Selecting future leaders for our civil service

This is an old article that I have written a long time ago, which I did not publish initially

In striving towards greater excellence, there is always a prevailing need to re-evaluate our positions for their flaws and brainstorm on possible improvements that can be made. This sort of reflection occurs everywhere, be it in our daily lives and in organizations encompassing diverse areas from management philosophy to even government scholarship selection mechanisms which serve to identify future leaders within our government service.

Two years ago, our local netizens did have an opportunity to have an interesting exchange with the former A*STAR and current SPRING Singapore chairman, Mr Philip Yeo, in a rare venture by the latter to engage bloggers on their own turf. Yeo was alluding to the fact that a number of Public Service Commission (PSC) scholars were from well-to-do families and could afford to break their scholarship bonds. Thus, the pertinent question is how can we improve the selection mechanisms for future scholars and leaders within the civil service in a way that only the most dedicated and sincere individuals can be selected?

A check on the PSC scholarship website shows that the flowchart of scholarship application starts from the submission of an online application followed by the submission of national examination results by fax or post. There will be a shortlisting stage based on the results obtained and all the short-listed applicants will make it to the interview stage. The interview stage will then identify the applicants who will finally receive the PSC scholarship. Thus, one should be asking if such a system has its flaws and whether there are any other possible improvements that can be made to select the most dedicated and sincere talents?

For starters, using an interview to screen from a list of short-listed applicants may not identify the most desirable candidates for the simple reason that one can rehearse for such, and it is not difficult to get model interview questions from seniors who have been awarded the scholarship. There are even interview courses that train their attendees to the level of a perfect interviewee so that they will be able to ace an interview. Thus, in a way, the interview stage may not be the best filter to identify future scholars who will go on to be leaders in our civil service.

The next question is what else can be done in order to select the most suitable and talented group of applicants? The solution is having a necessary internship component, in which performance in this area will have the most significant bearing in the selection process. For female applicants, the process should be more straight-forward. Assuming they are applying to US or UK universities whose semesters will typically begin during the August to September period, a three month internship within the civil service will suffice. To Singaporean males who have to serve their national service, the application process could potentially be longer. They will usually enter National Service during the months of January or February, serve their 2 years term and come out during the same months. This will give them the opportunity to intern within the civil service before they enter the universities whose terms will begin during the August to September period.

Why is making this internship an integral part of the selection process important? Granted that an interview will allow an organization to learn more about the other attributes of the applicant, only so much information can be obtained and that is limited. An internship in the civil service will show the other finer aspects of the applicant’s attributes such as the ability to work in a team, strike rapport with his colleagues, analyze data and other situations, deal with conflicts and many others. Thus, the feedback from internship assessors will be important in deciding the outcome of the application. It may be that lesser candidates who did not do so well in their studies may be star performers during their internship as compared to the proverbial academic high flyers. Thus, the performance during this internship phase will be an important deciding factor of the scholar’s success when he finally works in the civil service. The civil service may also enjoy a slight benefit in having a pool of internship staff to plug up areas where there is manpower shortage.

This internship is also important to the scholarship applicant because it will expose him to the realities of working life within the government service. After being exposed to the realities of working life, he will be in a good position to decide whether the government service is the right place for him to start his career. Thus, for applicants who feel that the government service is not the right place and want to opt out, they should be given leeway to leave their internship and quit the application process altogether. For applicants who completed their internship, a bulk of the scholarship outcome will be decided by their internship assessors. Assessments can come from superiors to colleagues who have worked with the scholarship applicants. This internship performance will be a deciding factor of the success of the scholarship application. Thus, the suggestion will be to have an internship component within the application process to better identify the most suitable candidates.

There is definitely room for improvement specifically in the selection mechanisms for our future scholars. Getting prospective scholars to intern for a sufficiently long period in the civil service will firstly allow PSC to identify the right candidates and secondly, give adequate exposure to the applicants so that they can make an informed choice on whether a career in the government service is suitable for them.