EL1 selection criteria examples: leading, not just delivering
Executive Level 1 is the first level where the APS expects you to lead: set direction, work through a team and manage senior stakeholders. This page covers what the APSC’s work level standards and ILS profile expect at EL1, how the same skill reads at APS 6 and EL1, and three full responses.
Updated October 2026. Sources are listed at the end.
What EL1 means in practice
Executive Level 1 sits above APS 6 and below EL2. The APSC’s Cracking the code guide groups EL1 and EL2 as middle management or professional positions, and the work level standards describe EL1 work as very complex or sensitive, done under broad direction, with a considerable degree of independence and a leadership role.
According to the standard, EL1 employees produce high-level policy advice, handle complex problem solving and issues management, may coordinate detailed or sensitive projects that affect the agency’s strategic, political or operational outcomes, actively manage key stakeholder relationships inside and outside the agency, and may manage one or more work teams. Job titles for the level vary between agencies.
- Recommending strategic directions for your area and considering the wider agency implications of decisions.
- Decisions with a high impact on your functional area and the potential to affect agency operations more broadly and externally.
- Representing and explaining the agency’s views at cross-agency meetings, and managing stakeholders through change, conflict and sensitivities.
- Developing work plans that set strategic direction, setting performance indicators, and using autonomy in allocating staff, resources and finances.
What panels look for at EL1
The APSC recommends the panel chair is at a substantive level above the vacancy, so expect the chair of an EL1 panel to be an EL2 or a member of the Senior Executive Service. Their question is simple: can this person run a function without being directed? Your examples need to show you setting direction and working through others, not just doing excellent work yourself.
- Direction: you set priorities or a plan for a team, aligned to what the branch or agency needed, including what to stop doing.
- Leadership through others: building the team’s capability, spotting talent, dealing with conflict or under-performance.
- Senior and external stakeholders: other agencies, states and territories, industry or the minister’s office, especially where views conflicted.
- Judgement under ambiguity: advice or decisions made with incomplete information, where you weighed the risks.
Which capability framework applies at EL1
The APSC still publishes the Integrated Leadership System (ILS), with a profile and self-assessment tool for every level from APS 1 to SES Band 3. From EL1 upward its five clusters change name: shapes strategic thinking, achieves results, cultivates productive working relationships, exemplifies personal drive and integrity, and communicates with influence. Many EL1 job ads use these clusters as headings for their criteria. The profiles are guides, not mandatory requirements, and agencies can add their own capabilities.
The APS Leadership Capability Framework, released by the Secretaries Talent Council, sets out the capabilities considered critical for success in the most senior APS roles: visionary, influential, collaborative, entrepreneurial, enabling and delivers. It was updated with the APS Workforce Strategy 2025 to include driving a pro-integrity culture, a citizen-centric focus and life-long learning. It is aimed at senior executives, so for an EL1 application the ILS EL1 profile is the closer guide. Behaviours the EL1 profile describes include:
- Inspiring a sense of purpose and direction: setting work tasks that align with strategic objectives and communicating expected outcomes.
- Building organisational capability: identifying key talent to support performance.
- Guiding and developing people: giving constructive, objective feedback in a way that gains acceptance, and dealing with under-performance promptly.
- Negotiating persuasively: preparing in advance, anticipating the other party’s position, and aiming for an outcome that benefits both sides.
- Displaying resilience: continuing to move forward despite criticism or setbacks.
APS 6 versus EL1: the same skill, one level apart
The ILS is cumulative, so everything expected at APS 6 still applies at EL1. What changes is scope: from your team’s work to your area’s direction, and from contributing to deciding. Side by side:
- Stakeholders. APS 6: “I represented the agency at the interdepartmental working group.” EL1: “I chaired the working group, brokered a position between three agencies, and briefed the SES on where each stood.”
- Planning. APS 6: “I drafted the team’s work plan.” EL1: “I set the section’s priorities for the year against the branch plan, and decided what we would stop doing.”
- People. APS 6: “I coached a team member through a run of errors.” EL1: “I redesigned roles across two merged teams and moved a high performer into a lead role.”
- Advice. APS 6: “I drafted a brief that was cleared with minor changes.” EL1: “I reviewed and cleared my team’s briefs, and advised the deputy secretary on four options and the risks of each.”
Format notes for EL1 applications
EL1 jobs follow the same rules as other APS jobs: the information pack sets the format (a pitch, a statement against criteria, or answers to questions) and the word or page limit, and the APSC stresses sticking to it. With more to prove in the same space, choose carefully: the APSC suggests one or two of your strongest examples per criterion. Recent work at or near EL1, including acting roles, usually makes a stronger case than older examples from lower levels.
Criteria you’ll see
- Shapes strategic thinking and sets clear direction for the team. Linking your team’s work to agency priorities, and deciding what matters most.
- Leads, manages and develops a high-performing team. Building capability, managing performance and keeping a team on track through change.
- Cultivates productive working relationships with senior stakeholders across government and industry. Relationships at SES, cross-agency or jurisdictional level, often with competing interests.
- Provides high-quality, timely advice to senior executives and government on complex and sensitive matters. Strategic advice with options, risks and implementation issues.
- Leads change and manages ambiguity. Moving a team or process forward when the answer wasn’t clear.
- Manages resources, budgets and risk for an area of responsibility. Accountability for money, people and risk, not just tasks.
- Negotiates persuasively and represents the agency in cross-agency forums. Putting the agency’s position and reaching agreement with others who see it differently.
3 selection criteria examples
Made-up applicants, employers and numbers, to show the shape of a strong response. Yours should use your own experience.
Leads, manages and develops a team to deliver outcomes through change
I lead and develop teams through change, most recently as Assistant Director of the Community Housing Programs section at the Department of Housing and Communities, where I manage seven staff from APS 4 to APS 6.
In 2025 a restructure merged my team of four with a three-person grants team from another division. The two teams worked in different ways, and the incoming staff had not chosen the move, so morale was low. My director wanted the merged section delivering both functions within a month. In the first week I met each of the seven individually to hear what they valued and what worried them. I then drafted a section plan with the team, linking each of our six deliverables to the branch plan, and was explicit about two lower-value tasks we would stop doing to make room. I made an APS 6 from the incoming team, who had the strongest grants experience, the lead for that function, which gave the newcomers a voice in decisions. I set three performance indicators for the section, reported them to my director monthly, and agreed a development goal with each person tied to the plan. When conflict surfaced between two officers over workload, I dealt with it in a joint conversation within the week and rebalanced their portfolios.
The section met all six deliverables for the year, including a $40 million grant round that opened on time. Our results in the agency’s staff survey improved on every engagement question, and two of the team won promotions within 12 months.
- It shows the leadership role in the EL1 standard: setting direction, building capability and managing conflict.
- Deciding what to stop doing is strategic prioritisation, which panels rarely see at lower levels.
- Choosing a lead from the incoming team reflects the ILS EL1 behaviour of identifying key talent.
- Indicators reported monthly show accountability for the section’s results, not just its tasks.
Cultivates productive working relationships and negotiates with senior stakeholders across government
I build and use senior relationships across governments as Assistant Director, Intergovernmental Agreements, at the National Emergency Recovery Agency, where I represent the agency in negotiations with state and territory officials.
In 2025 I was asked to negotiate a new funding schedule for disaster recovery payments with all eight states and territories, five months before a ministers’ meeting. Two larger states wanted more flexibility in how money was spent, three smaller jurisdictions wanted simpler reporting, and our own finance area wanted stronger evidence that money reached communities. Before drafting anything, I met each jurisdiction’s lead official and our finance and legal areas to map what each could and could not accept, and identified two jurisdictions with similar concerns who could help build support. I chaired the officials’ working group, proposed a tiered model in which reporting increased with the size of the payment, and tested it informally with the most sceptical state before tabling it. When another state threatened to withdraw over an audit clause, I briefed my SES manager on the risk and two options, then negotiated a shared audit approach directly with that state’s senior official.
All eight jurisdictions agreed the schedule three weeks before the ministers’ meeting, and ministers endorsed it without amendment. The tiered model reduced reporting for about 70 per cent of payments while giving our finance area the evidence it needed for the largest ones.
- It reaches the EL1 standard’s stakeholder level: representing the agency in cross-government forums and managing conflict and sensitivities.
- Mapping interests and testing the proposal privately matches the ILS EL1 description of negotiating persuasively.
- Briefing the SES before settling the audit clause shows judgement about when a decision belongs above you.
Provides high-quality, timely advice to senior executives and government on complex and sensitive matters
I lead the preparation of advice on complex and sensitive issues for senior executives and ministers as Assistant Director, Workforce Policy, at the Department of Rural Health Services.
In late 2024 the minister asked for options to address a shortage of general practitioners in small rural towns, in time for the next Budget, with ten weeks to deliver. The evidence was contested, two existing programs overlapped, and the medical colleges and rural councils wanted different solutions. I set the work plan for my team of four, gave each person one option to develop, and set two review points so every option was tested against the same evidence and cost model. I ran the consultations with the colleges and council associations myself, and worked with the Department of Finance on costings. Where the data was incomplete, I made our assumptions explicit and showed how sensitive each option’s cost was to them. I reviewed and cleared every product my team drafted, and wrote the advice to the deputy secretary myself: four options, a recommended option, the implementation risks of each, and which existing funding could offset the cost.
The deputy secretary took the recommended option to the minister unchanged. It was funded at $62 million over four years, partly offset by closing one of the overlapping programs, and I now lead its implementation design.
- It shows the EL1 mix of leading a team’s work and owning the final advice to senior executives.
- Making assumptions explicit where the data was incomplete shows judgement under ambiguity.
- Offsets and implementation risks show the whole-of-government view the EL1 standard expects in policy advice.
Mistakes to avoid
- Writing an APS 6 application with a bigger title: strong personal delivery, but no sign of setting direction or working through others.
- Leadership claims with no people in them. Show what you did with your team: priorities, feedback, conflict, development.
- Naming stakeholders without showing influence. “Liaised with the states” says nothing; show what you changed or agreed.
- Hiding the hard parts. Resistance, conflict and ambiguity are where EL1 judgement shows, so include them.
- Relying on examples from years ago at a lower level. Choose recent work at or near EL1, including acting roles.
- Leaving out strategy. Link at least one example to agency priorities or wider government outcomes.
Check or draft your own response
Paste your response to see which parts of the criterion it proves, or paste rough notes for a draft built only from your own facts. Free, no account.
Questions
What does EL1 mean in the APS?
EL1 stands for Executive Level 1, the level above APS 6 and below EL2. The APSC describes EL1 and EL2 as middle management or professional positions, and the work level standards describe EL1 work as very complex or sensitive, done under broad direction, with a leadership role.
Do all EL1 roles manage staff?
No. The work level standard says EL1 employees may manage one or more work teams, and the APSC describes EL roles as management or professional positions. Specialist EL1 roles still need evidence of leadership, such as leading projects, guiding others’ technical work or representing the agency.
Is the ILS still used for EL1 selection criteria?
The APSC still publishes the Integrated Leadership System, with an EL1 profile and self-assessment tool, and many EL1 job ads use its cluster names as criteria. The APS Leadership Capability Framework is aimed at the most senior roles. Agencies can also set their own criteria, so always work from the job’s information pack.
How do I move from APS 6 to EL1?
Build and describe evidence of EL1 work: leading a team or project, setting priorities, managing senior stakeholders and giving advice with options and risks. Acting at EL1 and leading cross-team projects are two ways to get it. In your pitch, show what you decided and led, not only what you delivered.
How long should an EL1 pitch be?
It depends on the job: the information pack sets the word or page limit, and the APSC stresses sticking to it. Rather than covering every capability thinly, pick your strongest one or two examples for each criterion and make the leadership in each one obvious.
Sources
- Australian Public Service Commission: Work level standards, APS Level and Executive Level classifications
- Australian Public Service Commission: Integrated Leadership System (ILS)
- Australian Public Service Commission: Integrated Leadership System (ILS) EL1 profile
- Australian Public Service Commission: ILS resources, profiles, comparatives and self assessment
- Australian Public Service Commission: Leadership capabilities (APS Leadership Capability Framework)
- Australian Public Service Commission: Cracking the code, 2. About jobs in the APS
- Australian Public Service Commission: Cracking the code, 3. Applying for an APS job
- Australian Public Service Commission: Factsheet, roles and responsibilities on selection panels
General guidance. Always follow what the job ad or information pack asks for.