Professional Selection Criteria Writing Service
Selection criteria, statements of claims, one-page pitches and capability responses — written by Australian writers who know the APS, every state public service, and how to make a STAR response actually land. Expert human writers. No AI. No templates.
A different test, a different document.
Selection criteria are not cover letters and not resumes. They're a structured proof exercise — and they're scored against frameworks most applicants haven't read. Whether you're addressing key selection criteria, a one-page pitch, or a 600-word capability response, the rules of the game are different from any private-sector application.
Scored against frameworks.
APS Integrated Leadership System, VPS Capabilities, QPS Capability Framework — most applicants don't know which framework applies, let alone how their response will be graded against it. We do.
Evidence over claim.
A selection criteria response is not where you tell the panel you're capable — it's where you walk them through a worked example that proves it. Most failed responses are built on assertions; winning ones are built on evidence.
STAR, CAR, SOAR — the right one.
Three structures, three different applications. Knowing which framework the panel expects — and writing within it cleanly — separates the responses that get shortlisted from the ones that don't.
Word counts that punish padding.
600 words. 1,000 words. Two paragraphs. One page. Every modern application limits how much room you have to make the case. Tight, evidence-led writing wins; padding loses.
Every response, structured deliberately.
We write selection criteria, statements of claims, one-page pitches and capability responses across every public service jurisdiction in Australia. Each response is built to your application's exact requirements — word counts, framework, format and tone.
Examples chosen with you
In our discovery interview we work through your career to identify the strongest possible example for each criterion — not just the most recent or the most obvious one.
STAR, CAR or SOAR structure
We write within the framework the panel will be using — STAR (situation, task, actions, result), CAR (context, actions, result), or SOAR (situation, objective, actions, result) — and label each component cleanly.
Action-focused content
Most failed responses describe situations and gloss over actions. We write the inverse — heavy on what you specifically did, the decisions you made, the trade-offs you navigated.
Aligned to the framework
APS Integrated Leadership System, VPS Capabilities, QPS Capability Framework, NSW Public Sector Capability Framework, NTPS, SA, ACT and Tas frameworks — calibrated to the level you're applying for.
Standard business English
Clear, plain, professional prose. No jargon, no acronym soup, no padding. Public sector panels read hundreds of applications — they reward clarity and punish opacity.
Legislation & methodology research
For complex roles we research the relevant legislation, frameworks and policies — Local Government Act 1993, Privacy Act 1988, Public Service Act 1999, sector-specific legislation — and reference them where it strengthens the response.
All formats supported
Traditional multi-criterion responses, statements of claims, one-page pitches, 600-word capability responses, organisational values responses — we write every modern format public sector applications use.
State & federal awareness
APS roles are written differently from VPS, QPS, NSW PS, NTPS, SA Public Sector and local government. We calibrate to the jurisdiction's expectations, not a generic public sector template.
Interview preparation built in
The questions we ask in your discovery interview are the same questions a panel will ask. Working through them with us prepares you to answer them under pressure later.
Information first. Structure second. Every word earns its place.
Selection criteria writing is fundamentally about adopting a systematic approach to information gathering, judging which examples are strongest, and writing structured responses that address every component of the question. Most applicants get this backwards — they pick an example and then try to make it fit. We pick the example that fits, and write to its strength.
The discovery call.
A structured one-hour interview where we work through your career and ask the strategic questions a panel will ask. The information-gathering call is the most important step — it determines which examples become responses.
Position description analysis.
We read the position description, the framework being scored against, and the application requirements line-by-line — surfacing what the panel actually wants to see, not just what the criterion literally says.
Drafting and tightening.
Your response is built within the chosen framework, then tightened ruthlessly — every padding phrase removed, every assertion replaced with evidence. Internal copyedit before drafts reach you.
A note on the discovery call as interview training. The questions we ask during your discovery call are the questions a hiring panel will ask in the interview. Going through them with us — articulating the situation, the actions, the result — prepares you to answer them under pressure later. Many of our clients tell us the call alone was worth the engagement; the written responses are the second deliverable, not the first.
By the same author
Two published books on selection criteria.
Our Managing Director Jacquie Liversidge has written two books on the craft of selection criteria writing — The Australian Guide to Selection Criteria and Mastering Selection Criteria. Both are practical references for applicants navigating APS, state public service, and senior government applications. The methodology you'll see in your engagement is the same methodology Jacquie has been refining and writing about for nearly a decade.
View the books →From quote form to a shortlist-grade response.
Five steps from first contact to a complete set of selection criteria responses — designed to make the process easy for you and rigorous for us.
Quote and review.
Send us the position description, application pack and your current resume. We'll come back within 2 business hours with a custom quote and a free 15-minute review call. Pricing scales with the number of criteria, the level, and the complexity of the framework.
Discovery interview.
A structured one-hour interview with your dedicated writer — the most important step in the process. We work through your career, identify the strongest example for each criterion, and ask the questions a panel will ask in interview.
Research and drafting.
We research the framework, the legislation and the policy context relevant to your application — then draft each response within the structure the panel will be scoring against. Internal copyedit before drafts reach you.
Drafts delivered, 14-day editing window.
Drafts arrive 3 business days after payment. You then have 14 days of uncapped revision rounds to refine the document until each response reads exactly the way you want it to read.
90-day employment guarantee.
If you've engaged us for both a resume and selection criteria, our 90-day guarantee applies — if you haven't been employed within 90 days of receiving your final documents, we rewrite them free of charge.
Ready to start?
Get a custom quote and a free 15-minute review call within 2 business hours.
Three clients, three different jurisdictions.
Selection criteria writing looks different depending on the level, the jurisdiction and the role. Three engagements across state government, private sector, and local government — each requiring a different approach to the same fundamental task.
Henry — Manager, NSW Government
A decade in urban planning and community engagement, with a recent Master's in Public Administration, applying for a Manager role at the Department of Planning and Environment. The application required strategic leadership, policy development, stakeholder engagement, compliance with governmental frameworks, and effective decision-making under ambiguity. We worked with Henry to surface examples where he led diverse teams through complex projects, streamlined processes, and engaged community stakeholders to foster transparent and inclusive planning. Specific references to the Local Government Act 1993 and the NSW Public Sector Capability Framework strengthened the response.
Outcome: Henry now serves as a Manager at the Department of Planning and Environment in Sydney.
Samantha — CEO, Tech Sector
Twenty years across technology and business development, targeting CEO roles in innovative tech companies. The application process focused on visionary leadership, financial acumen, market expansion strategies, and building high-performance teams. We focused Samantha's response on her track record of driving significant revenue growth, entering new markets, and leading large-scale digital transformations. We developed a sharp pitch articulating her key value propositions in language calibrated to the priorities of growth-stage tech boards.
Outcome: Samantha is now the CEO of a leading fintech company based in Melbourne.
David — CEO, Local Government
Fifteen years across public service management and community development, targeting CEO roles in local government. The selection criteria focused on sustainable development, civic engagement, fiscal responsibility, and transformative leadership. We provided evidence for David's track record in implementing community-focused programs, optimising budgetary allocations, and fostering collaborations across governmental and non-governmental organisations. We ensured the response demonstrated his knowledge of compliance with the Local Government Act 1993, his strategic planning capabilities, and his ability to communicate effectively to elected councils.
Outcome: David now serves as the CEO of the council in a growing regional city.
What good looks like.
Five worked example responses across the most common Australian public sector capabilities — each written within the STAR framework with structural callouts so you can see exactly how the response is built. These are illustrative; your real responses will be calibrated to your actual career, your role, and the specific framework being scored against.
Shapes strategic thinking — provides clear direction in complex environments where the strategic context is shifting and stakeholder priorities compete.
I shape strategic thinking by translating ambiguous Ministerial direction into actionable program design that holds up across changing political and operational contexts (restate).
In my role as Director — Policy & Strategy at the Department of Industry, the Minister's office requested a 10-year national workforce strategy with a 6-week development window, scope-creeping requirements from three associated portfolios, and an expectation that initial recommendations be Cabinet-ready (situation). My task was to deliver a coherent strategic frame that the Minister could defend publicly while not over-committing the Commonwealth on funding settings still under negotiation (task).
I established a small strategy cell of four senior policy officers in the first 48 hours, ran a structured horizon-scanning exercise across 23 Commonwealth and state datasets, and convened a Director-level reference group across the three associated portfolios. I drafted three strategic options at varying ambition levels, modelled the political and operational risk profile for each, and presented the analysis directly to the Deputy Secretary in week three. Following her endorsement, I wrote the Cabinet Submission, briefed the Minister's Chief of Staff twice, and personally walked the Minister through the strategic rationale in a 30-minute briefing the day before Cabinet (actions).
The strategy was endorsed by Cabinet without amendment, announced by the Minister at the National Press Club two weeks later, and is now being implemented across four portfolios with a $340M five-year funding envelope. The strategic framework I authored continues to be used as the reference document for all subsequent policy proposals in this domain (result).
Achieves results — drives delivery of high-priority outcomes within constrained timeframes and resource environments.
I drive delivery of high-priority outcomes by establishing rigorous program governance, sequencing decisions at the right level, and removing blockers personally where the issue is above the team's authority (restate).
As Senior Manager — Service Delivery within the Department of Communities and Justice, I was asked to lead the delivery of a state-wide identity verification reform in response to the Auditor-General's 2024 report on document fraud (situation). The program had a fixed 9-month delivery window, a $14M operational budget, dependencies on two external vendors and three internal systems teams, and political visibility at the Minister and Premier's office level (task).
I established a tri-weekly delivery rhythm with a single program board chaired by a Deputy Secretary, sequenced the program into four 9-week sprints with explicit go/no-go decision points, and personally chaired the vendor management forum to remove contractual blockers as they emerged. When the lead vendor reported a 6-week schedule slip in week 14, I escalated within 48 hours, renegotiated the contract terms and brought a second vendor in to accelerate one of the system migrations. I briefed the Minister three times across the program, and authored the public-facing implementation update for the Department's 2025 Annual Report (actions).
The reform delivered to the original 9-month timeline and within budget, processed 1.8 million identity verifications in the first 90 days post-launch, and was acknowledged by the Auditor-General as having addressed all 14 recommendations from the original report. The program is now cited as a sector reference for cross-departmental reform delivery (result).
Communicates with influence — adapts communication for diverse audiences and uses written and verbal communication to achieve outcomes.
I communicate with influence by calibrating message, format and tone to the specific audience and outcome required — and by recognising that the same content needs to land differently for the Minister, the Department, the public, and front-line staff (restate).
In my role as Assistant Director — Stakeholder Engagement at the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, I led the communications strategy for a contentious regulatory announcement affecting 40,000 small businesses and three industry peak bodies (situation). My task was to coordinate consistent messaging across a Ministerial press release, a Department industry briefing, and direct correspondence to affected business owners — within an 8-day announcement window (task).
I authored four distinct communications products in parallel: a 320-word Ministerial media release calibrated for general public comprehension, a 1,200-word industry briefing pack for the three peak bodies, an FAQ document for the Department's contact centre, and direct correspondence templates for the 40,000 affected businesses written at a Year 9 reading level. I personally chaired a pre-announcement briefing with the three peak bodies to test message comprehension, made adjustments based on their feedback, and briefed the Minister's office on likely media questions and recommended responses. I also briefed the contact centre team in person on the day before announcement (actions).
The announcement received balanced media coverage with no negative editorial commentary, the contact centre handled inquiry volume without exceeding standard service levels, and the three peak bodies issued constructive industry statements within 24 hours. The communications package was subsequently adopted as a template for two further regulatory announcements that year (result).
Cultivates productive working relationships — builds and sustains relationships across organisational boundaries that deliver shared outcomes.
I cultivate productive working relationships by investing time in understanding the operating context of partner agencies, finding shared outcomes that justify joint effort, and following through on commitments at the working level so trust compounds over time (restate).
As Manager — Cross-Agency Programs at the Department of Health, Victoria, I was responsible for delivering a joint mental health workforce initiative with three Commonwealth agencies, two universities, and the peak professional body (situation). The initiative had stalled for 18 months under previous management due to misaligned priorities, conflicting funding cycles, and a deteriorated relationship between the Department and the peak body (task).
I conducted individual one-hour discovery meetings with each of the six partner organisations in my first three weeks, surfaced what each party actually needed (rather than what they had publicly stated they needed), and identified two areas of genuine shared outcome that could anchor the program. I redesigned the governance structure from a single quarterly steering committee to a tiered model with monthly working groups feeding a quarterly Deputy Secretary-level board, secured Cabinet approval for $4.8M in seed funding to demonstrate Commonwealth commitment, and personally rebuilt the relationship with the peak body's CEO through a structured 6-month engagement plan (actions).
The program launched 14 weeks after I commenced in role, has placed 340 mental health workers into rural and regional roles in its first 24 months, and continues to be cited by the peak body as a model of constructive Commonwealth–State partnership. The governance model I designed has since been adopted for two further joint initiatives (result).
Demonstrates accountability — takes responsibility for own decisions, escalates issues appropriately, and learns from outcomes.
I demonstrate accountability by owning the consequences of my decisions, escalating early when issues exceed my authority, and applying lessons systematically rather than treating each issue as a one-off (restate).
In my role as Senior Compliance Officer at the Department of Veterans' Affairs, I identified that a manual workaround my team had been using for 18 months was producing errors in approximately 2% of pension entitlement calculations (situation). The workaround had originally been approved at the team level when the underlying system was known to be deficient, but I recognised that the cumulative impact had likely affected hundreds of veterans (task).
I escalated to my Director within 48 hours of identifying the issue, drafted a formal incident report including a sample remediation analysis, and recommended the matter be reported to the Department's Audit and Risk Committee. I led the remediation working group that identified 612 affected veteran entitlements, coordinated with the Privacy Officer on disclosure obligations under the Privacy Act 1988, and personally drafted the apology and remediation correspondence sent to each affected veteran. I also authored the post-incident review that recommended changes to the team's escalation protocols and contributed to the business case that secured funding for system replacement (actions).
All 612 affected veterans were remediated within 60 days, with no formal complaints to the Commonwealth Ombudsman. The post-incident review was adopted by the Department and the system replacement business case was approved in the following budget cycle. I received a formal recognition from the Deputy Secretary for the timeliness of the escalation and the rigour of the remediation response (result).
The Resume Writers didn't just write my resume — they interrogated my career. Two weeks of careful questions, then a document that read like the version of me I'd been trying to articulate for years. I walked into the final interview already knowing how to answer the hard questions, because we'd answered them on the page first.
Paige L.
Specialist Program Appointment · Top 2.5% of applicants
Selection criteria questions, answered.
What is the STAR method for selection criteria?
STAR stands for Situation, Task, Actions, Result. It's the most widely used framework in Australian public sector applications because it forces a response into a structured proof exercise — describing the context you were operating in, what you were specifically asked to do, what you did, and what changed as a result. Most APS and state public service panels are trained to score against STAR, and most applicants get the balance wrong by spending too much time on situation and not enough on actions.
What's the difference between STAR, CAR and SOAR?
STAR is Situation, Task, Actions, Result. CAR is Context, Actions, Result — a tighter version that suits shorter word counts. SOAR is Situation, Objective/Obstacle, Actions, Result — popular for executive roles where the obstacle being navigated is part of the value being demonstrated. Each suits a different application format, and we choose the framework based on the role, level and word count rather than personal preference.
How long should a selection criteria response be?
Follow the application's stated word or page limit. If no limit is given, around 250-400 words per criterion is the modern standard — enough to develop a STAR response with proper actions and a measurable result, without padding. Short responses underdevelop; long responses bury the panel in detail. Our writing prioritises tight, evidence-led prose that meets the limit comfortably.
Do I have to address every selection criterion?
Yes — unless the application explicitly says otherwise. Each criterion is scored independently, and skipping one almost always disqualifies the application from progressing. If you don't have an obvious example for a criterion, that's exactly what our discovery interview is for — finding the strongest available example, even when it's less obvious.
What is the APS Integrated Leadership System?
The APS Integrated Leadership System (ILS) is the capability framework used across the Australian Public Service to assess applicants at every level — from APS1 to SES Band 3. It defines the leadership behaviours and capabilities expected at each level. Modern APS applications are scored directly against ILS capabilities, which means our selection criteria responses are written to demonstrate the specific behaviours described in the framework for the level you're applying for.
What's a one-page pitch and how is it different?
A one-page pitch is a structured proof document used in many modern APS, state public service and senior government applications. Rather than addressing each criterion as a separate response, you write a single one-page document that demonstrates fit across all the capability areas. It's deceptively hard to write well — the format rewards relentless prioritisation, because you have to make the case for the whole role in around 500 words.
Do you write for state and local government as well as APS?
Yes. We write for the APS, all state public services (VPS, QPS, NSW PS, NTPS, SA, ACT, Tas), local councils, and statutory bodies. Each jurisdiction has its own capability framework and scoring expectations — VPS Capabilities, QPS Capability Framework, NSW Public Sector Capability Framework, NTPS Capability and Leadership Framework, SA Public Sector capabilities — and we calibrate the response to the jurisdiction the application is being submitted to.
Can I use AI to write my selection criteria?
No. AI-generated selection criteria responses fail in the moment that matters — the panel's structured scoring against the framework. AI struggles with the specific evidence pattern these applications require: it generates plausible-sounding situations but vague actions, and almost always fails to land a measurable result that ties back to the criterion. Public sector panels are now trained to recognise AI-generated responses and score them down accordingly. Our writers are Australian humans who understand both the framework and how panels actually read these documents.
Selection criteria responses that earn the shortlist.
Send us the position description, the application pack and your current resume. We'll come back within 2 business hours with a custom quote and a free 15-minute review call — no commitment to proceed.
From quote form to signed-off documents.
Twelve defined steps. No "we'll be in touch when it's ready." As fast as 4 days from first contact to drafts in your inbox.
Get our 60-page Get Job Ready guide.
Submit the quote form and we'll send our complete Get Job Ready guide before your free 15-minute call. Sixty pages on the 2026 Australian job market — government applications, selection criteria, ATS, LinkedIn, position descriptions, the free training that actually counts, and the ten career quizzes we built on our site. Written in-house by senior writers. Not for sale.
