Southwark Council Interview Questions
& Process

There was one interview stage, but it can differ by department. It was a panel interview with 3 people. The interviewers were friendly because the job was in children and adult services. They asked standard PM questions, like about experience managing projects, and questions best answered in the STAR format.

Got contacted by the company several months after their application deadline had passed, saying I was shortlisted. They then sent a lot of emails about the interview and a presentation I needed to prepare on various topics. It was weird because they confirmed the date for the second interview in the invitation for the first one. Then I had an interview with a six-person panel, along with my presentation. I asked again about the second interview, and the lead interviewer confirmed it. As expected, the recruiter disappeared. After trying to reach out to different people multiple times, their Senior Talent Partner called and made a really unprofessional statement, saying I shouldn't have been interviewed at all. I told them how bad their employer image was, how unprofessional, disorganized, and incomplete their staff were, and that's putting it mildly. I can't even imagine what a huge, dysfunctional, chaotic, and disastrous workplace Southwark Council is. Thanks for wasting my time and energy. What a joke and a disgrace of a London Borough Council.

The panel interview was conducted extremely poorly, with all three members actively discouraging me from taking the job by listing numerous negative aspects. One senior interviewer's phone rang for a total of 3 minutes before she could silence it. They also dismissed my questions with laughter. It was really disappointing because I was very interested in this position and had prepared extensively. They also used unprofessional language when discussing the people they work with.

The pre-interview part was handled really well with clear instructions for the day. The panel interview itself was quite good. The people on the panel were nice and professional. However, by the end of the interview, I had a feeling I wasn't the right fit for them, and it turned out that way. The post-interview part was terrible. I was told I'd hear back by the end of the next week. When I followed up, the recruiter didn't reply. I waited another week and followed up again, still no response. Then I emailed the central team, and they finally responded about a week later. It's a shame because the pre-interview and the interview itself were fine.