There are a number of reasons why we don’t write selection criteria at Republic Resumes.
The first is the employer wants you to write it.
Unlike resumes or cover letters, which can be written in partnership with a professional writer, selection criteria are recalled from memory.
The questions are often framed where you make a personal response to an ethical or behavioural question. Sometimes you need to give a real life example of an innovation you implemented which had a good result. Only you can write that.
Resumes are a form of career biography and cover letters are a short precis of your expertise.
But selection criteria – and they are mainly for government jobs – have to be written by you. There’s no way a second party can accurately and cogently get inside your head to properly satisfy the criteria.
Think about it. The employer wants to know about you – what you think and believe.
They don’t want someone in a resume mill, mixing it up and flogging it off the back of a truck. Not someone cutting and pasting generic crap they’ve cut and pasted a thousand times before.
The other reason we don’t write selection criteria, is that it’s blatantly obvious to the recruiter or employer, that the document was written by someone else.
This immediately places doubt in their mind that the applicant is ‘legitimate’. When that happens, you can kiss goodbye to the application.
We sometimes help edit selection criteria and give advice but we don’t write them.
Have a crack yourself. You’ll be surprised how well you’ll do.