How to Write Selection Criteria — Everything You Need to Know

Overview

Selection criteria, or Statement of Claims, are essential questions contained within the position description that require responses demonstrating your ability to meet the requirements from your qualifications, skills, personal attributes, training and understanding.

Selection criteria responses are valuable for those in charge of hiring because they allow you to detail your potential for the role via a specific framework of responses. There is no clear-cut approach to how selection criteria are graded, and largely your potential for the role is decided by the interpretation of the personnel responsible for hiring.

However, there is a sound approach to the structure and content that will maximise your chances of getting your application to interview stage.

Structuring your responses

The standard for structuring responses to selection criteria is STAR: Situation, Task, Approach/Action and Result.

This framework enables you to structure logically coherent responses that are action-oriented and demonstrate your ability to fulfil the expectations of the role via your proven ability to do so in the past. It is fundamentally, at its most basic, the way humans organically structure a story they are telling from the past.

The emphasis of your selection criteria responses, and the part that will set you apart from other candidates, is your actions or approach. These qualities ultimately demonstrate your ability to perform at-level to the selection criteria question in hand.

Picking good examples

By this early part of the piece, we know that:

• Selection criteria is story-telling
• We structure using STAR
• We're telling stories about our actions to demonstrate our capability

Below is a worked example of a single selection criteria response, with the STAR sections labelled inline so you can see exactly which part of the response does which job.

Note the proportions: the action section is by far the largest. That's deliberate. The action is what demonstrates your capability — everything else is scaffolding.

Weighting and length

You can see from the example above that the weighting is heavy on the actions. The weighting should be approximately:

The length of a good selection criteria response that effectively demonstrates your capability is about 180–300 words. Any longer is too long and can be edited down; any too short won't demonstrate.

Finding the hidden selection criteria questions

It has become more and more unclear where the selection criteria to respond to actually is. They can take the form of Statement of Claims, selection criteria, Essential Requirements, Key Success Criteria, Knowledge Skills and Abilities, and others.

If the role you're applying to does not say what the criteria is clearly, but asks you as an applicant to:

• submit a two-page statement outlining your suitability for the role;
• submit your pitch highlighting your ability to perform the duties of the role;
• submit a cover letter referencing the required skills, etc.

… then you still need to write selection criteria responses. You still need to write these as STAR responses, because it's the only way you can demonstrate your ability to perform at-level. There is no other structure (CAR, SOAR, and so on are essentially the same thing) that enables humans to convey to other humans what they can do, in the absence of physically going through a trial period in that role to show.

How to respond to short pitches

The trend toward pitches, short-form applications, two-page and one-page applications, and so on, leaves it up to you to structure these responses. That's hard if you're not a writer. If you've got 6 selection criteria questions, and 600 words for a pitch, should you:

1. Write 100 words per question across all 6, or
2. Use 2–3 longer examples that each address multiple criteria?

You'd be right if you said 2–3 longer examples. Remember: the point is to demonstrate. In 100 words you might get across two or three "I" statements about what you did in something — that's not enough. The action section needs space to do its work.

If you're in a project management role and the role asks candidates to write a 600-word pitch, structure either of these approaches:

Navigating government short-form statements

For Queensland Government, South Australian Government, and the Tasmanian Government, the traditional selection criteria responses have been replaced with two-page statements as the dominant format. For these state governments, there are usually six to seven selection criteria questions.

Note that one page contains roughly 750 words. The structure for a two-page statement is therefore:

The call to action is a statement to the effect of: "Please contact me on the details contained herein for an interview."

The Northern Territory Government uses a one-page response format consistently — typically nine selection criteria addressed within roughly 750 words. This is where you want to demonstrate as much as you can in as few words as possible by focusing on the actions of examples and telling good, detailed stories at the right level. Most Commonwealth (federal APS) positions now use the two-page pitch format calibrated against the Integrated Leadership System capabilities — see our two-page pitch guide for the federal-specific structure.

The Victorian Public Service and Western Australian Government retain longer formats in many roles — 2–4 page statements against lengthy criteria, with around 300 words per criterion. The New South Wales Government typically uses cover letter plus two targeted question responses of around 300 words each.

The format conventions vary considerably by jurisdiction. We've covered the full state-by-state breakdown — including portal URLs, capability frameworks, and document expectations — in applying for Australian government jobs — state by state.

Other things to include

The introduction or closing statement is also an opportunity to make sure you have referenced any key duties from the position description to further support your candidacy, included the organisational values where possible, and for government roles, checked the relevant capability framework for your jurisdiction — or the APS Work Level Standards for your level (federal government only) — to ensure your responses are calibrated correctly.

Things that trip people up

The application directions

Watch what the application actually says. You could write a brilliant pitch and not have answered half of the actual question if you misread or misinterpret the directions. Read the "How to apply" section carefully before drafting. Read it again after drafting. Re-read it before submitting.

Formatting and font

The use of tables is fine; narrow margins can be fine — unless the applicant kit says otherwise. Read the applicant kit, look at the website's "How to apply" section, and make sure you comply with any font and formatting requirements. Some jurisdictions (and some departments within jurisdictions) specify font, margins, and even file naming conventions.

When not to use STAR

Here is an example of a question that won't require a STAR response.

Read the criterion before defaulting to STAR. If the criterion asks for a list of capabilities or qualifications (proficiency, knowledge, certifications), give a list. STAR is for criteria that ask you to demonstrate how you do something — not to confirm that you have it.

Presentation

Desirable criteria

Desirable criteria are questions that give you the opportunity of advantage if you can respond to them. You won't be penalised for not including them, but if you're up against candidates who do include them, you may miss out on shortlisting. Generally speaking, desirable requirements don't beg for long responses — a short paragraph or list is usually enough to mark the capability without padding.

Other things to note

Some councils, universities, and state services require the file name to include your name, position number, and the job title. This is good practice to adopt for all of your applications where there are selection criteria — even where it's not explicitly required, it makes the panel's filing easier and signals professionalism.

If the application doesn't specify a file format, default to Word (doc or docx). PDF is fine where requested, but some applicant tracking systems read Word more cleanly than PDF, and where the choice is yours, Word is the safer default.

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