What the job is
Executive Officer is the grade above Clerical Officer and below Higher Executive Officer, and it is where management starts. A typical EO has a handful of COs reporting to them or working alongside them, owns a process (a scheme, a caseload, a system, a set of returns), takes the queries the COs cannot answer, and makes decisions inside a defined set of rules without going upstairs each time. The EO drafts replies, briefings and reports for the HEO, and in a small office is often the senior person on the floor.
The Capability Framework for the grade puts it in six areas the board will mark: Building Future Readiness; Delivering Excellence; Managing Information, Problems and Decisions; Leading, Supporting and Developing; Leading with Specialist Insight; and Communicating and Collaborating. Read those as the job description. An EO who organises their own work well but has never organised anyone else’s is missing a third of it.
Assignments are nationwide. publicjobs assigns successful candidates to departments and offices as vacancies arise, and you state location preferences on application. The departments with the largest operational arms take most of the numbers, and a Dublin preference is normally filled faster than a regional one.
Salary scale, 2026
The pay scale is set by circular from the Department of Public Expenditure. The current one is Circular 22/2026, which applied the 1 per cent increase due on 1 June 2026 under the Public Service Agreement 2024 to 2026. The Executive Officer standard scale for staff on the PPC rate (appointed after April 1995, paying Class A PRSI, which is everyone joining now):
| Point | Annual salary from 1 June 2026 |
|---|---|
| 1 | €38,803 |
| 2 | €40,764 |
| 3 | €41,871 |
| 4 | €44,030 |
| 5 | €45,965 |
| 6 | €47,838 |
| 7 | €49,703 |
| 8 | €51,534 |
| 9 | €53,419 |
| 10 | €55,296 |
| 11 | €57,289 |
| 12 | €58,624 |
| 13 | €60,527 (LSI 1) |
| 14 | €63,227 (LSI 2) |
New entrants start at point 1 and move up a point a year, subject to satisfactory performance. LSI 1 and LSI 2 are long service increments, paid after three and six years at the top of the scale. The circular also prints an EO higher scale (€41,871 to €65,628), which applies in specific circumstances set out in the pay rules, and serving civil servants promoted to EO are placed on the scale by those rules rather than at point 1. For comparison, the HEO standard scale in the same circular runs from €60,029 to €70,547 with increments to €76,546, which is the next step.
On top of basic pay: a public service pension (the Single Public Service Pension Scheme for new entrants), annual leave that rises with service, flexi-time in most offices, and blended working under each department’s policy; the exact terms are in Candidate Information Part III for the competition. Pay figures change with each circular, so check the current one before quoting a number to a mortgage broker.
The 2026 competition, stage by stage
Executive Officer in the Civil Service 2026 was publicjobs Vacancy 951. The Role Information Booklet prints the process as a sequence, and the labels are worth quoting because they tell you what each stage decides:
- Application deadline: 23 February 2026. An online application through the publicjobs portal.
- Online testing and assessments: March 2026. The booklet does not name the tests; candidates are sent a familiarisation booklet. “The score you achieve at the online testing and assessment stage will determine your Order of Merit, or ranking, against other candidates who applied.” That ranking decides who is invited to interview and in what batch.
- Written exercise. Not in the booklet’s graphic, but candidates in the 2026 thread describe it: thirty minutes, 500 words, a two-part question on managing a situation from your own experience. Graded into two capabilities; never raised at interview.
- Interview, invited in order of merit from the tests. One board, the six areas of the framework, about an hour. Candidates in the Dublin batch report each area being timed at around ten minutes.
- Placed on panel, in order of merit based on interview results. The test score got you in the room. The interview alone sets your place on the panel. Candidates describe moving from the mid twenties to the low forties, and the other way, between the two rankings.
- Clearance checks and vetting, then assignment by publicjobs to a department.
The competition closed in February; the next open EO competition will be announced on publicjobs.ie, usually with a few weeks to apply. Panels from a competition are drawn on for a long time, so being placed low is still being placed.
What the interview asks
The board works through the six areas. Under each, publicjobs’ own guidance says to expect three kinds of question: an example from your experience, a question on your skills and knowledge, and a question on your values and motivation. The example questions carry most of the marks. Here is the shape of them at EO level, area by area:
- Building Future Readiness. Tell me about a time you used technology or a digital tool to make a process more efficient. Describe a change you were not sure about at first and how you approached it.
- Delivering Excellence. Tell me about planning and prioritising a heavy workload, your own or a team’s, to hit a deadline. Describe how you have kept oversight of other people’s work.
- Managing Information, Problems and Decisions. Tell me about gathering and analysing information from several sources to answer a question. Walk me through a complex problem you solved.
- Leading, Supporting and Developing. Tell me about a time you led, supported or motivated others to reach a goal, whether or not you were their manager. Give me an example of coaching or giving feedback to a colleague.
- Leading with Specialist Insight. Tell me about an area where you have built real expertise and how you keep it current. Describe bringing evidence to a discussion that changed the decision.
- Communicating and Collaborating. Tell me about working with colleagues outside your own team to get something done. Describe adapting how you communicated for a particular audience.
The level is the thing. EO boards are listening for examples where you organised work and other people, resolved something that was not straightforward, or made a call within your remit. An example of doing a routine task well, however well told, is a Clerical Officer example and is marked as below the level. On the other side, you do not need to have been a manager: training a new starter, checking a colleague’s work before it went out, chairing a committee, coordinating a shift all count under Leading, Supporting and Developing, as long as you directed, checked or coached a person. A rota or a tracker on its own is organising a task, not people.
On marks: the central EO booklet publishes none. The one 2026 Capability Framework booklet that does (Department of Social Protection, AO ICT) marks each sub-dimension 1 to 50 with Fail 1 to 17, Potential 18 to 21, Pass 22 to 34 and Very Good 35 to 50, one Potential allowed. Candidates in the 2026 EO Dublin batch report their feedback as marks out of 100 per area with 40 as the pass. Either way the structure is the same: a mark per area, a line in each, and the total for the panel.
Preparing, in the order that pays
- Print the EO Capability Framework. Six areas, each with indicators. The indicators are the marking scheme.
- Write one example per area, plus one spare, as STAR with a reflection sentence. Different events. Check each Task against the grade: is this organising work and people, or doing a task? The STAR guide has a worked EO example.
- Prepare the non-STAR answers: why EO and why now, two strengths with evidence, one honest development area with a plan, what you know about the departments you have asked for.
- Practise the written exercise against a clock twice. Thirty minutes goes fast, and the two-part structure is what gets marked.
- Say every example out loud with a timer. Two to three minutes. One 2026 candidate: “I started a STAR type answer and the interviewer interrupted me and said I talk too much, politely though.”
The oldest advice on the boards.ie EO thread is still the best of it: practise out loud, in the car, doing the ironing, until you are bored of your own answers and can hear what is wrong with them. That is what the EO practice page is for.