The Civil Service is an extremely varied and complex organisation. Its role is to support the work of government ministers and to provide public services. Civil servants are needed to perform all sorts of tasks, and there are roles for people with a wide range of qualifications and backgrounds.

The Civil Service employs around 520,000 people, including 40,000 apprentices. There are:

· 24 ministerial departments (e.g. the Home Office, the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs), that help ministers to develop policies by carrying out research, providing advice.

· More than 400 executive agencies and other bodies that put policies into practice and deliver services

· 20 non-ministerial departments (such as Ofgem and The Charity Commission) that carry out a range of functions including inspection, regulation and advice.

Not all departments and agencies cover the whole of the UK because certain responsibilities are devolved to governments in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The following are examples of activities that civil servants are involved with:

· dealing with overseas aid

· helping people to find employment

· overseeing the running of prisons

· paying out state pensions and benefits

· ensuring that standards of animal health and welfare are maintained

· developing new health or education policies and helping to put them into practice

· improving transport services

· organising supplies of equipment to the armed forces

· dealing with asylum applications from people overseas

· dealing with driving licence applications

· ….and many more!

The Civil Service also employs many specialists including economists, lawyers, computer experts, vets and scientists.

In our webinar, we will explore:

· How to identify the sort of work that could suit you in the Civil Service

· The ways of getting into the Civil Service including applying for advertised vacancies, apprenticeships and the Civil Service Fast Stream for those with a degree qualification

· How the Civil Service recruits using “Success Profiles” to assess applicants

· The grades of Civil Service jobs and pay levels

The webinar will help you to find and apply for advertised Civil Service vacancies including preparing for interviews.

Webinars are delivered via Microsoft Teams.

For new customers, we recommend that you have an appointment with a National Careers Service adviser before the webinar takes place.

In the appointment the careers adviser will help you to:

explore different careers and options
review your strengths, skills and develop your career goals
plan your next steps
make the best use of high-quality, career-related tools
understand the local job market
access learning, training, apprenticeship and employment opportunities, including making applications
develop your CV, interview skills and job searching techniques
implement your plan of action.

By giving us your personal information you are consenting to be contacted by telephone or email by the National Careers Service to arrange an appointment with a careers adviser prior to the webinar.

Customers' information is collected so that the Department for Education can carry out its functions, information will be handled in accordance with the principles and laws of data protection and at no time will it be used for purposes that are not related to the delivery of careers advice by the National Careers Service. For further details of how customer data is used, please view the privacy policy on the National Careers Service website; https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/help/privacy-and-cookies (or at bit.ly/NcsPrivacy2)

What else do I need to know?

There may be other participants in the session, so you must take care not to reveal any of your personal data at any time. Our recommendation is that you do not supply, verbally or on screen, your full name, email address, telephone number or any other information which could identify you to other participants on the call. You must not share such data, to safeguard your interests and so that you do not make yourself vulnerable to any malicious activity. Some presentations may be recorded for training purposes.

Applying to the Civil Service