Resume · APS · Government · Private sector
How to Tailor Your Resume for Government vs Private Sector Roles
These aren't the same document with different framing. Australian government and private sector resumes are evaluated by different people, against different criteria, looking for different things — and submitting the wrong format to the wrong sector is one of the most common reasons strong candidates don't get interviews.
The short version
Government and private sector resumes are different documents, not different versions of the same document
Different evaluators, different criteria, different language conventions, different supporting documents, different ways of measuring impact. The candidates who succeed at moving between sectors don't try to write a single hybrid resume — they maintain two distinct documents and switch them out depending on where they're applying.
In thirty seconds
- Government resumes are read against published selection criteria; private sector resumes are read against the hiring manager's judgement of fit.
- Government applications usually require supporting documents (selection criteria responses, pitches, statements of claims); private sector applications typically don't.
- The achievement style is different. Government values service delivery, public value, capability against frameworks. Private sector values commercial outcomes — revenue, efficiency, customer growth.
- Both sectors use ATS, but government parsing is more conservative — design-heavy private sector resumes often fail in government systems.
- The biggest mistake: submitting the same resume to both sectors. Each one needs a calibrated version.
Most candidates we work with at TRW have only ever applied in one sector. When they start applying in the other — usually because the job market has tightened or because they're looking for a change — they default to the resume that worked for them last time. It almost always fails. Not because the candidate is wrong for the role, but because the document is reading against the wrong evaluation framework.
Government and private sector recruitment processes look superficially similar — submit a resume, wait for shortlist, interview, decision. Underneath, they're meaningfully different processes that reward different things. Here's the actual breakdown.
The two recruitment cultures
Merit-based, criteria-driven, panel-assessed
Australian government recruitment — federal, state, and local — operates under formal merit principles. Applications are evaluated against published selection criteria or capability frameworks (the ILS for APS, the NSW Government Capability Framework, the Victorian Public Service Capability Framework, etc.). Every claim must be substantiated with evidence. The process is structured, scored, and auditable.
Hiring decisions are made by panels, not individuals. The candidate who scores best against the published criteria gets the role — even if they're not the most "exciting" candidate. Personality, charisma, and rapport matter at interview, but they don't override the structured assessment of evidence.
- Reading: by panel against published selection criteria
- Decision logic: scoring against capability frameworks
- Supporting documents: usually required (criteria responses, pitch, statement of claims)
- Style: formal, evidence-based, structured
Outcome-driven, judgement-led, manager-decided
Private sector recruitment is faster, more decentralised, and more varied. The hiring manager has significant discretion. The resume itself does most of the work; supporting documents are optional or nonexistent. Decisions are weighted toward commercial outcomes, cultural fit, and the manager's intuition about whether the candidate will land in the role.
This isn't unstructured — recruiters and hiring managers do have frameworks they're scoring against — but the framework is rarely published and almost never shared with the candidate. The successful candidate is often the one who reads the unstated criteria correctly, not the one who satisfies the written ones most thoroughly.
- Reading: by hiring manager (and sometimes recruiter) against unstated criteria
- Decision logic: judgement of fit, commercial impact, team chemistry
- Supporting documents: usually a cover letter, sometimes nothing
- Style: persuasive, achievement-led, branded
The differences, side by side
The table below covers the seven dimensions where government and private sector resumes diverge most. None of these are absolute — but they're strong defaults that should shape every decision you make about your document.
The same achievement, written for both sectors
This is the most useful single illustration of the difference. Below is the same real piece of work — managing a stakeholder consultation as part of a service redesign — written first for a government application, then for a private sector application. Same candidate, same work, different framing.
"Led stakeholder consultation across 12 community organisations and four state agencies to inform the redesign of a regional service delivery model. Designed a five-stage consultation process that ensured representative input from priority groups, including First Nations community-controlled organisations and disability advocacy bodies. Synthesised consultation findings into a Departmental briefing that informed the Minister's decision on the new delivery model. Service redesign endorsed by the Minister and now in implementation across three regional centres, supporting an estimated 8,400 service users annually."
"Led customer research program across 16 stakeholder groups to redesign regional service delivery. Built a five-stage discovery process that surfaced the unmet needs of priority customer segments. Translated research findings into a service redesign brief that secured executive sponsorship and funding. New model rolled out across three regional sites, serving 8,400 customers annually with measurably improved service experience and a 22% reduction in operational cost per case."
The work described is identical. What changed:
- "Stakeholder" → "Customer" — gov speaks of stakeholders; private speaks of customers
- "Departmental briefing" → "service redesign brief" — gov uses official terminology; private uses generic business terms
- "Minister's decision" → "executive sponsorship and funding" — gov frames around governance; private frames around budget and exec buy-in
- Result framing — gov leads with public value (service users); private leads with commercial impact (cost reduction)
- "First Nations / disability advocacy" detail — present in gov framing because it evidences inclusive practice (which panels score against); cut from private framing because it doesn't move the commercial argument
Neither version is dishonest. Both describe the same work accurately. They're just calibrated to different evaluators reading for different things.
The same work can be described in two ways that are both true and both effective — but only one of them will be effective for the specific evaluator reading the specific document.
The format trap (both directions)
Two opposite mistakes show up regularly when candidates switch sectors:
Private-sector-style resume submitted to government
The candidate has a polished, modern, two-column resume with a personal branding photo, infographics for skills, and short punchy achievement bullets — the kind of document that wins in commercial recruitment. They submit it to an APS application and it parses badly in PageUp (the dominant APS ATS), the panel finds it visually unfamiliar, and there's no supporting selection criteria response because the candidate didn't realise they needed one. Even if shortlisted, the document doesn't read as "an APS officer" because the form factor signals private sector.
Government-style resume submitted to private sector
The candidate has a structured, detailed three-page resume with each role describing duties and capability evidence in formal language. They submit it to a head of marketing role at a startup. The hiring manager skims the first page in 12 seconds, finds it dense and corporate, can't quickly identify any commercial wins, and moves on. Even if the candidate has the experience for the role, the document reads as "a public servant" because the form factor signals government.
The pragmatic answer
If you apply across both sectors regularly, maintain two resumes — not one. They share content and shouldn't take dramatically more effort to keep updated, but they're calibrated differently for the two evaluation frameworks. Submitting the wrong format is one of the most common reasons strong candidates don't progress past shortlisting.
What to do if you're moving between sectors
Crossing from government to private sector — or back — is a common career move, and there's a way to do it well that doesn't compromise either application.
- Build the master resume first. A single document that captures every role, every achievement, every metric, every consultation, every project — in raw form, without yet calibrating to either sector. This is your reference document, not the one you submit.
- Then build two calibrated versions. One government-flavoured (formal, capability-aligned, framework-mirroring), one private-sector-flavoured (commercial, achievement-led, branded). Same underlying material, different framings.
- Match supporting documents to sector. Government applications need a pitch or selection criteria responses; budget time for those. Private sector applications need a strong cover letter; budget time for that too.
- Use sector-appropriate language. "Stakeholders" vs "customers." "Service delivery" vs "operational efficiency." "Capability" vs "skills." Small word choices send strong signals about which sector you're "from."
- If you're new to government, study the framework first. Read the ILS, the relevant Capability Framework, the Work Level Standards for the level you're applying to. Most private-sector candidates underestimate how much weight panels put on framework alignment.
- If you're new to private sector, study commercial language. Read the company's annual reports, look at job ads in the field, study how successful candidates describe their work on LinkedIn. Government candidates often translate poorly because they default to bureaucratic phrasing.
Where the sectors agree
Despite the differences, both sectors reward several things equally:
- Real, defensible numbers. Both sectors are now sceptical of inflated AI-generated metrics. See the metric mirage.
- ATS-friendly structure. Both sectors use ATS, both reject documents that fail to parse cleanly. See ATS vs human readers.
- Authentic voice. Both sectors have learned to spot AI-generated openings and downgrade them.
- Outcomes over duties. Both sectors care about what changed because of your work, not what you were responsible for.
The specific framings differ; the underlying principle of "evidence over assertion" is universal. A candidate who internalises that principle can flex their resume for either sector — they just have to know which framing serves which evaluator.
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We work in both sectors every day
Two resumes, calibrated for two sectors, written by the same senior writer
If you're applying in both sectors — or moving from one to the other — a senior writer can build a calibrated version of your resume for each. Same underlying material, different framing, both written by hand and tuned to the way that sector actually evaluates documents. Government, private sector, or both. No AI. No offshore. No templates. 4.8 on Google. Trading since 2016.
