How to answer selection criteria for Australian government jobs

Search "how to answer selection criteria" and almost everything on the first page is either a decade out of date or written by someone who has never opened a real APS job ad. That is not really a surprise. Selection criteria, in the specific sense Australian government recruitment means it, barely exist outside this country. American, British and Canadian public sector hiring runs on interviews and resumes, not on a scored written response to a published capability list. If you are applying to the Australian Public Service, a state government, a council or a university here for the first time, you are dealing with a genuinely local format, and most of the advice online was not written for the version of it that exists right now.

That version has changed a lot in the last few years. The long, separate, one document per criterion essay that used to define government applications has mostly been replaced at the federal level by a short pitch. Some agencies and most state governments still ask for the old format. Knowing which one you are looking at, and writing to it properly, is the actual skill this article is about. It sits alongside, but separate from, the general question of how a resume should look in Australia: the two documents follow different rules and get scored by different people.

What selection criteria are, and why government uses them

A private sector job ad tells you roughly what the employer wants and leaves the rest to your resume and a conversation. A government job ad, by contrast, usually comes with a published, named list of the specific capabilities a panel will assess you against, whether that list appears as formal selection criteria, a set of focus capabilities, or a role description built around a leadership or capability framework.

The reason sits in how public sector recruitment is legally structured. In the APS, hiring decisions have to be merit based: the person best suited to the role on the published criteria gets it, and that decision has to be defensible if someone asks for a review. The Merit Protection Commissioner exists specifically to hear challenges to APS promotion and selection decisions on exactly this basis. A written, scored response against a public capability list is what makes that accountability possible. It is also, frankly, why the process feels slower and more paperwork heavy than a private sector application: the panel is not just picking a favourite, it is building a record.

State governments, local councils and universities run similar logic through their own frameworks rather than the APS's, which is one reason the language changes so much between jurisdictions even when the underlying idea, prove you can do this against a named standard, stays the same.

Statement of claims versus an integrated pitch: know which one you are facing

This is the single most common point of confusion, so it is worth being direct about it. There are two different formats circulating under the same general heading of "addressing the selection criteria," and they are not interchangeable.

The older format is a statement of claims: a standalone document, separate from your resume, that works through each published criterion one at a time, usually with its own heading, often built around a full STAR example per criterion. This is still the norm for a lot of state government roles, university positions, and some APS agencies that never moved away from it. Applications built this way can run to several pages once every criterion has its own worked response.

The newer format, now common across much of the APS, is a single pitch: one narrative document that addresses several capabilities together rather than one at a time, without a separate heading for each. The Australian Public Service Commission's own explainer on applying for an APS job, published as part of its "Cracking the Code" guidance, describes this directly: many agencies now ask only for a short pitch alongside your resume rather than a response to each criterion individually, and the point of it is to let you make the case for yourself in a coherent story instead of a checklist. You can read the current version of that guidance directly on apsc.gov.au.

Neither format is universally correct, because it is not decided by the APS as a whole, it is decided per agency and often per role. Read the actual job ad and application instructions before you start writing anything. If it lists criteria with individual headings and asks for a response to each, write a statement of claims. If it asks for a pitch, a cover letter addressing your suitability, or a one or two page personal statement, you are looking at the integrated format. Guessing wrong wastes the one thing you cannot get back once the closing date passes.

The one page APS pitch, and why it largely replaced long criteria documents

Where the pitch format applies, the shape is fairly consistent even though the exact word count is set by the individual agency, not by a single APS wide rule. A workable structure looks like this: a short opening that states plainly why you are suited to this specific role, not a general career summary; a body built from two to four worked examples, each one addressing one or more of the capabilities the role is assessed against; and a brief closing line connecting your interest to the actual work of the team or agency, not a generic sign off.

The APS's own guidance and the APS Jobs careers portal are consistent on the practical rules that matter most: use specific, real examples rather than general claims about your character, do not simply restate what is already in your resume, and respect whatever word or page limit the ad sets. Some application portals enforce that limit technically, meaning text past the cutoff is simply not submitted rather than flagged as too long, so treat the stated limit as a hard wall, not a guideline.

Do not assume every agency wants exactly one page or a specific word count. Some APS roles specify a one page pitch, others give an explicit word count, others still run the old per criterion format even at the federal level. The only number that matters is the one printed in the ad you are actually applying to.

The STAR method, applied properly

STAR, situation, task, action, result, is the standard structure behind almost every strong selection criteria response, pitch included, and it turns up under close variants across different frameworks (the APS Jobs portal describes a similar structure as activity, behaviour, consequence). The mechanics are simple. The trap is not knowing the acronym, it is writing all four parts in the same flat, passive register so the response reads like a task description with headings inserted.

Situation. One or two sentences of real context: what was actually going on, including scale, pressure or constraint where relevant. Not "in my role as," which describes your job, not the situation.

Task. What specifically you were asked to do or needed to do, stated as your responsibility, not the team's.

Action. The part most answers under invest in. Name the actual decisions and steps you took, in the first person, at a level of detail that could only have come from someone who did it.

Result. A concrete outcome. Where you can honestly attach a number, timeframe or measurable change, do it. Where you cannot, describe the outcome specifically rather than vaguely, what changed, for whom, and how anyone would know.

The two worked examples below show this in full, including the version most people write by default and the version a panel is actually scoring against.

Word limits: there is no universal number, so check the ad

Every general guide, this one included, has to stop short of promising a single word or page count, because there genuinely is not one. Old style statements of claims commonly asked for something in the range of two to five hundred words per criterion, though agencies varied even then. Current pitch formats range from a single page to an explicit word count set by the agency, and some ads specify a hard character limit enforced by the recruitment system itself. State governments run their own conventions again, and a council application guide is not bound by anything the APS does.

Treat the number in the actual ad or application guide as the only figure that matters for that specific application. If no limit is stated, err toward concision. A panel reading dozens of applications rewards a response that makes its case cleanly over one that pads for length, regardless of which format you are working in.

Mining the frameworks for the language a panel is actually listening for

Every one of these frameworks exists in writing, and reading the actual document behind the job ad is the highest leverage thing you can do before you start writing, because it hands you the vocabulary the panel has already agreed to score against.

At the federal level, the Integrated Leadership System is the capability framework the APS has used since 2004 to describe what is expected at each classification, from APS 1 through to the Senior Executive Service. It groups expected behaviours into a small number of capability areas covering things like strategic thinking, delivering results, working productively with others, personal drive and integrity, and communicating with influence, with the specific behavioural descriptors calibrated differently at each level. The APSC publishes ILS profiles by classification on apsc.gov.au. This is also where Work Level Standards matter: the same capability, achieving results for example, looks different described at an APS4 level than at an EL1 level, because the expected scope, autonomy and complexity are different. Reading the work level standard for the classification you are applying at tells you how ambitious your example needs to be, not just what topic to write about.

The underlying discipline is the same one that matters when you mine a job ad for the keywords it actually rewards: read the source document closely and use its own terms deliberately, rather than guessing at language that sounds roughly right. State governments run parallel frameworks with their own names and structures, and the differences matter. The NSW Public Sector Capability Framework, which the NSW Public Service Commission maintains, organises twenty capabilities into five groups: Personal Attributes, Relationships, Results, Business Enablers and People Management. NSW job ads name specific "focus capabilities" for each role along with behavioural indicators, and the Commission's own guidance is explicit that applicants should use the language in those behavioural indicators directly when preparing written and interview responses, not paraphrase around it.

Queensland runs its own Capability and Leadership Framework, developed by the Queensland Public Service Commission and built, by its own description, on the same APS Integrated Leadership System foundations, alongside a separate Leadership Competencies for Queensland model that groups eleven competencies under Vision, Results and Accountability. Victoria, other states and most universities each run comparable but distinct frameworks again. The practical rule holds everywhere: find the actual position description or capability document behind the job ad, not a general explainer, and mirror its specific terms deliberately rather than guessing at generic public sector language.

The most common failure: describing duties instead of evidencing outcomes

If there is one habit that separates a weak selection criteria response from a strong one, it is this. A weak answer describes the job. A strong answer proves the person did it well.

"I was responsible for," "I liaised with," "my duties included," these phrases describe a position, not a capability, and a panel reading them cannot tell the difference between someone who held the job title and someone who was genuinely good at the work. The failure mode is almost always the same: the candidate lists what they were meant to do rather than what they actually achieved, with no scale, no obstacle, and no measurable or specific change at the end.

The fix is not more adjectives. It is evidence: a real situation, a decision you made, and an outcome a stranger could verify or at least picture clearly. That is the entire logic behind STAR, and it is worth reading the two examples below slowly, because the difference between them is smaller in length than it looks and much larger in what a panel can actually score.

Two examples: a weak answer rewritten as a strong one

Example one: addressing "achieves results" in an APS pitch

Weak. "In my current role I am responsible for managing the correspondence register for the branch and coordinating responses to ministerial and stakeholder enquiries. I liaise with internal and external stakeholders and work to ensure deadlines are met across the team."

This describes the job description almost word for word. It gives no sense of how well the person actually performed, whether there was ever a problem, or what changed because they were the one doing it.

Strong. "When I took over correspondence coordination, the branch had a backlog of over three hundred items overdue against the ten day ministerial response standard, putting the branch at risk of breaching agency policy. I was asked to bring the team back within standard inside one quarter. I audited the backlog, restructured triage into three priority tiers based on statutory timeframes, and trained four junior officers to clear the lowest tier independently while I worked the two most time sensitive tiers myself, negotiating realistic clearance dates directly with policy areas rather than letting items sit unassigned. The backlog cleared in nine weeks, on time performance moved from sixty one percent to ninety eight percent, and the triage structure I built is still the one the team uses."

Same person, same role. The second version names a real problem, a decision, and a result a panel can actually weigh against the capability being assessed.

Example two: addressing "deliver results" in a state government application

Weak. "I was involved in the rollout of a new case management system for my team, providing training and ongoing support to staff as they transitioned from the previous paper based process."

Again, this is a duty description. It says the person was near the project. It does not say whether the transition went well, badly, or somewhere in between.

Strong. "My team of fourteen caseworkers had a fixed, department set go live date to move from paper files to a new case management system, with a real risk of service disruption to a caseload of vulnerable clients if the transition went badly. As the nominated system champion, I had fifteen business days to get the team fully operational without a drop in case closure rate. I built a two hour training session focused on the three workflows most likely to cause errors, ran fifteen minute check ins each morning for the first fortnight, and personally worked the error queue each afternoon so issues were caught before they reached a client file. We hit go live with zero missed statutory deadlines during the transition period, case closure rate stayed within four percent of the pre migration baseline, and my training module was later adopted as the standard induction resource for two other regional teams."

Both rewrites follow the same pattern: name the real stakes, state the specific task as personal responsibility, describe the actual actions in enough detail that only the person who did them could have written it, and close with a result that is concrete rather than adjectival.

Where a resume tailoring tool does and does not help

It is worth being direct about this, because a lot of the advice in this space blurs it: your selection criteria response or pitch is a separate document from your resume, built for a different reader and a different scoring process, and no tool that only tailors a resume is going to write it for you. If you are building a master resume as a running record of your accomplishments before you write anything, that same evidence bank is exactly what you should be drawing STAR examples from when a criteria response comes up, rather than trying to remember your best work under deadline pressure.

ResumeProofed tailors a resume to a specific job ad from a confirmed history of what you have actually done, and returns a Proof Score showing how well the tailored document is backed by that evidence, which is the same discipline a strong STAR answer needs. It does not write your pitch or your statement of claims. Those still have to come from you, because a panel is scoring a personal, verifiable account of your own work, not a document generated from a job description's wording.

Common questions

What is the difference between selection criteria and a pitch?

Selection criteria are the published list of capabilities a role is assessed against. A statement of claims addresses each one individually in its own section, usually with a full STAR example each. A pitch is a shorter, integrated narrative that addresses several capabilities together without a separate heading for each. Which one you write depends entirely on what the specific job ad asks for.

Do I still need to write a separate response for each criterion?

For many current APS roles, no, a single pitch has replaced that format. For a lot of state government roles, university positions, and some APS agencies, yes, the older per criterion format is still standard. Read the application instructions for the specific role rather than assuming either format applies by default.

How long should an APS pitch be?

There is no single APS wide number. Some ads specify one page, others give an explicit word count, and some enforce a hard limit through the application system itself. Use the figure printed in the job ad or application guide for that role, since it varies by agency.

What is the Integrated Leadership System?

The Integrated Leadership System is the capability framework the Australian Public Service Commission has used since 2004 to describe expected behaviours at each classification level, from APS 1 to the Senior Executive Service. Reading the ILS profile and work level standard for the classification you are applying at shows you the specific language and level of complexity assessors expect.

Do state governments use the same framework as the APS?

No. NSW runs its own Public Sector Capability Framework with twenty capabilities across five groups. Queensland runs a Capability and Leadership Framework built on similar foundations to the APS model, alongside a separate Leadership Competencies framework. Other states and most universities run their own versions again, so check the specific framework named in the role description rather than assuming APS terminology applies.

Can I reuse the same STAR example for more than one criterion?

You can if it genuinely demonstrates both capabilities well, but using a different example for each claim, drawn from different projects, roles or timeframes, generally reads as stronger evidence of breadth. A panel reading several criteria answers built from a single recycled story tends to notice.

Try ResumeProofed free: two tailored applications on the house, no card required.