Crafting cover letters and selection criteria

Addressing key selection criteria

5 minutes

Job selection criteria, or key selection criteria, are the standards that job applicants need to meet. These include qualifications, knowledge, skills, abilities and experience. They are designed to help make the most accurate match between the requirements of a position and the skills of an applicant.

Here are some things to keep in mind when responding to the selection criteria:

Highlight the keywords

These keywords stress how your work experience and expertise compliments the job. With the right delivery, keywords help you stand out to the interviewer!

Derive alternative definitions for the keywords

Use action words in your definitions as these will translate into behaviours.

Show by example

Think of actual examples where you demonstrated these behaviours.

The CAR Approach

Use the CAR Approach to help you structure your work examples.

Context

To set the context for your workplace examples, state your roles, the organisation/department where you were working and provide a brief description of the situation.

The CAR Approach

Context, Approach, Result (CAR) is a short but helpful way to organise your responses. Similar to telling a story, it sets up the listener with the full picture of your experience, making it easier visualise your potential for the new job.

Context

To set the context for your workplace examples, state your roles, the organisation/department where you were working and provide a brief description of the situation.

Action

Provide a description of the actions you took to address the situation. The action needs to be a positive behaviour you undertook that demonstrated your ability against the criteria.

Result

Finish with a great achievement statement that provides qualitative or quantitative evidence of what you achieved.

Responding to Selection Criteria

To further help you visualise how you can answer these interview questions with the CAR Approach, click the link below.

Ready to try out the CAR technique? Check out our activity sheet below!

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