Irish public sector interviews
Say your answer out loud. See the mark a board would give it.
Pick a real question for your grade, talk for two minutes, and in ten seconds you get the mark a board would give, your own words quoted back as evidence, what to fix, and the follow-up they would ask next.Pick a real question for your grade, talk for two minutes, and in ten seconds you get the estimated mark on your competition’s own scale, the framework indicators you actually evidenced (your own words quoted back), what to fix, and the follow-up the board would ask next.
Three full reviews on the house. No card, no account needed.
1
Get the question
Real questions for your grade, sorted by the sub-dimension they test. Example questions in STAR form, the way boards ask them.
2
Answer like you would in the room
Press record and talk. Or type. Up to three minutes, then the transcript is yours to correct before the review.
3
Read the board’s notes
Estimated band, evidence found indicator by indicator, the shape of your STAR, two things to keep, three to fix, and the probe that comes next.
What a review looks like
Real answers, marked
Five questions, each answered twice: the fluent answer boards hear all day, and an ordinary specific one. Read the first, decide what you would give it, then look at the mark. Pick the grade nearest yours.
Civil Service, Capability Framework
Tell me about working under real pressure, with a tight deadline or reduced resources, and how you kept going.
Confident, fluent, 204 words, and every phrase a board hears ten times a day. Read it first and decide what you would give it. Then look at what the board could actually check.
The answer, as heard
Delivering under pressure is something I am genuinely passionate about, and it has been a consistent theme throughout my career. In my current role I have always taken ownership of my work and gone above and beyond for the people I serve. A good example would be a project last year where we were under significant time pressure and stakeholder expectations were very high. I took the lead in coordinating with the various stakeholders, made sure everyone was aligned on the objectives, and kept communication channels open throughout. There were challenges along the way, as there always are, but I stayed solution focused and adaptable, and I made sure we kept the customer at the heart of everything we did. Ultimately the project was delivered successfully and on time, and the feedback from senior management was extremely positive. I think what that demonstrates is my strong attention to detail, my ability to work well under pressure and my commitment to continuous improvement. I am always looking for ways to do things better and I bring that mindset to every task. I believe those are exactly the qualities the Executive Officer role requires, and I would bring the same energy and professionalism to this position.
Estimated board mark, Delivering Excellence
0 clear, 4 partial, of 9 indicators. A strong two-minute answer shows about 4.
- •No result they can check. Add a number, a date or a specific outcome.
- •No reflection. One sentence on what you took from it lifts the answer.
- •Fluent, but light on specifics. Boards are warned about articulate candidates: without checkable detail the mark is capped at adequate.
- •The example sits below the grade you are interviewing for.
Shape
- ✗ Result the board can check
- ✗ What you learned
- ✓ Answers the question asked
- ✗ Level: below the grade
The board would ask next
What exactly changed or went wrong during that project, and what did you personally do next to keep it on schedule?
What the board heard
Tell me about working under real pressure, with a tight deadline or reduced resources, and how you kept going.
- Partial
Manages, plans, and prioritises workload to ensure targets and deadlines are met.
“the project was delivered successfully and on time”
- Partial
Demonstrates ownership, initiative, and responsibility over work, becoming self-sufficient in their own area of responsibility.
“I took the lead in coordinating with the various stakeholders”
- Partial
Maintains resilience and a 'can-do' attitude when learning new skills or working under pressure, seeking support when needed.
“I stayed solution focused and adaptable”
1 more evidenced
- Flexible, agile, and resilient in the face of challenges or changing demands.
“There were challenges along the way, as there always are, but I stayed solution focused and adaptable”
Not evidenced (5)
- • Works in a systematic, organised, and efficient manner.
- • Has good oversight of their teams work and puts procedures in place to track quality and productivity.
- • Ensures they have a sufficient workload, seeks additional work, and uses appropriate initiative to take on other tasks.
- • Delivers high quality standards with excellent attention to detail and accuracy.
- • Ensures high quality, professional customer service, resolving complex issues or queries and prioritising customer experience.
Keep
- You identify a project delivered under time pressure and say you coordinated stakeholders.
- You say the project was delivered on time, though you give no deadline to verify.
Fix before the interview
- Cut the opening claims and closing description of your qualities. Use that time for what happened in the project.
- Add the deadline, the work you personally prioritised, and how you tracked progress. This would show how you managed work under pressure.
- Add the specific setback, what you changed or who you asked for support, and the outcome you can verify. This would show resilience and flexibility rather than just naming them.
Full access
Then sit the whole board
One question per area, in order, the clock running, and nothing back between questions, the way a real board gives nothing away. At the end the scorecard: a mark per area, whether you would be placed on the panel, and the one area to work on before the day.
See the mock boardWhy candidates fail, and what this catches
People rarely fail for lack of experience. They fail because they cannot see their own answer the way the board scores it. The review looks for exactly those things.
Too much scene-setting
Half the answer spent on the background. Boards want it in two sentences, then what you did.
"We" instead of "I"
The board can only mark your behaviour. Team credit scores nothing.
No result they can check
"It went well" is not a result. A number, a date or a change someone noticed is.
Grades live now
Both marking systems the Civil Service uses in 2026, the HSE job-spec headings, the council LGMA competencies, the Garda Trainee and the Irish Prison Service competencies. Your interview email names one; practise that one.
An Garda Síochána
County and City Councils
759 questions across 22 grades. Next: HSE Grade VI to VIII and allied health grades, Defence Forces cadetships. Your grade not here? Tell us.
Garda and Prison Officer
The role play, with an actor who answers back
Both interviews open with a brief, a few minutes to prepare, then five minutes opposite someone playing an angry driver, a late visitor, a prisoner who will not go in. Reading about it does not prepare you for it. Here the actor is played live, in character, and reacts to what you actually say: settle them by listening, holding the rule and offering something real, or watch them get worse. Then the board’s debrief, line by line.
Full access
Three free reviews, then pick a plan.
- Up to 60 board-style reviews a day, every grade on the site
- Estimated mark on the real scale, indicators evidenced with your own words quoted back
- The follow-up question a board would ask next, every time
- Mock board: the whole interview in one sitting, scorecard at the end
- Application form examples marked the way a shortlisting board scores them
- My Examples: every answer and review saved to your account, on any device
- Type or speak. Works on your phone in the car park before the interview
Card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or Revolut Pay through Stripe. An hour with an interview coach in Ireland runs to about 150 euro, when they have a slot. A month here is 25. Refunds and cancelling
Questions people ask
Is this the real marking scheme?
It is built on the real ones. Under the Capability Framework the indicators are quoted from the published framework and the bands are the published ones: Fail 1 to 17, Potential 18 to 21, Pass 22 to 34, Very Good to Excellent 35 to 50. Under the Competency Model each competency is marked on its own, with the pass mark your booklet gives (Revenue used 55 in 2025). For Recruit Prison Officer each competency is out of 50 with a pass mark of 20, as 2025 candidates were told with their results. For the HSE each heading is marked 1 to 100 with the HSE band words (Little evidence, Adequate, Good, Strong) and under 40 in any heading means no place on the panel. Councils mark each competency separately and, where they publish it, require 50% in every one. The mark you get here is our estimate of where a board would put the answer. Boards are people, so treat it as a strong signal, not a verdict.
Do I have to speak? I would rather type.
Type if you like, the review is the same. Speaking is closer to the interview: you find out fast how long your answer really is, where the "we" creeps in and whether the result comes out at the end or gets lost.
Is an AI reading my answers? Will it learn from them?
Yes, the review is written by an AI model, and no, it does not learn from you. It runs on an enterprise Microsoft service in the EU, not the public ChatGPT; Microsoft does not train on what we send and does not share it. We never train or build any model on your answers or your voice. Your answers are stored with your account for you to come back to, and you can delete any of them. No person reads them unless you report a review.
What happens to my recording?
It is turned into text and discarded. We keep the text and the review with your account so you can improve the answer and come back to it. Nothing is stored for guests beyond 30 days.
Which competitions does it cover?
Right now: Clerical Officer, Executive Officer, Administrative Officer, Higher Executive Officer, Assistant Principal and Principal Officer, under both the Capability Framework (publicjobs open competitions) and the Competency Model (Revenue, Garda civilian staff, department-run panels). Recruit Prison Officer 2026 is ready for the December interviews: the six Irish Prison Service competencies plus an interactive role play where the actor answers you back. HSE Grade III, IV and V, Staff Nurse and CNM1/CNM2 use the six headings of the HSE job specification with the HSE marking bands. Garda Trainee has the five Garda competencies and its own interactive role play. County and city council Grade III, IV and V use the LGMA competencies from the candidate booklets plus the Local Government Knowledge questions boards really ask.
Can I cancel?
The monthly plan cancels in one click from your account page and runs to the end of the month you paid for. The six-month pass is one payment that simply ends. Three free reviews come first, so you know what you are buying.