The work-related behaviour questionnaire: answer it as yourself

The last part of the online stage is a questionnaire: statements about how you prefer to work, answered on an agreement scale. Do you rather work alone or as part of a team. Do you like to plan before you start. The output is a fit report worded like "somewhat aligned" or "somewhat suitable".

We are not going to sell you the answers, because there are not any, and because the attempt is counterproductive. What is worth your time is the framework it is built on and the small number of places where this job's answer differs from the answer a generic job application would reward.

Why gaming it does not work

Questionnaires of this kind carry two checks that operate independently of the content.

The first is consistency. The same trait is asked about several times in different words, often from opposite directions. "I always follow a procedure exactly, even when I can see a quicker way" and "if a rule is slowing everyone down, I will find a sensible way round it" are the same question twice. Someone answering honestly gives compatible answers without trying. Someone constructing a profile has to remember what they claimed twenty items ago, and does not.

The second is response style. Answering everything at the extremes, or everything in the middle, is itself a pattern. Uniform extreme responding reads as a strategy rather than a set of answers, and it makes the whole report less usable — which is a worse outcome for you than an honest, unremarkable profile.

There is a third reason, less technical and more practical: the assessment centre interview is built on the eight non-technical skills, which cover the same working behaviour the questionnaire asks about. If your questionnaire says one thing and your examples say another, the mismatch is visible.

The framework

Network Rail names eight non-technical skills. Applicants report that the assessment centre interview is built on them, and they are the obvious frame for what the questionnaire is asking about — although Network Rail does not publish how the questionnaire is scored:

• Conscientiousness
• Relationships with people
• Communications
• Willingness and ability to learn
• Planning and decision making
• Multi-tasking capacity
• Controlled under pressure
• Attention management

Knowing these is legitimate preparation and it changes nothing about your honesty. What it does is stop you answering the same trait three different ways because three differently worded statements did not look related to each other.

Three places the generic answer is wrong here

"I enjoy working somewhere I am the only person on duty"

In most job applications, agreeing with this reads as a poor team player and people soften it. A large number of signalling boxes are single-person posts, worked alone through the night. A preference for lone working fits this job. Answer it truthfully — and if you strongly disagree, that is genuinely useful information for you as well as for them.

"I like to be told exactly how a task should be done"

Generic interview advice says show initiative, do not need hand-holding. This is a procedural safety role. The procedures exist because they encode failures other people already had, and the wanted behaviour is following them even when you can see a faster way. Wanting the method spelled out is closer to an asset here than a liability.

"I find it hard to leave a job unfinished at the end of my shift"

This one is the clearest example of why answering at the extreme to look keen backfires. Conscientiousness is genuinely wanted. But signalling runs continuously and every shift ends in the middle of something — handing over cleanly and going home is part of the job, and fatigue is a managed safety risk, not a badge. Strong agreement is a positive with a caveat attached; very strong agreement starts to read as the caveat.

How to sit it

Read up on the eight skills first so you know what is being asked about. Then answer honestly and reasonably quickly. Overthinking each statement pushes you towards constructing an answer rather than reporting one, which is the same failure as gaming it, just slower.

Use the middle of the scale when the middle is true, and the ends when the ends are true. A profile with no middle ground and a profile with nothing but middle ground are both less useful to you than a real one.

What our practice section actually does

It does not drill responses, because that would be selling you the thing that does not work. It drills the framework: which skill a given statement is reading, where this job's answer diverges from the generic one, and which pairs of answers genuinely contradict each other — and which pairs only look as though they do. Calm in the moment and dwelling on it afterwards, for instance, is a coherent and very common combination, not a contradiction.

Half an hour on that is worth more than any amount of trying to work out the ideal profile, and it leaves you better prepared for the interview as well.