Reading method
How a written application is scored here
This page is the reading method behind our workforce application analytics — the steps a file takes from your pack to a panel-ready briefing.
Freeze the ruler
Before any mark is made, the position description and key selection criteria are locked. If the advertisement and the formal criteria disagree, we stop and ask you to choose which text governs the round.
Open every file
Each application is read in full — statement, CV, and any permitted attachment. We do not score from the employer names on a CV alone, and we do not discard a file for length without reading the evidence against each criterion.
Score the evidence
Marks attach to what is written, not to what a panel hopes an interview will repair. Unsupported claims, recycled duty lists, and contradictions are noted beside the score.
Band the field
Applications fall into clear bands: above the line for interview, borderline, and below. Borderline files receive a second reader inside the practice before the briefing is finalised.
Brief the panel
The note explains the ranking in language a convenor can repeat. Optional sittings walk the middle of the field aloud so the shortlist is owned by the room, not only by the desk.
What this method refuses
It refuses secret criteria invented after applications arrive. It refuses scoring by gut feel against a famous letterhead. It refuses treating workforce application analytics as a black-box ranking with no commentary a panel can defend.
Where the method lives in our offer
The full cycle is the application file review. Wording work that happens before applications arrive sits under vacancy and criteria wording. Large fields use high-volume round reading.
Bring a vacancy to the desk
If your panel needs a scored reading of the written applications, start with the flagship file review or write with the pack you already hold.