Can I use old or non-work experience?

Civil Service jobs are assessed with Success Profiles, the framework every department uses for recruitment. Most interviews test behaviours: named ways of working, such as Communicating and Influencing or Making Effective Decisions. Each behaviour has a short list of statements describing what good looks like at each grade. The panel listens to your example and scores how well what you did matches those statements.

Many departments score each answer out of 7, and 4 is the usual pass mark, but check your candidate pack. Nothing in that scoring is about dates. A clear, specific example from 2015 can outscore a vague one from last month.

Where age can hurt is the follow-up. Panels usually ask probing questions after your answer: what exactly happened, who else was involved, what you'd do differently. If you can't remember, the example falls apart. So most of this page is about getting the detail back and making the example sound like you'd do it the same way today.

The job is an Executive Officer (EO) role at Acas, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. EO is the grade above the entry grades, often the first with real responsibility for your own caseload. The work is mostly in the Early Contact Team: taking calls from people who've asked for Early Conciliation, checking their form, explaining the process and time limits, and keeping accurate case notes.

The advert says the interview tests two behaviours, Communicating and Influencing and Making Effective Decisions, plus experience of managing a large workload and responding to priorities. Strengths are also assessed, and those aren't published in advance.

Sam is an example profile, not a real person. If your situation is different, a long gap after redundancy, illness, raising children, or a move from another country, the steps are the same.

Find the Success Profiles behaviours document on GOV.UK and copy the statements for your grade, for each behaviour your advert tests. The panel scores what you did against these statements, not the date. Then mark the ones that sound most like the actual job.

Here are Sam's two lists for EO. The ones in bold match this Acas job best: upset callers, and explaining why a claim can or can't go ahead.

Write down every example you could use, with the year next to it, and which behaviour it might fit. Seeing the dates in one place stops you worrying in general and shows you exactly where the gap is.

Sam's list: 2014, old: changing how the trade counter handled Monday-morning queues, which fits workload. 2015, old: calming a builder who'd been overcharged £2,400 and was threatening to leave, which fits Communicating and Influencing. 2016, old: deciding who got the last pallet of stock when two big customers wanted it, which fits Making Effective Decisions.

2017 to 2024, recent, non-work: managing a parent's care, with carers, appointments, benefit forms and a council appeal, which fits workload and Communicating and Influencing. 2025, recent: re-doing the food bank rota after 3 drivers dropped out in the same week, which fits Making Effective Decisions.

Then pick one example for each thing the interview tests. For Communicating and Influencing, Sam picks the overcharged builder from 2015. It's old, but it's the closest match to the job: an upset caller, a hard conversation, and explaining a process. That's worth more than a recent example that fits less well.

For Making Effective Decisions, Sam picks the food bank rota from 2025. It's recent, and it shows a fair, timely decision, checking the facts and asking for advice. For the experience of a large workload, Sam uses caring for a parent from 2017 to 2024: real, recent, and full of competing deadlines. Sam keeps it short, as supporting evidence.

Before the interview, write down the answer to every follow-up a panel might ask about your old example. If you can answer these, the example holds up. Here are the follow-ups Sam prepared for the 2015 builder story, with Sam's answers.

What exactly was the problem? Our system double-charged his account for a delivery. £2,400 over 2 invoices. How did you find out? He rang the branch shouting. I took the call because the counter staff had passed him on twice.

What did you say first? I let him finish, then said back what I'd heard: “So you've been charged twice and nobody has called you back. Is that right?” What did you check? His last 3 months of invoices on our account system against the delivery notes.

Who else did you involve? Our credit controller, to confirm we could reverse it the same day. What happened in the end? Refunded that afternoon, a call back by 4pm as promised, and he stayed. Around £60k a year to us. What would you do differently now? Follow up in writing straight after the call, so he had something to show his own accounts team.

Can't remember something? Message someone who was there. Old emails, payslips and appraisals help too. It's fine to say “roughly” for a figure you're not sure of. It isn't fine to make one up.

Here's how most people tell an old example: “Years ago I worked in a builders' merchants and we had a lot of difficult customers. I was good at calming people down and I always made sure they were happy in the end.”

It has no date or place, so it sounds vague. It says “we” and “always” instead of describing one real event. And it doesn't show any of the EO statements, so there's nothing to score. Here's the same experience, rewritten. The bold notes show which statement each step matches.

What changed: it's dated and named, with the year, place and role, so it's old but concrete. It says “I” throughout, because the panel can only score what you did. Every step lines up with an EO statement. The last line shows you today, closing the gap without apologising for it. And it sounds like the job: an upset caller, a process explained, then a follow-up.

A panel might ask about the age of your example or about your career break. They're allowed to be curious, and a calm, short answer is all they need. Don't apologise and don't over-explain. Say what you did, then move to something recent.

Have at least one example from the last couple of years. It can come from volunteering, caring, a course or a community role. It shows the panel you're using these skills now, and it gives you something to turn to if they ask for more recent evidence. Here is Sam's.

Why it counts: it's recent and specific, and the decision is clearly Sam's. Each step is linked to a statement, not “I'm good with people”. And because it's Sam's only non-work example, Sam comes across as rounded, not short of work experience.

Do this for every behaviour your advert says it will test at interview. Start tonight with steps 1 and 2: they take less than an hour and show you exactly where your gaps are. Then work through one example a day.

Then say each answer out loud, more than once. An old example only sounds current when you've said it recently. Plum's AI interview panel asks the behaviour questions, follows up on the detail like a real panel, and tells you how each answer landed.