Competency based questioning - typical of standard civil service style interviews. Very formal however remote at the time. Nothing unexpected - believed two or three people interviewed. Recommend just being as prepared as possible with examples and listen carefully to the question being asked in order to identify the competency (learn them in advance) and be prepared to be able to adapt rehearsed examples accordingly

I had a telephone interview about a month after I applied, which was then repeated a week or so later. The interviewing had been outsourced to a recruitment partner. The interviewer in the first instance was obviously working to time constraints. It was very specific and quite an unsettling experience. The interviewer was obviously looking for specific answers and interrupted my responses continually - even stopping me mid-sentence when she wanted to move on. I was then told to talk more slowly (despite being rushed through the interview) and repeat things as she was typing, which was off-putting. At the end she asked if I had any questions, but when I asked about some training mentioned in the job description she told me the question was "inappropriate" - which I now believe was due to the fact that she didn't know the answer. I've had numerous phone interviews but never one as unprofessional and as negative an experience as this. I was called again a week or so later and asked to redo parts of the phone interview as there were "areas that required clarification". The second interviewer was better, and let me give answers, but they were the same questions as before and it was never really clear why this was necessary. I heard nothing further for over two months about the assessment centre (which I think was the final stage), until receiving an email saying I had been unsuccessful. I was then sent this same email to the same account two times again the same day. It didn't seem like a very organised process at all, which was disappointing, but by the time I received the rejection I had long since assumed I'd been unsuccessful (and had in fact been offered and accepted a better paid role elsewhere). Feedback was unavailable due to the volume of applicants which was hardly surprising - it took 3 months to do a round of initial phone interviews after all!