The criteria you published are the only fair ruler
Private firms sometimes treat key selection criteria as a public-sector habit. They remain the only ruler candidates were invited to answer.
Public-sector panels are used to key selection criteria because the paperwork demands them. Private firms often keep a looser position description and then, in the shortlisting meeting, invent a second ruler: “We need someone who has sold into government,” or “They must already know our sites.” Those sentences may be true of the business. They are not fair if the advertisement never said so.
A written application can only be analysed against what the candidate was asked to show. When a panel adds a hidden test, two things happen. Candidates who guessed the culture score well. Candidates who answered the published text look thin. The thinness is an artefact of the panel’s memory, not of the file.
We refuse to mark against unpublished hopes. If a convenor realises, after closing, that the role truly requires a licence or a language, the honest options are to re-advertise or to treat the new requirement as a later hurdle applied equally — not as a silent filter on the paper. Rewriting history in the margins of a CV is how grievances are born.
Private employers who want comparable applications do not need a twelve-criterion public template. They need a short list of answerable questions. “Give an example of supervising a casual roster under an award” can be scored. “Be a self-starter who thrives in ambiguity” cannot, except as theatre.
If your last round produced applications that all sounded the same, look at the criteria before you blame the labour market. Vague invitations produce vague evidence. Sharpen the ruler, then read what people actually wrote.