person in the team who knew how to program in any 
language, I basically designed and programmed the entire thing by 
myself. The other team members couldn't really offer anything useful, 
aside from filling out all the PERT charts and so forth which we were 
actually being assessed on.

 From time to time people ask me to fix faults. But that's usually a 
case of a fault being reported, I sit there and poke the computer, and 
when it's fixed they don't say thankyou. You can't exactly call that a 
"team".

I could try to pretend that I was actually involved in the planning and 
execution of various hardware rollouts. (In truth a bunch of guys 4,000 
miles away decided what would be done, without bothering to ask me, and 
then they came over and did it, usually without telling me what they 
were actually doing. This is the antithesis of "team work".)

> Plans and organises:
> In this role, you will be required to take responsibility for your work 
> and to manage and organise your time effectively to achieve high quality 
> outputs.
> 
> 2. Please describe an example of when you delivered a high quality piece 
> of work that you were proud of
> - What was the piece of work?
> - How did you plan and organise the work so that it was delivered to 
> high quality?
> - How did you review the detail of the work to ensure you had completed 
> it accurately?
> - Why were you proud of the outcome?

Arguably the only "piece of work" I have to show for my time in this 
dead-end job is the various documentation I've written - particularly 
the Disaster Recovery plan. But point #2 is going to be a problem. I 
didn't "plan" anything. I just started writing, rewriting, editing, and 
generally working on the document. It got finished when it got finished.

They're not asking for a quality piece of work, they're asking for 
*planning*. I don't do planning.

> Adapts to Change:
> Demonstrating openness to change and tackling the unfamiliar is an 
> important requirement when working at HMGCC
> 
> 3. Please give an example of when you tackled an unfamiliar problem or 
> task, and learnt something new
> - What was the problem or task and why was it unfamiliar?
> - How did you tackle the problem or task?
> - What was the outcome?
> - What did you learn?

OK, so I don't think learning stuff counts as a task. :-P They're 
looking for a real problem where I had to learn something new in order 
to solve it. Now, unless you count learning the innars of TCP/IP in a 
failed attempt to interpret the output of a packet sniffer so I could 
diagnose that server issue that never got fixed... I'm not sure what the 
hell else to put in here.

> Develops Organisational Capability:
> An active interest in the type of work that you will do, and showing 
> commitment to develop your technical capability, are also critical for 
> success in this role.
> 
> 4. Please describe a time when you took on a task that illustrates your 
> active interest in this area of work and allowed you to develop new skills
> - What specifically did you do?
> - Why did you do this?
> - How did this develop your skills?
> - How would you like to develop your skills moving forward?

Well, I'm going to have to recheck which position I actually applied for 
before I can answer this one. ;-) But "a time when you took on a task 
that illustrates your interest in this area"? Hell, if I could take on 
tasks like that, I wouldn't need to change jobs! :-P

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