Communicating and Influencing is about more than being a confident speaker. The Civil Service is looking for evidence that you understand who you are dealing with, choose an approach that works for them and help move a situation towards the right outcome.
A strong example might involve explaining something complicated, dealing with resistance, adapting your message for different audiences or persuading someone who does not initially agree with you. The communication matters because it changes what happens next.
What counts as strong evidence changes with the level of the job. An AO might show this by helping a customer understand a difficult process. An EO could be influencing colleagues to change an approach. At HEO or SEO, the situation is more likely to involve several stakeholders or competing priorities. Grade 6 and Grade 7 examples usually need greater organisational significance and more senior influence.
Writing an application? Go to the Communicating and Influencing 250-word statement guide.
Preparing for interview? Go to the Communicating and Influencing interview questions guide.
How this fits the Civil Service Success Profiles
Communicating and Influencing is one of the Civil Service behaviours within Success Profiles. The official framework describes the behaviour around clear, honest communication, respect for other people’s needs and opinions, and communication that helps people understand purpose and direction. The behaviour is assessed at the level of the role, so the same basic skill looks different at AO, EO, HEO/SEO and Grade 6/7.
That is why the audience alone does not make an example strong. An AO dealing well with a confused customer can show more relevant evidence than a senior candidate describing a routine briefing to directors. What matters is whether the example shows the judgement, responsibility and influence expected at the grade you are applying for.
Always check the vacancy and the grade-specific behaviour wording before choosing your example. You can also read the official Civil Service Success Profiles behaviour guidance.
What Communicating and Influencing actually means
A common mistake is to treat this behaviour as a test of presentation skills. It isn't. You can give a polished presentation and still have a weak example if there was no real need to understand the audience, adapt your approach or influence an outcome.
Equally, a fairly ordinary conversation can make a strong example if the situation required judgement. Imagine a team is repeatedly making the same error. Sending everyone the correct procedure shows communication, but not much else. A stronger example would show that you found out why the errors were happening, changed how you explained the process for different people, dealt with someone who disagreed and checked that the new approach actually worked.
The point is not to make the story sound dramatic. It is to show that you noticed what the communication problem really was and made sensible choices about how to deal with it.
What a strong example looks like
There is no single perfect scenario. The best example is one where communication genuinely made a difference to the outcome.
That could be persuading colleagues to adopt a different way of working, explaining an unpopular decision, dealing with a difficult customer, getting agreement between teams with different priorities, presenting a recommendation to senior management or translating technical information for people who do not work in that area.
What makes those situations useful is the tension inside them. Somebody needs convincing, something is misunderstood, the audiences need different information or the relationship could be damaged if the conversation is handled badly.
A simple Communicating and Influencing example
Suppose you are responsible for introducing a new process across several teams. The first communication is technically accurate, but managers tell you their teams still do not understand what they need to do differently.
You speak to representatives from each team rather than issuing another blanket message. Operational staff want short practical guidance. Managers are worried about workload. Senior stakeholders want reassurance that the change will reduce risk.
You change the approach. Staff get a worked example built around a common case. Managers get a short explanation of how the change affects day-to-day delivery. Senior stakeholders get the evidence behind the decision.
One manager still objects because they think the new approach will slow their team down. Rather than repeating the same argument, you agree a short trial and review the practical impact with them. The trial gives both of you enough evidence to refine the process and agree the wider rollout.
That example works because the candidate has listened, adapted, used evidence and dealt constructively with resistance. The communication is not just something they did on the way to the result. It is what made the result possible.
Using Communicating and Influencing in a Civil Service application
If the vacancy asks for a behaviour statement, space is tight. Most of the background needs to disappear.
The assessor needs enough context to understand who you were dealing with and why the situation was difficult, but the useful evidence is what you personally did. Who did you need to influence? What did they initially think or want? Why would a standard explanation not have worked? What did you change, and why?
The result should show why your approach mattered. 'Stakeholders were happy' is weak. 'The operational leads agreed the revised approach and it was adopted across the service team' gives the assessor something concrete.
See the full Communicating and Influencing 250-word statement example and B-STAR breakdown.
Want more statement examples at your grade?
The free example shows the approach. The grade-specific statement guides give you complete examples across all nine Civil Service behaviours, including Communicating and Influencing, so you can compare the level of responsibility, structure and evidence before writing your own.
AA/AO statement pack
Full worked statement examples covering all nine Civil Service behaviours at AA/AO level.
Communicating and Influencing at interview
At interview, the behaviour is the same but the panel has more opportunity to test the example.
You might be asked about persuading somebody to change their mind, adapting your communication for different audiences, influencing without authority, explaining complex information or handling an unpopular message. Several of those questions could be answered with the same underlying example if it contains enough depth.
The extra time at interview is not an excuse for more background. Use it to explain your decisions. Why did you choose that communication method? Why did one stakeholder need a different approach? What did you do when somebody challenged you? What changed because of your involvement?
See the full Communicating and Influencing Civil Service interview questions guide.
Preparing for a Communicating and Influencing interview?
The grade-specific interview guides give you a larger bank of questions and worked answers at the level you are applying for. They are useful for checking whether your own examples have enough depth and whether they will stand up to follow-up questions.
AA/AO interview guide
All nine Civil Service behaviours, with grade-level questions and worked answers for AA/AO interviews.
What changes by Civil Service grade?
| Grade | What stronger evidence tends to look like |
|---|---|
| AA/AO | Clear information, active listening, respectful communication and adapting when someone does not understand. |
| EO | More independent judgement: persuading colleagues, explaining change, handling disagreement and influencing practical decisions. |
| HEO/SEO | Greater complexity: varied audiences, competing priorities, sensitive information and influence outside the immediate team. |
| Grade 6/7 | Senior and cross-organisational influence, contentious decisions, significant consequences and credible communication with senior leaders. |
AA/AO example
A customer is frustrated because they do not understand why evidence is needed before their case can progress. You slow the conversation down, find the point causing confusion, explain the requirement in plain language and check that they understand the next step. The strength of the example is in clear, respectful communication and adapting when the first explanation is not enough.
Executive Officer example
Colleagues are bypassing a new control because they think it creates unnecessary work. You speak to them, understand the objection, use a practical case to show what happens when the control is skipped and change one part of the guidance where their feedback is valid. The team then adopts the revised approach.
HEO/SEO example
Two teams support the same outcome but disagree about how to deliver it. You establish what each group is trying to protect, reshape the proposal so the main risks are addressed and bring them together around a workable compromise. The evidence comes from how you handle competing priorities and create shared understanding.
Grade 6/7 example
Senior leaders favour an accelerated rollout, but your evidence shows a material operational risk. You present the risk clearly, adjust the message for different senior audiences, challenge the preferred route without becoming adversarial and secure agreement to a phased approach. The result is a changed decision, not simply a successful meeting.
Common ways candidates weaken this behaviour
They describe communication but not influence. Emails, presentations and meetings are activities. The assessor needs to see what changed because of the way you communicated.
They treat every stakeholder as the same audience. A senior manager, operational colleague and member of the public may need very different information.
They skip the interesting bit. If somebody disagreed and later supported you, explain what moved them. 'I persuaded them' is not the evidence.
They rely on seniority. Telling somebody to do something because you are their manager is not automatically a strong example of influence.
Choosing the right example
Before you commit to an example, ask whether there was a genuine communication problem. If everyone understood and agreed from the start, there may not be much to score.
Then look at your own contribution. Did you make meaningful decisions about how to communicate? Was there something to influence: a decision, behaviour, opinion, relationship or course of action? Can you explain why you chose the approach you used?
If the answers are yes and the outcome is clear, you probably have workable evidence.
Application or interview?
Writing your application: Communicating and Influencing 250-word statement example
Reached interview: Communicating and Influencing Civil Service interview questions
The examples are there to show what good evidence looks like. They should help you recognise the strongest parts of your own experience, not give you something to copy and claim as your own.
