Selection criteria and STAR: what an APS panel is marking

In a 250-word selection criteria answer, Situation and Task together should take about 60 words. The rest goes on what you did and what changed because you did it. That's our rule, and it came out of reading the documents panels actually mark against.

What the panel is holding while they read you

Every agency writes its own marking sheet for a vacancy. Those sheets are official records, so an applicant can ask for a copy of the one that was used on them. On one Australian Government department's official scoring sheet for a real advertised job, we found the following. The department is left out of it.

• Six selection criteria: five capability clusters, plus one technical criterion written for that job.
• Three written questions, each capped at 250 words, scored against three of the six.
• A separate score from 1 to 5 against every criterion being marked, with 3 as the gate.
• Each panel member scoring on their own first, then the panel agreeing a score together.
• Every question tied in advance to one named criterion, written down before anyone applied.

The rest of this takes those one at a time.

A pack can ask for STAR without ever using the word

Each of the three written questions carried its own sub-questions underneath:

• What was the task?
• What was your role?
• What strategies did you use?
• What problems came up, and how did you get past them?
• What was the outcome?

Situation, Task, Action, Result. Nobody had to name the method, because the questions asked for it one clause at a time. The interview questions were built the same way. So when you use STAR you're answering the question in front of you, rather than importing a format nobody asked for.

Each question is tied to one capability, decided before you applied

That job had six selection criteria: the five capability clusters every APS role is assessed against, plus a technical one written for this particular job.

The panel didn't mark all six on paper. At the written stage it marked three of them, and the three questions were scored against those three. The rest waited until the assessment day, where five of the six were marked across a work sample and a video interview, and every interview question had been tied in advance to one named capability.

Say a question is tagged to communicates with influence. It might read something like this:

Tell us about a time you needed to bring a group of stakeholders to a decision they did not initially support. What was the task, what was your role, what strategies did you use, what issues did you encounter and how did you overcome them, and what was the outcome?

The capability is the thing being marked, so the meeting isn't the answer. Whether anyone changed their mind is the answer, and how you got them there. Spend 200 words on who the stakeholders were and why the project mattered and you've described the room without ever showing influence in it.

You can't tell in advance which criteria get marked on paper and which are held back for the interview. So every advertised criterion needs an example you can find fast and say out loud.

You need at least a 3 on every response they mark

You don't get one score out of five for the whole application. You get a separate score against each capability being marked at that stage, and every number means something specific:

• 5 highly suitable
• 4 very suitable
• 3 suitable
• 2 requires development
• 1 unsuitable

You need at least a 3 (suitable) on every response the panel marks to be considered a suitable candidate. A 2 on one of them ends it however strong the others were, because the benchmark is applied capability by capability rather than averaged across them. Each panel member scores you on their own first, then they agree a score together.

So your best answer can't rescue your thinnest one. Lift the weak one before you polish the strong one.

The 60-word rule, and proof it fits

One sentence for where you were and what was at stake. One for what you specifically owned. The panel doesn't need the org chart or the program's history. They need to know it was you.

Here is Situation and Task written to the budget. The example is invented, and it is answering a question tagged to communicates with influence:

Our panel of three suppliers was due to expire in four months, and two of the three had told us they would not re-tender. I was the contract officer for the replacement process. I had to keep supply running for eleven sites while getting a new panel through procurement approval.

That is 50 words. It gives the panel where you were, what was at risk and what was yours, and it leaves 200 words for the part that actually earns the mark.

Actions are the decisions you made

Some verbs make it sound like you were in the room. Others make it sound like you made the call. It shows up in the verb:

• Sounds like you were there: liaised, supported, assisted, contributed to, was involved in.
• Sounds like you did it: decided, designed, negotiated, redirected, stopped, escalated.

Give it three Actions. Each one a sentence that starts with a verb and describes a choice you made rather than a meeting you sat in.

Results need a number or a named consequence

Delivered successfully isn't a Result. Cut processing time from nine days to three is. Adopted across four business units is. Where the outcome resists numbers, name what followed from it: the minister's office took the recommendation, the audit closed with no findings, the process is still running that way two years later.

Write at the level you're applying for

The capability framework describes different behaviour at each classification, and the panel is marking against the level in the advertisement. Broadly, what it asks each answer to demonstrate is:

• APS5: that you work independently once the direction is set.
• APS6: that you own the thing, including when it goes sideways.
• EL1: that you set the direction other people work to, and that your decisions reach past your own team.

That's what the framework asks for. It isn't always what you've seen in the job, and we're not going to pretend otherwise. Read your draft and ask which level it sounds like. If it sounds like the level below the one you're applying for, write it again at the level you want.

Before you use any of this, check what your pack asks for

Some packs ask for a pitch instead of separate criteria answers, and a pitch is a different document with different rules. The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water publishes a guide to writing one, and it asks for what you did, how you went about it, and why you did it that way. It never mentions STAR. The APSC's own guidance agrees with it. So read what your pack actually asks for, and write that.

The short version

• Sixty words of setup. The other 190 on what you decided and what changed.
• Every capability needs at least a 3, so lift your weakest answer before you polish your best one.
• Answer at the level in the advertisement, not the level you currently hold.
• If the pack asks for a pitch, write a pitch.

Somebody is putting a number against each capability while they read you. Every word that isn't helping them do that is taking room from a word that would.

We'd like to help with this

Honestly, this is the bit we enjoy. If you want a go yourself, our free starter kit has the level cheat sheet in it, and it's yours to keep whether or not you ever buy a thing from us. Or send us your draft and the job pack through the free review and a writer will show you where your 250 words are actually going.

And if you'd rather not do it alone, the selection criteria service works from your actual pack at your actual level. We'd love to make you the shoo-in.