Tell me about a time you acted in the best interest of your workplace's resources.

"I recently started a project and missed an important detail I should have built off of several stages earlier. Going back and correcting this mistake would have taken several hours of rework. The mistake was my own. I know some people probably would have just hurried and tried to do the work under the radar, but I owned my mistake, informing my superior and asking them whether I should spend the company resources redoing the work or if they'd prefer another approach. They told me to do the rework and asked how I would prevent repeating the same mistake. I implemented a system immediately that would prevent me from making the same mistake again. But ultimately, this is just one example of how I am vigilant in protecting the company's resources."

This question evaluates your scope of the big picture, your integrity, and your ability to prioritize the needs of the workplace over your interests. Your interviewer is therefore interested in whether you are focused on 'achieving commercial outcomes' and would consistently protect the assets of the agency while acting with prudence.

As the Civil Service defines it, "Being effective in this area is about maintaining an economic, long-term focus in all activities. For all, it's about having a commercial, financial and sustainable mindset to ensure all activities and services are delivering added value and working to stimulate economic growth. For leaders, it's about identifying economic, market and customer issues and using these to promote innovative business models, commercial partnerships and agreements to deliver greatest value; and ensuring tight commercial controls of finances, resources and contracts to meet strategic priorities."