AO Behaviour Statements

AO Application Help Behaviour Statements
AO behaviour application help
Turn the AA/AO behaviour criteria into focused, believable evidence
AO behaviour statements are normally short. The challenge is not fitting in a dramatic story. It is choosing one situation in which your personal actions make the official criteria easy to score.
AO Seeing the Big Picture Behaviour Statements
Connect routine AO work to team priorities, different user needs and wider information.
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AO Changing and Improving Behaviour Statements
Show sensible improvements, learning new procedures, constructive challenge and calm response to change.
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AO Making Effective Decisions Behaviour Statements
Use guidance and evidence, close information gaps and consider how decisions affect different people.
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AO Leadership Behaviour Statements
Demonstrate accountability, fairness, enthusiasm and support for the wider team’s objectives.
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AO Communicating and Influencing Behaviour Statements
Choose the right method, use clear language, listen properly and communicate honestly.
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AO Working Together Behaviour Statements
Build supportive relationships, contribute flexibly, seek help and protect an inclusive team environment.
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AO Developing Self and Others Behaviour Statements
Identify learning needs, act on feedback and share useful knowledge with colleagues.
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AO Managing a Quality Service Behaviour Statements
Understand customer needs, organise delivery, prevent problems and keep people informed.
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AO Delivering at Pace Behaviour Statements
Prioritise work, follow procedures and maintain quality and updates under time pressure.
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How AO behaviour statements are assessed

Civil Service behaviour examples describe the actions associated with effective performance at a particular grade. AA and AO use the same published examples. A vacancy will normally select only the behaviours relevant to that role, so read the advert carefully and write for the named behaviour rather than trying to cover all nine.

What a strong AO example usually contains

1
A simple, relevant situation
Choose a routine but meaningful responsibility where you had enough personal ownership to explain your decisions and actions.
2
A clear task
State what you personally needed to achieve, protect, correct or deliver. Keep the team background brief.
3
Actions linked to every criterion
Use the official points as a private checklist. The assessor should not have to infer that you listened, checked guidance, supported a colleague or kept people updated.
4
AO-level judgement
Show that you used procedures and your own knowledge, knew when to seek advice and did not pretend to hold authority you did not have.
5
A practical result
Explain what was delivered, corrected, improved, prevented or understood. Results can be modest if they are specific and credible.
Weak evidence
I helped my team during a busy period and made sure all the work was completed successfully.
Stronger evidence
I reviewed the outstanding cases, agreed which needed same-day action, took responsibility for the urgent updates, asked a trained colleague for help with an unfamiliar case and recorded a clear handover before the deadline.

How to choose your best example

Example selection check
Question to askWhat a useful answer looks likeWarning sign
Can I explain my own actions?You made checks, communicated, organised work, suggested an improvement or made a decision yourself.Most of the story belongs to a manager or the wider team.
Does it naturally cover the criteria?The behaviour points arise from the situation without forced sentences.You need to add unrelated actions purely to tick boxes.
Is the responsibility realistic for AO?You owned a task or case, used judgement within guidance and escalated appropriately.The example claims strategic authority, budgets or formal leadership you did not hold.
Is there a clear outcome?The task was completed, a person understood, an error was prevented or a process worked better.The story ends immediately after the action.
Can I defend every detail?You remember why you acted, what information you used and how the result was measured.The wording sounds impressive but you could not answer follow-up questions about it.

How to use the individual behaviour guides

Each guide below quotes the official AA/AO criteria exactly, translates them into practical evidence, explains how to use the available word count and provides complete examples. The matching interview page is linked from every behaviour guide so you can prepare a written and spoken version without memorising the same script.

Members can unlock the complete AO behaviour planning system below, including a criterion-mapping worksheet, a worked 250-word allocation, an example quality test and a reusable process for selecting the strongest evidence for any of the nine behaviours.

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