APS selection criteria examples, and how to write a pitch

Situation: Our team’s processing backlog had grown to 1,200 applications after a policy change.

Task: As team leader, I was asked to clear it within three months without extra staff.

Action: I mapped the workflow, introduced triage for simple cases, and set up weekly reporting to the director.

Result: We cleared the backlog in ten weeks and reduced average processing time from 21 to 9 days.

When our agency changed eligibility rules for a grants program, I was asked to translate the new policy into guidance for 40 assessment staff. I read the ministerial brief and the legislation, identified the six decisions that would change most, and wrote a two-page decision guide with worked cases. I tested it with three senior assessors before release. Assessment queries to the policy team fell from about 30 a week to 8, and the guide was adopted as the template for the next policy change.

Our team’s backlog of compliance reviews reached 600 cases after two staff left. As acting team leader, I sorted cases by risk, moved low-risk cases to a shorter checklist approved by the director, and set weekly targets for each officer. I reported progress every Friday. We cleared the backlog in nine weeks while keeping the error rate in quality checks under 3%.

Two branches disagreed about who owned data requests from a partner agency, and requests were taking six weeks. I set up a short meeting with both directors, mapped each request type to an owner on one page, and agreed a shared inbox with a five-day response standard. Average turnaround fell to eight days, and the partner agency’s liaison officer wrote to thank the team.

While reconciling payments, I found that a coding error had caused 14 overpayments over two months. The amounts were small, but I reported it to my manager the same day rather than fixing it quietly, documented the cause, and drafted the correction process. The error was fixed in the system, the overpayments were recovered, and the check I added was built into the monthly reconciliation.

I had to brief a regional stakeholder group, many of them sceptical, on a change to service delivery. I replaced a 20-slide deck with a one-page summary of what would change for them, when, and who to call, and held two Q&A sessions. Attendance doubled for the second session, and the complaints we had prepared for did not arrive.

I am an APS 5 policy officer in the Department of Social Services with four years’ experience in program policy, and I am applying for this role because it would let me lead policy work from analysis through to implementation.

The role asks for strong research and analysis. Last year I led the evidence review for changes to a payment’s income test, drawing on administrative data for 80,000 recipients and three external evaluations. My brief set out three options with costings, and the minister’s office chose the option I recommended.

The role also requires building relationships across agencies. For the same project I worked with Services Australia and Treasury to agree implementation dates and data definitions, and I chaired a fortnightly working group of eight officers from three departments. We met every milestone in the implementation plan.

You are looking for someone who writes clearly for senior audiences. I have drafted more than 20 ministerial briefs and two cabinet submission attachments, and I now review the briefs of two junior colleagues before they go to the director.

Finally, the role involves managing competing priorities. During the 2025 budget period I balanced the income-test work with Senate Estimates preparation, delivering both on time by agreeing priorities with my director at the start of each week.

I would bring to this role a record of evidence-based advice, practical experience across agencies, and a habit of writing for the reader. I would welcome the chance to discuss how I could contribute to the team.