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Communicating and Influencing: adapting your message
Show how you helped someone understand information or consider a course of action. Explain the audience, your choice of words or format, and how you checked the message had been understood.
By Sift Assist · Reviewed
What does Communicating and Influencing mean in practice?
Influencing is not forcing agreement. Listening, adapting an explanation and responding to a concern can matter as much as presenting an argument. Your example does not need a hostile audience or an impressive presentation.
Where to look for your own example
Use these as prompts to search your experience, not as claims to copy. Choose one specific event you can explain, then check it against the vacancy’s requirements.
- A volunteer who rewrites confusing joining instructions after hearing the same questions repeatedly.
- A team member who explains a revised process to colleagues unfamiliar with the terminology.
- A parent or carer who coordinates practical arrangements with a group, without sharing anyone’s private information.
A worked example extract
This fictional extract identifies a particular audience and a specific communication change. It needs the actual feedback to complete the result. It is more informative than saying ‘I used excellent communication skills’.
Questions that turn your notes into evidence
Answer in ordinary sentences first. A short note with a spelling mistake is easier to develop than a polished claim with no detail. Then use STAR to organise the event: brief context, your responsibility, personal actions and the result.
- What did the other person need to understand or decide?
- What did you learn by listening or asking questions?
- Why did you choose a conversation, written message, visual aid or another format?
- How did you keep the message accurate and accessible?
- What response or follow-up showed whether it worked?
Match the evidence to the advertised grade
Match the explanation to your responsibility. For a direct enquiry, describe accuracy and how you checked understanding. For a proposal involving several groups, explain how you adapted to different concerns. For wider communications, show how you evaluated the approach and dealt with sensitive or competing messages.
The official guidance has separate grade groups. Use the relevant indicators to check your example; you are not expected to fit every indicator into one answer. The vacancy sets the word count, not the grade name.
What can weaken the answer?
Do not claim that everyone agreed if they did not. Agreement is not always the outcome; a person may understand an unwelcome decision after a clear explanation. Avoid making a confident personality sound like a requirement for communicating well.
Keep your actions distinct from the shared outcome. Explain figures you use and check any AI-developed wording against what happened. The example here is original teaching material, not an official answer or a promise of a sift score.
Your next writing step
Choose one event and answer the five questions above. If you cannot explain an important action or result, investigate that gap before spending time polishing. Read your draft beside the actual requirement, then edit it to the stated limit.
Official sources and how to use this guide
This is independent Sift Assist guidance. Our writing exercises and examples are teaching suggestions, not official assessment questions or guaranteed answers. Follow the vacancy and assessment instructions where they differ.
Create a free profile and check your advert’s requirements. If you choose to generate answers, you will see the credit cost before starting.
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