Cover letter, resume and selection criteria: what goes where in an Australian application

An Australian public sector, health or university application usually asks for more than one document. A resume. A cover letter. A response to selection criteria, a pitch, or a statement of claims. Sometimes all three, sometimes two.

The most common way to get this wrong is to treat them as three versions of the same thing. Applicants repeat their resume in the cover letter, restate the cover letter in the criteria, and hand the panel the same information three times while leaving out the one thing each document was supposed to carry.

Each document has one job. Here is what it is.

The resume: the record

The resume is the factual account of your working life. Where you worked, in what role, for how long, doing what, with what qualifications. It is read for two things: eligibility, and whether the career shape roughly fits the role.

In Australia the conventions are simple and worth respecting. No photo, no date of birth, no marital status. Two to four pages is normal for an experienced applicant, and public sector resumes run longer than corporate ones because agencies want the detail. Reverse chronological order. Qualifications, registrations and clearances listed plainly, with dates and expiry where relevant.

Each role gets a short line on what the organisation does if it is not obvious, then a handful of dot points on what you were responsible for and what you achieved. Achievements with numbers, where you have them, but keep them brief. The full story of your best achievement belongs in the criteria response, not here.

Two practical notes. Many employers load resumes into an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) or recruitment platform such as PageUp, Workday or SmartJobs, and a recruiter often searches or filters before the panel sees anything, so use the ad's own terms for skills, systems and qualifications. And list referees, or say they are available on request, in line with what the ad asks. Public sector panels usually want at least one current or recent supervisor.

What does not go in the resume: long paragraphs, examples told in full, statements about your values or personality, and anything you cannot substantiate.

The cover letter: the case for reading on

The cover letter is one page, and it answers three questions in order. Which role are you applying for. Why this role and this organisation. Why you are worth reading further.

That third part is where people either repeat the resume or drift into general enthusiasm. Neither works. The strongest cover letters pick two or three things about the role that matter most, and for each one give a single sentence of evidence: not the full example, but enough to make the panel want the full example.

The role calls for someone who can bring frontline staff along through a system change. I led the communications for our booking system replacement last year, and uptake reached 94 per cent inside three weeks against a target of 80.

That is a hook, not a criteria response. The criteria response is where the whole story goes.

Address it to the person or panel named in the ad, use the exact job title and reference number, and keep the tone direct. A letter that gets to the point in the first paragraph earns goodwill for everything that follows. If the ad says no cover letter is required, do not send one.

What does not go in the cover letter: a restatement of your career history, a paragraph on each criterion, or the phrase "please find attached".

The selection criteria response: the evidence

This is the document that gets scored. Whether it takes the form of individually addressed criteria, a one to two page Australian Public Service pitch, NSW targeted questions or a Queensland two-page statement, its purpose is the same. For each capability the role needs, prove with a specific example that you have already done it.

Each criterion gets a claim, an example in Situation, Task, Action, Result form, and a result with a number where you can find one. This is the only place in the application where you tell a full story. Our guide to how to address selection criteria in an Australian job application covers the structure, and the STAR method guide covers the example itself.

Because this document is assessed on its own, it has to stand on its own. "As per my resume" is not evidence. "See cover letter" is not evidence. If the example matters, it lives here in full, even if the resume mentions the same project in one dot point.

What does not go in the criteria response: your career history in order, general statements about your approach, or a summary of why you want the job. That is the cover letter's job and it has already been done.

Putting it together without repeating yourself

Think of it as three lenses on the same career. The resume shows the shape: roles, dates, responsibilities. The cover letter shows the fit: why this role, and the two or three things that make you worth a closer look. The criteria response shows the proof: one full example per capability, told so a stranger can score it.

A single project can appear in all three. In the resume it is a dot point with a result. In the cover letter it is one sentence that hints at the story. In the criteria it is the whole story, 250 words, with what you personally did in the middle. That is the same evidence at three depths, which is exactly what the panel needs.

When the ad only asks for two of the three

Resume and cover letter only, no criteria. Increasingly common in the Victorian Public Service and in some local councils. The cover letter now has to do more work: usually one to two pages, with a short paragraph of evidence against each of the key requirements in the position description. Check whether the ad says the letter should "address the key selection criteria". If it does, treat it as a criteria response in letter form.

Resume and criteria only, no cover letter. Common in state health and education. Do not smuggle a cover letter into the top of the criteria document. Put the claim and the evidence under each heading and let the resume carry the history.

Resume and targeted questions. The NSW Government pattern. The questions are the criteria. Answer them as such, and see the NSW focus capabilities guide for how they map to the NSW Public Sector Capability Framework.

Before you send

Read all three documents in the order the panel will: resume, cover letter, criteria. Ask whether each one adds something the previous one did not. If a paragraph in the cover letter matches a paragraph in the criteria, one of them is in the wrong place.

Then check the criteria response on its own, because it is the one that gets scored. CVelo's free selection criteria checker reads the actual criteria from the ad and shows where each response is proving the point and where it is only describing the job. No account needed. Once that document is solid, the other two have an easy job.