APS Pitch CheckerEL1 pitch guide (750 words)
Short answer: For a 750-word EL1 pitch, use 2 examples of about 307 words each, between a roughly 75-word opening and a 61-word close. The panel wants results achieved through others.
What EL1 panels expect
An EL1 role means leading a team or a significant piece of work: setting direction, managing people and risk, and advising senior executives. The panel wants results achieved through others.
- Leading and managing a team, including performance and wellbeing
- Setting priorities and direction for a work area in line with strategy
- Managing risk, budgets or complex programs with significant autonomy
- Advising and briefing senior executives and negotiating with external parties
Structure and word budget for 750 words
750 words fits two deeper examples (or three shorter ones if the criteria don't overlap). Spend the extra words on actions and reasoning.
| Part | Words | What goes here |
|---|---|---|
| Opening | 75 | Name the EL1 role, your current role and what your examples will show. |
| Example 1: Building team capability | 307 | S ~31 · T ~31 · A ~184 · R ~61 |
| Example 2: Delivering a whole-of-government initiative | 307 | S ~31 · T ~31 · A ~184 · R ~61 |
| Closing | 61 | Link your evidence to this EL1 role in one or two sentences. |
Check a 750-word draft in the free checker
What to emphasise at EL1
- How you led people: direction, delegation, coaching, performance
- Strategic thinking: connecting your area's work to agency goals
- Sensitive or high-stakes advice to senior leaders
- Building capability or changing how a team works
What to avoid
- Examples where you did all the work yourself; show the team's results under your leadership
- Hiding behind 'we': still write in the first person about your leadership actions
- Too much detail on technical work at the expense of leadership and judgement
Verbs that suit EL1 (only if accurate): directed, delegated, set priorities, briefed executives, managed performance, shaped, built capability.
Coming from outside the APS? Managers outside government should translate titles into scope: team size, budget, risk and seniority of stakeholders.
Fictional example outline: Assistant Director, Policy (EL1)
An outline, not a script. The scenarios are invented. Use them to see what EL1-level evidence looks like, then write about your own experience.
Example 1: Building team capability
- Situation: Team relied on two experienced staff for all complex work.
- Task: Spread expertise and reduce key-person risk.
- Action: Mapped skills; set development goals with each staff member; paired juniors with experts on live work; created a review roster; recognised progress in team meetings.
- Result: Within a year four more staff could lead complex work; the team handled two experienced departures without missing deadlines.
Example 2: Delivering a whole-of-government initiative
- Situation: Several agencies had to align on a shared approach under ministerial timeframes.
- Task: Lead the agency's contribution and influence the shared design.
- Action: Represented the agency at the IDC; set my team's priorities; negotiated changes to protect our clients; briefed executives weekly; escalated one risk early.
- Result: Initiative delivered to the minister on time; two of our proposals were adopted in the final design.
Related guides
- EL1 · 300 words pitch guide
- EL1 · 500 words pitch guide
- EL1 · 1000 words pitch guide
- APS6 · 750 words pitch guide
- Writing to 500, 750 and 1000 words
- APS capabilities in plain English
Free download: a worked APS5 pitch (PDF)
A complete 500-word fictional APS5 pitch with notes on why each paragraph works, plus a one-page STAR planner. Email is optional. You can download it straight away either way.
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