Success profiles: candidate guide

About Success Profiles

The Success Profile framework is being introduced to attract and retain talented people with experience from a range of sectors and from all walks of life, to come and work for the Scottish Government.

The Success Profile framework moves recruitment away from using a purely competency-based system of assessment. It introduces a more flexible framework which assesses candidates against a range of elements using a variety of selection methods. This will give the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, driving up performance and improving diversity and inclusivity.

Adoption of this framework will contribute to achieving our aim of recruiting a diverse workforce which is reflective of Scotland’s population and in line with the commitments made in the Civil Service Workforce Plan.

The framework includes five key elements which are assessed to identify the best candidate for the role, these are:

• behaviours: the actions and activities that people do which result in effective performance in a job
• strengths: the things we do regularly, do well and that motivate us
• ability: the aptitude or potential to perform to the required standard
• experience: the knowledge or mastery of an activity or subject gained through involvement in or exposure to it
• technical: the demonstration of specific professional skills, knowledge or qualifications

Not all elements are relevant to every role, so individual jobs will include a specific mix of elements to be assessed based on the requirements of the position.

Scottish Government vacancies will focus on assessing three of the five Success Profile elements initially, not all three will be assessed for every job:

• behaviours
• experience
• technical

This guide provides further information on each of the elements assessed including the level relating to the grade of the position.