The Queensland Government two-page statement: how to write 'how you meet the criteria'

Open almost any role on SmartJobs, the Queensland Government's job site, scroll to the bottom of the role description, and you will find a version of the same instruction. Submit a current resume with referees, and a short statement, usually a maximum of two pages, on how your experience, abilities, knowledge and personal qualities are relevant to the role, or on how you meet the key capabilities.

That instruction is easy to underestimate. It does not say "address the selection criteria", so a lot of applicants treat it as a long cover letter and write two pages of narrative about their career. Then they do not hear back, because the panel was reading that statement against a list of capabilities and could not find them. Here is how to write it so they can.

What the statement is for

In Queensland the two-page statement is the criteria response. It replaced the older format of individually addressed criteria for most roles, but it did not replace the assessment. The panel still has the key capabilities from the role description in front of them, and they still need to find evidence of each one in what you send.

The role description will tell you what those capabilities are. Look for a section headed something like "How you will be assessed", "Key capabilities" or "What we are looking for". It usually lists four to six items, often mapped to the Leadership competencies for Queensland, which is the Queensland public sector's capability framework. That framework groups behaviours under Vision, Results and Accountability, and sets out what each looks like for an individual contributor, a team leader, a program leader and so on. If the role description names a stream, that is the level your examples need to show.

Many role descriptions also point to the Queensland public sector values: customers first, ideas into action, unleash potential, be courageous, empower people. You do not need to write to each value, but a statement that shows one or two of them through a real example rather than a slogan reads well.

Use their headings

The single most useful thing you can do inside a two-page limit is to organise the statement under the capabilities the role description lists, in the order it lists them.

This does two things. It guarantees you address every capability, and it lets a panel member with sixty applications find your evidence in seconds. A statement written as flowing prose might contain the same evidence and still score lower, because the assessor had to hunt for it.

Under each heading, use the same structure as any criteria response: a one sentence claim, a compact Situation, Task, Action, Result example, and a result with a number where you have one. The STAR method guide covers how to build the example.

Making it fit in two pages

Two pages in a normal font is roughly 800 to 1,000 words. With five capabilities that is about 150 to 200 words each, plus a short opening. It is tight, and the tightness is the point. Queensland panels want to see whether you can select the right evidence and present it cleanly.

A few things help.

Open with two or three sentences, not a paragraph. Name the role, say in one line who you are professionally, and go straight into the first heading. There is no room for a warm up.

Cut the Situation down to one sentence. Panels do not need the history of your previous employer. They need enough context to understand the example, then your actions.

Keep the Action as the longest part. This is where the marks are. Name the decision you made, the thing you built, the person you persuaded, the process you changed.

Give every example a result. A number is best. A clear before and after is fine. "The project was well received" is neither.

Use one example per capability, and vary them. Five capabilities from the same project makes a career look narrow. Draw from different roles, projects and situations where you can. If you have limited experience against one capability, see addressing selection criteria with no direct experience for how to handle it honestly.

If the ad says one page rather than two, halve everything and keep the headings. If it says the statement can be a cover letter, write it as a letter with the capabilities as subheadings.

Queensland Health and other frontline roles

Queensland Health, the Hospital and Health Services and other frontline agencies use the same SmartJobs pattern with a couple of additions.

Clinical roles will list mandatory requirements, most commonly current AHPRA registration for nurses, midwives and allied health, alongside the capabilities. State them in the resume and in the opening line of the statement so the panel can tick the eligibility box straight away, then spend the rest of the two pages on evidence.

Frontline role descriptions also weight the capabilities differently. Safety, patient or client focus, and working under pressure appear more often, and the panel expects examples from the floor rather than from a project plan. A response about improving handover on a busy ward, with a specific change you made and what happened to incidents or delays afterwards, is exactly what they are looking for. Our guide to selection criteria for NSW Health, Queensland Health and state teaching roles covers the health sector version in more depth.

The mistakes Queensland panels see most

Writing a career summary. Two pages describing each role you have held is a resume in paragraphs. The panel already has your resume.

Ignoring the capabilities. If the role description lists five key capabilities and your statement addresses two of them well and never mentions the other three, you have handed the panel a reason to score you down on three out of five.

Writing to the values instead of the capabilities. The values are context. The capabilities are what is scored. Show the values through the examples, not instead of them.

Going over the limit. SmartJobs is an online system and some agencies enforce page limits strictly. Assume the panel stops reading at the bottom of page two.

Forgetting referees. Queensland role descriptions almost always ask for two referees in the resume, usually including a current or recent supervisor. Leaving them off reads as carelessness.

A Queensland statement checklist

• Have you found the key capabilities in the role description and used them as headings, in order?
• Does each heading have a claim, a specific example and a result?
• Does the statement fit inside the stated page limit in a normal font?
• Have you named any mandatory requirements, such as AHPRA registration, up front?
• Are your referees listed in the resume as the ad asks?

If you want to check the statement against the actual wording before you upload it, CVelo's free selection criteria checker reads the capabilities from the role description and shows where each section is proving the point and where it is only describing what you did. No account, no signup, and it takes a couple of minutes.

For the general principles behind every Australian criteria response, start with how to address selection criteria in an Australian job application.