Career Week 2023: How to nail addressing selection criteria
Wednesday, 17 May 2023
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Learning how to address selection criteria is an essential job seeking skill.
National Careers Week runs during Week 12 from 15 - 21 May. It is a time to celebrate careers, career development, career development services, and career development practitioners.
Your career does not start at the end of your degree, many of the most important steps you can take while you are studying. Whether it is volunteering, building up your work experience, developing your resume or working on your networking skills - there is lots to do now.
Addressing selection criteria
Selection criteria identifies the specific skills, abilities, knowledge and qualifications required to be successful within any given position. As part of the job application process, you may be asked to provide responses to selection criteria to determine if you are a suitable candidate for the job.
Selection criteria is usually stated within the advert, but the full selection criteria will be stated in the position description. Failure to address all criteria will reduce your weighted score, or eliminate you from contention completely.
Five tips to think about
- Recruiters use selection criteria to assess your suitability for the role using a marking key, ranging from failure to meet criteria to exceeds criteria. Make sure your responses to each criterion meet or exceed the essential requirements.
- Put yourself in the shoes of the recruiter who may be reviewing hundreds of selection criteria, make sure your submission is well designed and easy to read.
- Avoid overly wordy answers; try and keep it concise and clear, particularly if there is a word or page limit.
- Ask someone with a good command of the English language to proofread your selection criteria for spelling and grammar errors.
- You need to meet most, if not all, of the essential selection criteria as this is what the employer determines is essential to do the job. Where numerous applicants meet the essential criteria, recruiters will defer to desirable criteria to establish the most competitive candidate.
Develop the essential skills relating to resumes, interviews, selection criteria and creating cover letters via the Career Hacks resources in Career Hub.
Look at the helpful tips on Interview Skills, Resumes, Selection Criteria and Cover Letters.
You can also head down to one of the regular Resume, Cover Letter, LinkedIn Review Drop-In sessions to get feedback on your resources. Find out when the next session is on via CareerHub.