EL1 is the first formal management tier in the APS, and selection panels shift accordingly: they want to see you leading people, owning a team's results, and managing upward to senior executives — not just delivering strong individual work. Weak EL1 applications usually read like strong APS6 ones; the fix is making sure every example centres on a decision you made as a leader, not just a task you completed well yourself.
| Typical Criterion | What Panels Are Looking For |
|---|---|
| Shapes strategic thinking | Evidence you can see beyond your immediate task to how it fits the broader program or agency priorities, and factor that into decisions. |
| Achieves results | Delivering an outcome through a team you led, including how you handled a setback or a resourcing constraint along the way. |
| Cultivates productive working relationships | Managing relationships with senior stakeholders or across organisational boundaries, often involving competing interests. |
| Exemplifies personal drive and integrity | A difficult people-management or ethical judgement call you made and stood by, even when it wasn't the easy option. |
Criterion: "Achieves results"
I was leading a small team delivering a policy review with a fixed external reporting deadline, when a key team member went on unplanned leave three weeks before the deadline, taking a significant portion of the analysis with them.
I needed to keep the review on track for the deadline without simply asking the remaining team members to absorb the extra workload unsustainably.
I reprioritised the remaining scope down to what was essential for the deadline, brought in a colleague from an adjacent team on a short-term basis in exchange for reciprocal help later, and personally picked up the most technical piece of the missing analysis myself.
The review was submitted on time and was well received by the senior executive who commissioned it, no team member worked unreasonable overtime to make the deadline, and the reciprocal arrangement with the adjacent team became a standing informal support agreement between the two teams.
Criterion: "Exemplifies personal drive and integrity"
During a program review, I identified that a process my own team had put in place six months earlier was producing a systematic error that had understated a small number of figures in reports already sent to a senior committee.
I had to decide whether and how to raise an error my own team was responsible for, knowing it would create extra work and some reputational discomfort.
I verified the scope of the error thoroughly before raising it, then proactively briefed my director the same day with a clear account of what had happened, the affected reports, and a corrected figure and a plan to prevent recurrence, rather than waiting to be asked.
The correction was issued to the committee within 48 hours with minimal disruption, my director specifically noted the transparency of how it was handled, and the process fix I introduced afterward has run error-free since.
Use these as a guide for structure and depth — your own response should be built from your own situation, task, action, and result.
Most EL1 applications ask for a comprehensive pitch of up to two pages covering all criteria, since agencies want to assess overall leadership capability rather than criterion-by-criterion box-ticking. Where individual limits apply, expect 400–500 words per criterion — enough room to properly set up the team or leadership context before getting into the STAR structure itself.
Give the AI your real experience and let it structure the STAR response for you.
Write My Response — FreeBrowse All ExamplesCommon questions about EL1 selection criteria.