How to Write APS Selection Criteria (With Examples) — Role Ascent

Selection criteria are the part of an APS application that most candidates get wrong — and the part that matters most.

Your resume gets you to the pile. Your selection criteria responses determine whether you make the shortlist. A panel that reviews 200 applications will shortlist based almost entirely on the quality of criteria responses, because they're the only part of the application that directly answers the question: can this person do the job at this band?

This guide covers what panels actually assess, how to structure a strong response, and what separates a 3/5 answer from a 5/5.

What Panels Are Looking For

APS selection panels assess criteria responses against the Integrated Leadership System (ILS) capability framework. The five capabilities are:

Shapes Strategic Thinking
Achieves Results
Cultivates Productive Working Relationships
Exemplifies Personal Drive and Integrity
Communicates with Influence

Most job advertisements don't list these by name — they're translated into role-specific criteria like "Demonstrated ability to develop policy advice" or "Proven experience managing complex stakeholder relationships." But behind every criterion, a panel member is mentally mapping your response to one or more ILS capabilities and assessing whether the complexity and autonomy of your evidence matches the target band.

A response that describes EL1-level work will score poorly for an EL2 role, even if the writing is excellent. The evidence itself must match the band.

The STAR Structure

The standard structure for APS criteria responses is STAR:

Situation — The context. What was happening, and why did it matter?
Task — Your specific responsibility. What were you asked to do, or what did you take ownership of?
Action — What you actually did. This is the longest part and the one that determines your score.
Result — What happened because of your actions. Quantified where possible.

Most advice stops there. In practice, the Action section is where applications are won and lost — and most candidates write it too briefly and too vaguely.

Word Limits

APS selection criteria responses typically have a word limit of 300–500 words per criterion, though this varies by agency and role. Some roles ask for a single pitch document covering all criteria, typically 600–1000 words.

Whatever the limit, use it. A 300-word response to a 500-word limit signals you either couldn't find sufficient evidence or didn't treat the application seriously. Panels notice.

A Weak Response vs. a Strong Response

The criterion: "Demonstrated ability to build and maintain effective stakeholder relationships."

Weak response (scores 2–3/5):

"Throughout my career I have demonstrated strong stakeholder management skills. In my current role as an APS5 Policy Officer, I regularly liaise with internal and external stakeholders to achieve outcomes. I have excellent communication skills and am able to adapt my style to different audiences. I worked with the Department of Health to develop a policy brief which was well received."

This response fails because:

"Regularly liaise" describes a routine duty, not a demonstrated capability
"Excellent communication skills" is an assertion, not evidence
The Health example is vague — who was involved, what was the brief about, what did "well received" mean?
There's no STAR structure — no situation, no specific task, no actions, no result
Nothing here distinguishes this candidate from anyone else who has held an APS5 role

Strong response (scores 4–5/5):

"In 2025, the Department faced a critical policy development challenge: three Commonwealth agencies held conflicting positions on a proposed regulatory change, and the consultation window was six weeks. As the lead APS5 officer, I was tasked with negotiating a unified position that all three agencies could support for ministerial consideration.

I began by meeting individually with each agency's policy lead to understand their core concerns rather than their stated positions — a distinction that turned out to matter. Two of the three conflicts stemmed from a misunderstanding of how the proposed change would interact with existing legislation, not genuine policy disagreement. I drafted a two-page technical clarification document and circulated it for comment before convening a joint workshop.

At the workshop, I facilitated a structured discussion using a single-text negotiation approach — building agreement incrementally from areas of consensus rather than debating areas of difference. By the end of the session, all three agencies had agreed on a unified position with minor caveats.

The agreed policy brief was submitted to the Minister five days ahead of the deadline. The ministerial office accepted it without revision and it proceeded directly to Cabinet consideration. The Deputy Secretary cited the stakeholder engagement approach as a model for future cross-agency work."

This response scores well because:

The situation establishes real stakes (conflicting agencies, tight timeline, ministerial deadline)
The task is specific to this candidate — it wasn't just their job, it was their specific responsibility
The action section shows how they did it — individual meetings, the distinction between positions and interests, the technical clarification document, the single-text negotiation technique
The result is concrete — five days early, accepted without revision, cited as a model
The complexity of the work signals EL1 capability, which is where this candidate is headed

The Action Section: What to Actually Write

The action section should answer: what specifically did you do, and why did you do it that way?

Most candidates describe what they did without explaining why — which is the part that demonstrates judgement, not just activity. Panels are assessing whether you understand why your approach was the right one, not just whether you completed the task.

Compare:

Activity only: "I consulted with stakeholders and drafted the policy brief."

Activity + judgement: "I conducted individual consultations before the group session to surface underlying concerns before they became entrenched positions in a group setting — a deliberate sequencing choice based on prior experience of early group dynamics hardening views."

The second version tells the panel something about how this person thinks. That's what distinguishes candidates at higher bands.

What to Do When You Don't Have a Perfect Example

Every candidate eventually faces a criterion for which their ideal example doesn't exist. The options, in order of preference:

1. Use a partial example and acknowledge the scale. "While I haven't managed a team of 20 at this stage of my career, I led a project team of four officers across two agencies..." Honesty about scale combined with genuine evidence of the underlying capability often scores better than an inflated claim.

2. Combine two examples. Some criteria allow you to draw on more than one example. "I'd like to draw on two examples that together demonstrate this capability..." Works well when one example shows breadth and another shows depth.

3. Use a different sector. APS panels can — and do — credit private sector, not-for-profit, or community experience. If the work demonstrated the capability, the sector is secondary. Be explicit: "While this occurred in a private sector context, the stakeholder complexity was analogous to..."

4. Use a hypothetical — sparingly, and only as a last resort. Some criteria responses allow candidates to address how they would approach a situation. This is a weaker form of evidence but better than leaving a criterion blank.

Band-Appropriate Language

The language you use in criteria responses signals what band you're operating at — often more than the content itself.

Band	Language signals
APS3–4	"I assisted", "I supported", "I was responsible for"
APS5–6	"I advised", "I developed", "I coordinated", "I managed the project"
EL1	"I led", "I directed the team", "I set the approach", "I was accountable for"
EL2	"I shaped", "I drove the strategy", "I built organisational capability", "I was responsible for the group's outcomes"
SES	"I influenced whole-of-government", "I established the framework", "I held ministerial accountability"

If you're applying for EL1 but writing in APS5 language, you will score at APS5 level — regardless of what you actually did. Review your responses and ask: does this language match the band I'm applying for?

Common Mistakes

Writing about the team's achievements, not your own. Selection criteria assess you. Use "I" not "we" — panels know work happens in teams, but they're assessing your specific contribution. Be precise: "I led the team's stakeholder engagement strategy while my colleague managed the project governance."

Front-loading the situation and skimping on the action. A 200-word situation and 80-word action is a common pattern that scores poorly. The action is where your capability lives — it should be at least half the response.

Restating the criterion in the opening sentence. "I have demonstrated strong stakeholder management skills throughout my career" wastes your first sentence and signals a generic response. Open with the situation instead.

Exceeding the word limit. Panels often score over-length responses down as a failure of the Communicates with Influence capability. Stay within the limit.

Using Role Ascent for Selection Criteria

Role Ascent's Selection Criteria tool takes your resume and the job description and produces draft responses structured to ILS capability standards — with STAR framing, band-appropriate language, and evidence drawn directly from your work history.

The draft is a starting point. You'll need to personalise the action sections with your specific details, decisions, and judgement calls — because that's the part panels actually assess. But it handles the structure, the framing, and the language calibration, which is where most candidates get stuck.

The criteria that sit between you and the shortlist deserve more than a last-minute attempt the night before the application closes.