PolyWogg’s (Completely Informal and Totally Unofficial) Guide to Competing for Jobs in the Canadian Federal Government

The formal deployment interview is where the manager has advertised a position at level, and you have formally applied, often without knowing the manager or other staff in the area. The easiest example of this is where a manager at another department, say Environment Canada, has announced an AS-04 position as a deployment and it is open to those at level who work across the National Capital Region, and you work at perhaps Foreign Affairs and want to apply.

Maybe you have always wanted to work at Environment Canada; maybe you live on the Quebec side and would rather not commute across the river any more; maybe the AS-04 has some supervisory functions that you want to add to your resume. For whatever reason, you have applied because you are already an AS-04 and would like the job.

You will do the full cover letter approach described earlier — you will explain how you have the experience they are looking for, you meet the eligibility criteria, you have the education required, etc. But this is where it gets weird for the manager.

It isn’t a competition — you are already at level, so there is no “proof” required to show you merit the level, that’s already done. And, to be honest, it would put the government potentially in a weird position to have people go through a reassessment of their abilities again anyway … what would happen if you fail? Does that mean the competition was flawed, or that you really aren’t at level, or was it just you having an off-day? None of those are good outcomes. So you are already at the same level, full stop. The manager moves to the “best fit” criteria, right?

Which would mean they would call you in, ask you some informal questions (like the previous post), decide if you’re the right fit or not, and select someone. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Which is also why deployments are popular with managers. They’re supposed to be easy.

Except I just ran an EC-06 full deployment process. I was fortunate enough that there were only a handful of viable candidates, and I interviewed all of them. No “screening” process — if they were initially eligible, as they were, I gave them a shot at the interview. Think of it as a very low bar on the experience criteria. I did have a fairly straightforward set of questions, three of them, and I asked each of them the same ones. Not formally written-out like a full rating guide, but they all got the same three questions. While all of the candidates were possible, i.e. they could all have done the job, one of the candidates was by far the most qualified for what I was looking for in this specific instance. I still had all three give me writing samples and names of references. I reviewed the writing samples, and the “strong” candidate was still in the lead, so I moved on to reference checks — which I only did for him. Because it is not a competition, I didn’t need to fully assess all the candidates.

In fact, I technically wasn’t assessing them at all. Not their knowledge, abilities, or personal suitability. They are already at level. So as a manager, I’m not supposed to “re-evaluate” them and asign scores.

Yet when I was done everything, and went to select the strong candidate, HR started asking me for copies of my rating guide, my score results, all the things I would do if it was a competition, but it wasn’t. I pushed back, and they said, “Oh right, you don’t need that, but it’s a good idea anyway, so give it to us anyway.”

And that is the weird part for the manager. I am legally barred by regulation and tribunal decisions from re-evaluating candidates, yet I also am supposed to provide some sort of formal “non-evaluation evaluation process” to select the candidates. Most HR people have no idea what that actually means so they default to asking for all the things in a competition. Equally, many managers get their advice from those same HR people and end up doing what they’re supposed to avoid — formally evaluating the candidates.

A friend of mine just went for what I thought was a competition, and I was advising her on all the steps (see next section) for a formal competition. Then, she said it was deployment at level. So I told her the steps from the previous section (informal). She did a hybrid of both, and it was a good thing because one of the first things they asked her was a very formal knowledge question. Something they are NOT supposed to do. If it even hints at a process that is re-evaluating candidates at level, it’s grounds to have the whole process tossed.

Yet many managers do it anyway.

Here’s what you SHOULD prepare for if it is a formal deployment interview:

1. Review the knowledge elements and do some basic prep (sort of a lite version of the next section);
2. Review the abilities and personal suitability elements, and have an example to use in conversation if they ask you about your past experiences (again, sort of a lite version of the next section); and,
3. Prepare a couple of speech modules of your background — perhaps a 5 minute version and a 2 minute version of your “elevator pitch”.

Will that cover all scenarios? Not completely. If it is a job that you REALLY REALLY REALLY want, do the full prep of the next section, just in case. But most often, this should cover you in case the managers don’t know what they’re doing and “test” you on elements anyway.

 

PolyWogg’s (Completely Informal and Totally Unofficial) Guide to Competing for Jobs in the Canadian Federal Government

There is often a lot of nervousness around interviews, and the worry is entirely justified. Sure, some people can do a bad application, simply because they don’t know what a government application requires, but once you learn that, you should be able to get screened in for anything that you have sufficient experience for which to apply. For the written exams, it doesn’t look a whole lot different from a school test, so people know how to study. In other words, you can control your performance in a fairly predictable fashion and with some practice, get a good or at least passing mark. But interviews are often viewed as a different beast.

Some people think it is because the interviewer is trying to “trick” them, but that’s rarely the case in a government interview. There are no “tricks or traps” at the sub-EX level, and while they are more difficult to prepare for, you CAN indeed improve your preparation so that your outcome is also improved. But nervousness, and the artificial nature of government interviews, often means you can be perfectly prepared and yet still bomb the interview. It happens.

In my view, most of that nervousness comes from worrying beforehand about what questions they’ll be asking and what they’ll be looking for…yet both are entirely knowable.

Five types of interviews

There are five types of government interviews, ranging from the casual up to the very formal.

1. Informational Interview – where you are asking for a meeting with someone, and you have no idea if they have any jobs available;
2. Casual Deployment Interview – often when people move around in government, they do so because they have heard that manager x or y is looking for someone, or that manager already knows you and has reached out directly, and so you’re having a casual conversation about what they do and what your interests are, just seeing if there is mutual interest;
3. Formal Deployment Interview – this is where the manager has announced a position at level, and you have formally applied, often without knowing the manager or other staff in the area;
4. Formal Competition Interview – this is the “full” interview that most people fear the most, and will be the main focus of this chapter; and,
5. The Best Fit Interview – this is after you have made a “pool” and you are meeting with a hiring manager to talk a bit informally about the exact position and your interests (looking very much like a hybrid of the second and third ones above).

A. The Informational Interview

For those not recognizing the term, an informational interview is where you basically want to talk to someone about their area of work to find out what life is like working in that area, if there are jobs available, or what openings might be coming up, etc. So you have cold-called (or cold-emailed) them and asked if they would be free for a meeting for coffee. Or got a friend to introduce you and then you asked if they have time for a chat.

Now, let`s be frank. Most people asking for informational interviews are really saying, “Hey, wanna hire me?”. But they have learned, or been advised by people like me, that if you ask to meet with someone to talk about openings in their area, the person will usually decline to meet with you. They’re not being rude, they’re being practical. If they had an opening, they would advertise it, and you would have to apply through the main system; if they don’t, they can easily say “no, we don’t have anything available” and avoid wasting their time and yours.

By contrast, if you contact them and ask for a chance to meet with them to get some advice from them, the person might find it hard to say no. Partly because THAT response is kind of rude, partly because they remember when they were in the same boat and someone gave them info they didn’t already have or met with them to give them some insights, and partly because people like talking about themselves and you’ve already flattered them by suggesting they are worthy of meeting with to pick their giant, knowledgeable brains!

Plus, if you are in government, there is a component of your job that is supposed to be about building the public service so there’s almost a values-and-ethics component that encourages you as a manager to say yes to these types of requests. No, that doesn’t mean the Deputy Minister or CEO of a crown corporation will meet with anyone who asks, i.e. they’ll almost always delegate if you waste your time even asking, but managers and middle managers often (almost to the level of “usually”, but not quite) will say yes to a request for an info interview.

Remember though that you are asking for an info interview…so what are you going to get out of that? Information and advice.

To make sure you get the most out of the interview, you should do some basic research into what their organization does, and if you can, what their own group does. Do NOT go into the interview knowing nothing about them. You need to show you invested some time in preparing (not to impress them, just so you look professional). Some people think, “Oh, if I can ask 500 Qs about the area, I’ll show how interested I am” but what you’ll really show is how unfocused you are. Figure out what areas you want to ask about in advance, particularly in case the person throws the ball back to you and says, “So, what do you want to know about?”.

Depending on how advanced your career is at this point, you have two choices for an opening gambit:

1. If you’re already in government and have been for a little while, you can start with a very short “pitch” about yourself to say, “Well, I’ve been in government for x years now, and mostly doing [x]. I really enjoy [aspect y], and I think I’ve developed some degree of skill at [aspect z]. But I’m thinking ahead to the types of areas I might want to work in some day, and your area seems like one where I might be able to build on those experiences and skills. So I was mostly hoping you could tell me about the type of work that the units in your area do, and if I’m on the right track with my background so far.”

I have to confess, I love this opening. Obviously, based on your research, you’re going to have chosen examples for [x], [y] and [z] that not only reflect your skills and experience but also link directly to their work. You did your research, you have some idea what they do and need, at least at a high-level, and you think you might be a fit. On top of it, you have said “SOME DAY” to take the pressure off that you’re looking for something NOW, which allows him or her to be more open if they wish. In addition, you have given them three openings [x, y, z] for them to talk about how they fit within their area. It gets them talking. Plus, you asked them to tell you if you’re on the right track.

2. If you are new to government or outside government, you can start with a short pitch about yourself to say, “Well, I have a background in [x] and some work experience in [y]. I really enjoy [x2, y2] and they seemed like areas that I might be able to use in your area. Unfortunately, I’m having trouble breaking in, partly because I don’t know enough about the type of work that is done on a day to day basis, or where I could aim to start. So I was mostly hoping you could tell me about the type of work that the units in your area do, and if I’m on the right track with my background so far.”

This one is really challenging to nuance. Why? Because you’re being self-deprecating to get them to give you targeted info, but at the same time, you want to impress them enough that they think highly of you in the future. Most important, though, is that you are not saying “How can YOU help ME break in?”. You’re just asking for info and advice.

At this point, you have accomplished the trifecta for getting good info and advice from them — your personal profile + your skills/competencies/interests + their knowledge of their area.

Note that it’s good if you can make it a real conversation rather than an interrogation, and while you are often trying to fake your way into a job interview, you should try to keep your personal “pitch” about yourself relatively short. You’re there to listen, not talk about yourself or show off what YOU know about their job. If they want to know more about your experience, they’ll ask. One key take-away that you’re likely to get, if you focus correctly, is a better understanding of what other skills you might need to get into the industry. If the conversation stalls, you can even prompt to say, “What other skills, beyond the ones that I mentioned, do you think people entering your area should have?”

The other tip for the conversation is you want to be able to ask some intelligent questions…preferably one that shows some relatively straight-forward linkage. It’s good, for example, to ask how some of the research they might describe gets translated into recommendations — is it done by the same team, or is it handed off to someone else? Or if it was about Gs&Cs, does the same team do the review of proposals and the monitoring of projects (i.e. like CIDA) or is it separated (i.e. like most other departments who have separate delivery arms)? Do NOT try to come up with some brilliant question that you know nothing about just to use some big words…”So, I see you have a lot of technology supporting your delivery…how are you set up for block-chain conversion?” might be a great question in the right context, but just throwing it into your conversation willy-nilly will likely just make you look like an idiot. If in your research, you found out their program was recently in the news, and you both read and understood the articles, you can make a small leap to draw linkages to it, but I wouldn’t go much further.

So now you have covered “you”, “what the jobs require”, gaps you might need to fill, and ensuring it all ran like a normal conversation.

That only leaves one area remaining — asking advice on how to proceed. Now, obviously, if they just said “you need experiences [a,b,c]” you don’t want to say “So what should I do next?” as an open-ended question. But you can say, “So, I need to expand into experiences [a,b,c]. Are there areas where others on your team have gained those experiences where you think I could follow in their footsteps?”. It doesn’t have to be that precise, it depends on the conversation, but it should be somewhat pointed. You want specific advice, so you should try to be specific.

As a final tip, you also want to try to manage the duration of the meeting and respect their time. If they say they’ll give you 30 minutes, keep it to 30. You want to end smoothly, not like a timekeeper who blows the whistle and then rushes out the door, but do try to respect the duration and manage your time accordingly. You will also likely be able to tell if they’re feeling rushed to do something else or not. Take their cue. And I will readily confess that this is a “do as I say, not as I do” type tip. I regularly get involved in great conversations with future bosses, and what should have been 30 minutes is now an hour or more, just because we got into the issues. I like to think if they were hating the conversation they would shoo me out, and they didn’t. But they’ll also respect you more if you respect their time.

And when it’s over, if you want to follow-up, do so with gratitude, not a bunch of requests.

I know, I know, a lot of people told you to do the interviews to network, to build your contacts. And the secondary purposes of the interviews — gain exposure, build a contact network, or even leverage it towards a job — are all possible, but you need to manage your expectations. After all, you started the conversation by asking for information. Sometimes, that’s all it will turn out to be.

Yes, you made a contact. But not every person you meet will create a “lasting relationship” or a lasting network contact. Nor are they automatically your BFF, so don’t start spamming them. You’ll know (or should know) if the person is open to further contact or not, or if you felt a connection or not. Sometimes you’re going to meet with someone where there’s no connection, no chemistry, and it’s just not a good fit. Maybe they’re busy, maybe they’re not very friendly, maybe they’re just plain jerks. Or maybe they just don’t like you. It happens.

But you didn’t ask them on a date looking for lifelong romance, you asked them for information and advice. And, hopefully, if you manage it right, that’s what you got.

PolyWogg’s (Completely Informal and Totally Unofficial) Guide to Competing for Jobs in the Canadian Federal Government

It still baffles me that people do applications so badly for jobs with pretty high salaries. An application generally includes two things — a cover letter and a resume. And people mess them up. Sometimes it is because they read a private-sector-oriented website about jobs and cover letters and try to keep it to a page — this is NOT how government applications work, so many people get screened out because they listened to the wrong advice. This chapter will tell you exactly what to do, some minor variations if you want to be creative, and some very clear things NOT to do.

You’ve seen an announcement of a “selection process”. You have printed out the list of qualifications (“merit criteria”), and you’re ready to start. If you look at the Statement of Merit Criteria (aka the “poster”), you’ll see a bunch of different sections in it. The five most important ones, and how they are tested, are listed below.

AREA	WHERE TESTED
Eligibility criteria	90% in your cover letter, online application 10% with a language test (if applicable)
Essential Experience	95% in your cover letter 5% in your resume * Officially it is 100% through the above two elements, but in practice, it is more like 80% cover letter, 5% resume, 5% written, 10% interview — I will explain what I mean by that where relevant below
Knowledge	85-90% through a written test 10-15% in an interview
Abilities	10% through a written test 80% in an interview 10% through reference checks
Personal Suitability	30% in an interview 70% through formal reference checks * Similar to the experience section above, this is for the official reference checks, but in a practical world there is approximately 5-10% that is through informal reference checks, and I’ll cover that in more detail below.

With that framework in mind, we now turn to the meat of this chapter — crafting your application with your cover letter, your resume, and information about applying online.

Understanding cover letters for government

The application process has changed dramatically in the last eighteen months as most departments are now insisting on applying online only, and not giving an option to submit a cover letter by email. However, the principle is the same, so I am going to cover the standard cover letter for government competitions in order to show you the standard of what they are looking for even in the new online application process.

We’ll start with a typical cover letter. You’ve heard of cover letters before, you have even probably written some. And you’ve vaguely heard those magical words of wisdom from 20 years ago that is all over the internet — “your cover letter should be no longer than a page”. If you listen to that advice, you will get screened out. You will fail the application process, and you won’t even get to actually show your skills. Why? If you look back in the chapter on the overall process, I said the cover letter is the first step for candidates in a very bureaucratized process that is governed by legislation.

And I want to scare you with something about the importance of your cover letter. If you do a PROPER cover letter, the first one should probably take you at least two to three hours to do. After you have several samples done for different competitions, you’ll see some of the elements start to repeat, and your time will drop, but it should still take you at least an hour. If you are doing it quicker than that, there’s a pretty good chance you are missing things.

If your Uncle Harry wants to hire someone to work om his ice cream store, he can run a quick interview, ask you some basic questions, and as long as he doesn’t ask any illegal or discriminatory questions, he can basically run whatever type of interview he wants. Heck, he can just put a sign in the window that says “Help Wanted” and whoever shows up first, if he likes them, he can hire them. Not so with the public service. The legislation says that every applicant must demonstrate they meet the merit criteria for the job. And over the course of the process, you will have to demonstrate the five things I mentioned above — eligibility, experience, knowledge, abilities and personal suitability. The first two are demonstrated through your application, most of which is your cover letter itself, and you cannot possibly do it in a single page.

Some housekeeping elements

Your cover letter should start off with the basics — the competition number that you are applying for, the title of the position, the classification and level, and if you have one, your Personal Record Identifier (PRI) number (a number issued by the Government if you’ve worked for them as a formal employee — it’s your master ID number for employment with the government). These are basic tracking elements, and it helps the HR person properly file your application, which of course you want to be mistake-free. Here’s the standard format I use:

I am writing to you in order to apply for the (title) (xx-xx level) position in the (section, department) (competition xxxx-xxx-xx-xx-xxx). I am sending this letter, and the attached detailed resume, in order to demonstrate my eligibility (A) and qualifications (B-Essentials & C-Assets) against the Statement of Merit Criteria. My PRI number is xxx-xxx-xxx.

All of the information you need for this paragraph is on the notice of the competition — it’s all there. You’re just copying it over. Verbatim. No ad lib, no creativity, make it exact. So, what would this look like in practice? A lot like this:

I am writing to you in order to apply for the Sr. Policy Analyst (EC-05) position in the Corporate Planning Division, Policy Branch, Health Canada (competition xxxx-xxx-xx-xx-xxx). I am sending this letter, and the attached detailed resume, in order to demonstrate my eligibility (A) and qualifications (B-Essentials & C-Assets) against the Statement of Merit Criteria. My PRI number is xxx-xxx-xxx.

That’s it, that’s all. Your intro is written, with all the tracking info the HR person needs in order to file anything, and more importantly, if it gets lost somehow or mis-filed, where they should file it if/when they find it separated from the rest of the files. Basic housekeeping — a place for everything, everything in its place.

Eligibility

The first substantive item you have to address in the cover letter is that you are even eligible to apply. This divides itself into three components — core eligibility, conditional eligibility, and language profile. Let me start with core eligibility. I’ll spend a bit more time than is necessary on a simple part of the core, your address, because it will demonstrate how core works — it is either yes you’re eligible or no you’re not, very cut and dried.

Most postings for jobs are limited by geographical area (called the “Area of Selection”. It will likely say something like:

OPEN TO: [Employees in] the [Department of Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC)] [occupying a position at the EC-07 level or equivalent] in the [National Capital Region (NCR).] 

* The [xxx] brackets in the above indicates the four separate elements to prove to show you’re within the area of selection for this process.

So, lots of jobs will be limited to the “the National Capital Region”. If so, you can’t apply unless your permanent address is in the NCR. If for example you are working and living in Vancouver, but you thought, “Hey, I’d like to apply for jobs in Ottawa”, you still can — but only those that were open to the entire country (some are limited, some are not). This isn’t meant to be discriminatory, it’s to limit the applicant pool to a manageable size. The goal for the hiring manager (remember him or her from the chapter on process?) is to be able to assess enough applicants to allow some choice of candidates at the end, not to assess every possible person in the universe who might be able to do the job. A large enough pool, and no larger.

If the government is hiring a fairly generic position, and they think they can get someone in the NCR, they’re not going to want to plow through all the resumes from people all over the country, incur the cost of screening them, interviewing them, selecting them, etc., only to have a large percentage of them say, “Oops, I don’t want to move across the country after all.” If you can find local workers, you can limit your pool of applicants to just that area. Same for people in Vancouver competing against other Vancouverites; no need to open it up to the world, if you can find enough local people who are qualified.

It’s a completely different world though when a department does a massive post-secondary recruitment (completely open for geography) or they have a very narrow field of study they want to recruit from and might have trouble finding people (veterinarians, for example). In those cases, they’ll go large on the geographic eligibility in order to get a big enough pool to guarantee some chance of finding qualified people. Just big enough, and no bigger.

How does the government know where you live? Because your application includes your postal code. If you’re in the appropriate zone, you’re screened in; if you’re not, you’re screened out. Nobody will even look at your letter or resume. It’s a strict yes/no test.

Now, would the government know if you’re lying if you put Aunt Sally’s mailing address instead of your own? Up front, probably not. HR will check the address you give them to make sure you’re in the zone, but at the start, that’s all they will do. It’s simple, it’s efficient, it’s low cost. If you give them an address that fits the criteria, they’ll screen you in. So you’ll think, “Hah, I’m in!”. Well, not really.

Suppose you get all the way through and make the pool. At that time, HR has a much smaller number of remaining people to deal with. So they’ll then double-check your address that is in the payroll system (since most applicants already work for government), and if you aren’t in the zone, you’ll get bounced from the competition. Yep, you might make it all the way through on a lie, and THEN they’ll bounce you. Some people have even made it all the way to getting a letter of offer, but when the HR people went to generate the letter, they noticed, “Hey! They can’t live in the NCR if their office is in Vancouver! Something’s not right!”. And the person was then bounced.

Now you might think, “Well, at that point, they might waive the requirement, since I’m the best candidate, and they’ll really want me then.” Here’s the deal — they can’t. It was a legal requirement of the competition. If you don’t meet it, you can’t be hired as you were never qualified to enter the competition in the first place. You’ll be tossed, because they have to toss you. No choice at all. Not only will the hiring manager be ticked off, you’ll also have wasted their time and yours, and look like an idiot.

If you aren’t eligible, don’t apply. Yes you meet it, and you’re screened in; no you don’t meet it, and you’re screened out. That’s how most core eligibility works. Black and white, very clear.

When I have given presentations on this, people tend to think I’m over-explaining this one, and I tend to agree. I do it because I want people to understand that for core eligibility, you either have it or you don’t. And people understand postal codes and maps and zones. But even this has some exceptions, as most rules do. Here are three that come up, using an example of a job in Ottawa:

• Your regular position is in Quebec, but you are working on a three month assignment in Ottawa…can you apply?
• Your regular position is in Vancouver, but you are on leave, and living with your parents in Ottawa…can you apply?
• Your regular position is in Ottawa, but you work for Foreign Affairs, and you’re currently assigned overseas…can you apply?

All three of them have the same answer — it depends. Depends on the wording, depends on the nature of your assignment / leave, depends on the department doing the screening and what their normal interpretation for handling such things is (if they’re strict, you’re out; if they’re flexible, you’re in). It’s a bit of a grey area, even when normally the questions are black and white. But each of those are not “lies” that aren’t remotely true, they are degrees of nuances that present some exception to the black/white world.

However, if you want to challenge or clarify an eligibility element, do it AT THE START. Ask for permission to be screened in, make it clear and transparent. Because the last thing you want to do is make it all the way to the end before you ask, at which time they are likely to be VERY strict and rigid with the rules. Not to mention that you’ll waste time even applying. Just ask.

But geography is not the only restriction. Back at the beginning of this section, I noted possible wording:

OPEN TO: [Employees in] the [Department of Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC)] [occupying a position at the EC-07 level or equivalent] in the [National Capital Region (NCR).] 

Based on that, you are also required to prove:

Sample wording	Restriction	Comments
OPEN TO: [Employees in] the [Department of Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC)] [occupying a position at the EC-07 level or equivalent] in the [National Capital Region (NCR).]
[Employees in]	Type of employee	Usually one of four headings, including: Indeterminate employees of… Permanent employees of… Employees of… Persons employed in… The other alternatives are open to the public or recent graduates.
[Department of Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC)]	Department / Region	Usually one of two sub-criteria: Candidates who work for a Department… Candidates who work for the Public Service…
[occupying a position at the EC-07 level or equivalent]	Level	Often reserved for deployments or assignments/secondments, it means you have to be “at the same level” already, i.e. it can’t be a promotion. Sometimes it is also for acting assignments or specific recruitments i.e. they’ll let you apply if you are one level below.
[National Capital Region (NCR)]	Geography	Usually one of two sub-criteria: Specific city Specific region

Not surprisingly, if it says that, you have to be:

1. an employee, not just on contract or casual;
2. working for ESDC, not Health / Finance / Environment;
3. an EC-07 or equivalent (this tells you you have to be at level, this isn’t a promotion or an acting opportunity); and,
4. working in Ottawa/Gatineau, not elsewhere in the country — your actual office has to be in the NCR.

When you apply, your application first goes to the HR people. All of those four things are in a central database and HR people will check to make sure it matches, using your PRI number to look you up. If any of the bits don’t match, they screen you out and the hiring manager will never see your application. You’re just done. Lots of people try to be creative to fake their way past eligibility, and a few years ago, it was occasionally possible.

Except when they got all the way to the appointment phase, someone goes to do the paperwork, and HR would bounce it — kicking the person out of the competition at that point, because they were never eligible in the first place. There is no grey area on these points — in / out, yes / no. If you’re in a strange situation such as being on assignment with ESDC, ask HR if you are eligible or not — the rules will say yes or no, and you can then proceed or not.

Now, as noted above, 90% of eligibiity has to be covered in the cover letter and so you’ll tell me, as noted above in the example, that you are an indeterminate employee working in the department listed at the same level and working in the region specified.

If it says “indeterminate/permanent” employee, don’t apply if you are term or casual. If it says “employees”, then indeterminates AND terms can apply, but not casuals. If it says “persons”, some departments will consider casuals too, most won’t.

There are two other areas where it is not quite so black and white. First, under the educational requirements, it frequently asks you for a university degree. For example, it might say for the EC categories:

Graduation with a degree from a recognized university with acceptable specialization in Economics, Sociology or Statistics.

That seems like a simple yes/no, but there are variations on what constitutes “specialization” (often viewed by tribunals as at least 5 courses in undergrad and 3 in a graduate program, but managers can set whatever number they deem appropriate on a competition-by-competition basis). But more importantly, the advertisement will then say things like:

NOTE: Candidates must always have a university degree*. The courses for the specialization do not necessarily have to be part of a degree program in the required specialization. The specialization may also be obtained through an acceptable combination of education, training and/or experience.
* Degrees may include, but may not be limited to Political Science, History, Psychology, Geography, Criminology or other disciplines associated with social science.

Some people find that confusing, and rightfully so. The rest of the eligibility factors have no wiggle room, but this one is more about general skills than certification. So, for example, if you had a degree in Psychology or Criminology, but you could show that the courses were cross-listed with Sociology, the screening manager may decide that is sufficiently close to accept your application. Other times, someone may have done a degree in Urban Planning, but has a “minor” in economics with five courses in the field as “electives”. Or perhaps they did a degree in history, and then after they graduated, did some additional electives in Statistics. So they would have a degree + courses outside their degree program that meet the specialization requirement.

If you have been working in a field for quite a while (usually more than four years, the same time to do an undergraduate degree) and if you have been doing a lot of economics or statistics in that time, the hiring manager may decide that is equivalent experience and accept you. However, let me perfectly clear — it is YOUR JOB AS APPLICANT to convince them you have the educational background needed. I’ll discuss this in more detail below, but the burden of proof is on you. If you have a degree in Economics / Sociology / Statistics for this example, your proof is easy. You say “I graduated from University of Manitoba in 1994 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics.” They will ask you later in the process for a copy of your diploma to prove it, but for the cover letter, that is sufficient. However, if you have a different degree and are relying on extra courses that you took to prove the specialization, or relevant work experience, you should list the courses you took or the work you have been doing that is relevant. If you don’t explain, they don’t have to come back and ask for more details — they can just screen you out. Your job is to prove it — the burden of proof is on you.

The second initially grey area is your language profile. It will likely say something like “BBB/BBB” — this means that you have to have intermediate english and french (in brief, X means no ability, A is basic, B is intermediate, C is fluent, E is exempt equivalent to native speaker). As with the first elements, the HR person will go into the PSC database and check your current results (good for 5 years at a time). If you have a current profile that meets or exceeds the level required, they’ll note it. If your profile is out of date OR you have no profile OR even if you have a current profile that is LESS than needed, they’ll note that you do not meet BUT won’t screen you out — they’ll send you for a language test, likely at the end of the process i.e. the last step before they appoint people.

Here’s the reason why you don’t get booted immediately — the legislation governing competitions says generally that you have to meet all the requirements at the time you apply (so just because you were planning to move to Vancouver, you couldn’t apply if you were still working in NCR). However, there is separate legislation regarding Official Languages and it says you have to meet the language profile of the position at the time of appointment. As a result, all of the other eligibility elements are tested at the beginning of the process, and you’re in or you’re out, but language levels are almost always tested at the end so that your results are as close as possible to the time of appointment. But it is still a yes/no element later — if you fail, you’re out. (With a minor caveat…a competition may say “various language profiles” which might mean if you get BBB, you’re eligible for a BBB job but not one of the other ones that requires CCC — the equivalent of being “out” for the jobs with higher language requirements and “in” for the jobs with lower language requirements.)

Here’s some sample text that shows how to meet the above requirements (if you’ve given your PRI previously, you don’t need to repeat it).

I am an indeterminate employee of HRSDC working in the National Capital Region as a substantive xx-xx, and my PRI number is xx-xxx-xxx. I have a Bachelor’s degree in xxxxxxxxxxxxx from xxxxxxxx (19xx) and a Master’s degree in xxxxxxxxxxxxx from Carleton University (20xx). I meet the official languages proficiency for the position, with a current profile of EBC.

A frequent question from people is what to do if you are taking language classes, know you’re close, want to apply, but don’t have a current profile. That’s simple:

I meet the official language proficiency for the position, but my profile is out of date and I need to be retested.

Let’s be clear though. If you are AAA, and the requirement is CCC (i.e. no indication of various language levels), you’re not likely to make that level by the time you are tested in the process. Unless you’re close to the level, and expect that you’ll actually meet it at the time to be tested, faking your way through the application is generally a waste of everyone’s time. It’s a yes/no criteria — you meet it or you don’t. Or if you’re hedging your bets on how effective your current progress is going, you will meet it or you won’t. The manager can’t get to the end of the process and say, “Oh, too bad, they’re a great candidate, I’ll drop the language requirement.”

Conditional Eligibility

I am slightly mis-using a term here, because it isn’t exactly what the Public Service Commission means when it says “Conditions of Employment”. I call them conditional eligibility because you can meet all the other elements, make the pool, and then when they go to offer you a position, be unable to take it. Let me explain, because it isn’t the same as you being “out”.

First, there is “reliability and security”. It isn’t always clear what this means on a poster, but it is your security clearance. There are proposals to change the way security clearances work, but there is generally “reliability” (looking a lot like a simple background check for criminal records), “enhanced reliability”, “secret”, and “top secret”. These are all variations on a theme, with top secret asking for the most detail, going into a full background check for someone who is likely to have access to very sensitive high-level materials such as policy proposals, Cabinet decisions, or security files.

If you go through the whole process, make the pool, and they go to appoint you but you fail the Top Secret clearance, it means you don’t get that job, but it doesn’t exactly remove you from the pool. They may have other jobs that require lower clearances that they can appoint you to, although technically it is supposed to negate your candidacy like having too low of a language profile. But it’s handled more as a grey zone than a black and white decision point. In addition, though, you may have to wait for your clearance to come through before you can start since you have to have it to be appointed. Foreign Affairs is well-known for this, with some people waiting up to a year to start their job once their top secret clearance is complete. Of course, if you apply to a pool to work at CSIS, where all the jobs require Top Secret, and you fail, well, you’re just out. There are no “lower” jobs to be considered for, they are all closed to you.

Second, there are “other conditions of employment”. Sometimes they are black and white (such as “a valid drivers license”), other times the employee wants to discuss what exactly the term means before accepting the position. For example, a common phrase is “willing and available to work occasional overtime”. Does that mean once a month or three times a week? Does it mean planned overtime or sudden overtime? This could have serious implications for someone who has to arrange childcare. Equally, there is often a requirement for “occasional travel, as needed.” Employees might be willing to travel, but there’s a huge difference between a short business trip to Toronto for 2 days and a 3 week trip to Bangladesh for a series of meetings. However, before the employee is appointed, they have to formally agree to the conditions. More and more, HR sections are asking for it in the cover letter when they apply or if not there, later when the appointment process comes along. Personally, I put it right up front in the cover letter so there is no doubt of my continued eligibility:

I am willing to work overtime as required, and travel within Canada and internationally as part of my duties. I have a Level II – Secret security clearance which was updated in 20xx.

Note that this last example is NOT required, but I still recommend it in the cover letter. Some HR people will tell you to completely take it out, waste of space, because THEIR department doesn’t work that way. Some departments do, and some HR people move from department to department and don’t always follow the new practices. I have been told too that some departments say not to mention the language part at all because they have to test that anyway; other departments have screened people OUT (even though they’re not supposed to) if the cover letter didn’t say it.

Here’s my bottom line — it costs me nothing to include it and if it avoids someone screening me out for no reason and avoids my having to “fight” to get back in, I’ll put it in my cover letter.

Quick summary of what you need to include:

1. Title, Level, Competition, PRI
2. Education, Employment status, area of selection, language, citizenship
3. Security clearance, organizational needs (EE), operational requirements (relocation/travel/overtime hours), conditions of employment (travel/irregular hours/part-time)

Experience

So I covered eligibility, and it took a lot of space to explain why you need about two paragraphs to ensure you’re not screened out. Now we come to the actual meat of the cover letter — how you show that you have the experience the manager is looking for in the poster.

Remember I said that private sector advice books tell you to keep your cover letter to a page? This is fine for the private sector where your cover letter outlines a bit of the type of experience and jobs you have had, and with a short resume, acts as an offer to the manager to call you to discuss it in more detail. That’s not the way government works.

Government competitions are governed by legislation and rules, since you’re going to be paid by the taxpayer, and the regulations say that you have to demonstrate in the cover letter how you meet each experience element. I don’t have to invite you in to discuss it, and in fact, I can’t — I have to have you TELL ME in the letter how you meet it. The burden of proof is on you.

Now, some private sector people would read that and say, “Sure, but I can still do it in a page.” No, you can’t. Because you don’t know what proof means.

If you look at a poster, there are likely at least four separate experience requirements. And you have to prove to me that you meet each and every one of them. You can’t just say “I have it”, you have to show me how you have it, what you were doing, when you did it, etc. For most experience requirements, you’re probably looking at a minimum of about 8-10 lines of text in a cover letter, and 1-2 paragraphs. Multiply that by four separate experiences, add two paragraphs from before on eligibility, include a salutation + closing, and an address at the top, and to fit that in a page, you would need about a size 6-point font. Not the best strategy to impress someone.

While some competitions do impose some length restrictions, most don’t constrain you too much. Let me give you a specific example of what I’m talking about in terms of proof. Suppose it asked for experience in managing human resources. Some people have tried writing the following:

I have experience managing human resources as I have been a manager of a team for 2 years.

Great! But how big a team? Was it one person or ten? What kind of team? Were you leading a research team on a file, like a working group, or were you the boss of several people? Did you approve leave? Did you manage their workloads? Did you rate their performance? Was it full time for two years?

All you have done in the sentence is that you did “something”, but it doesn’t prove to me that you managed human resources. You can’t just say it, you have to tell me and give me details. Try this one instead:

Since 20xx, I have had extensive responsibility for human resources. I acted as deputy director within the policy coordination team at CIDA, assisting in leading a team of eight, directly supervising two policy analysts, and acting as director for extended periods of time. While working at SDC on international issues, I was the head of a team of seven analysts and one support staff on issues related to bilateral relations, multilateral engagement, and policy development. As manager in policy integration at HRSDC, I led a team preparing an integrated policy framework, implementation plan for creating a Centre of Excellence, strategic regional engagement, participation in medium term policy planning, branch coordination of corporate planning requests, and international benchmarking and comparisons; and I am now the manager of the performance team within Integrated Planning and Acccountability, as well as having acted as director for five weeks during the summer.

That’s better, it adds more detail, but it’s missing something huge, at least for government. Now try the following:

I have significant experience as a manager of human resources since 2002. From 2002 to 2004, I was the acting deputy director and then acting director in the xxx section of xxx department, for a team of six employees. This included assigning work and developing resource plans. From 2005 to 2014, I managed teams of varying sizes – five employees while at xxx on the international front, three employees in xxx department’s Policy Branch, and varying-sized team since xxxx in my current Branch (ranging from three to eleven employees) and currently a team of seven.

Since xxxx, I have undertaken the fully delegated HR function for all of my teams – establishing performance objectives and expected results including formal performance management reviews, assigning work and managing workloads across team members, identification of resource needs and approval of training, and leave management (including both regular leave as well as two instances of extended sick leave without pay).

Now we’re getting somewhere. Is it likely overkill? Absolutely. Because it is my job to prove I meet the criteria and I don’t want anyone to have to think about it when they read what I wrote — I don’t want anyone “deciding” if it meets the criteria or not. I want them to read it and think, “Yep, obviously he meets it, tick that box, move on”. Overwhelmingly convincing, that’s the goal.

But let’s dissect what you need to tell them:

• What your job was (manager, deputy director, team leader, etc.);
• When you did it (gives indication of duration); and,
• What you did + what that means.

Most people skip immediately to the “what you did” part (i.e. I managed HR) without saying what their job was, or for how long. More importantly though, the manager needs to see the “evidence” of what you did — headings plus examples plus some context (i.e. deputy director, team of six, assigning work and developing work plans, performance management, approving leave, etc.).

I’m partial to the following structure as an example, but you can use whatever style you want:

I have experience in [xxx criterion from the poster] while working as [job title] at [department, branch, division] from [year to year]. One file where I had to do this was [yyy] where we were [context]. As such, I had multiple occasions to do [aaaa], [bbbb], and [cccc]. Another file was [zzz] where I also did [aaaa], [bbbb] and [dddd]. In [this other position], I also got to do [dddd] and [eeee].

Is that example perfect? Hardly. It’s simply functional. It makes sure you’re on the right track to populate your letter with the type of experience that people need to include to DEMONSTRATE / PROVE they meet the requirement.

Why don’t people do that automatically? Partly because they don’t know that they need to do it, partly because they often don’t do any preparation before writing the cover letter that would allow them to have the evidence, and partly because they don’t know how to structure their letter in the first place.

Now that you have seen my sample text above, you should realize something. I am going though the poster line by line and showing how I meet the criteria. No, it’s not flowery. No, it’s not creative. It is very linear. Why? Because the process of applying is linear. I, as candidate, have to PROVE that I meet EACH element. The easiest way to do that is to do it in the same order it’s listed. Because that way I don’t miss anything AND it is how the HR and hiring manager people are going to tick the boxes. In order.

Which means, if it asks me about my educational background, I’m going to write a sentence or paragraph about my education. If I have four experience requirements, I’m going to put a heading and then some text, like:

EXPERIENCE 1: MANAGING HR

[Examples of how I have managed HR]

EXPERIENCE 2: MANAGING FINANCES

[Examples of how I have managed finances]

That is why advice from private-sector cover letter examples doesn’t work, because that’s NOT how they do them. In the private-sector, your cover letter might look like:

Dear [employer name]

[Intro para to snag their attention]

[Example Job 1 with the giant results you achieved]

[Example Job 2 with the giant results you achieved]

[Closing]

Great, but now you’re applying to government. How does Job 1 and Job 2 relate to the four headings I’ve asked you about? Because if they don’t, you’re out. It is not my job to play forensic detective on your resume to see if you MIGHT meet, or even if you’re a wonderful person, it is YOUR job to PROVE TO ME that you meet my requirements or I don’t have to interview you. The regulations say so very clearly.

I have always done my applications exactly as I outlined above (heading 1, proof, heading 2, proof). So much so that early on in the changeover from the old application system to the new, consultants were flagging my application as “gold standard” formats for people to use. It just made the screening process for them so much easier. Yes, he has experience and there’s the proof all together. Tick.

And you might buck at this requirement. You might think it is stupid. So let me explain why it isn’t, with a very practical example.

Back in 2007, I ran a competition for an EC-06 position. You’ll know from the previous chapters than an EC is an analyst. Good at evidence-based analysis. And a -06 level is pretty senior. They’re not fresh off the street, they’ve likely been doing analysis for a number of years. Including writing memos to Ministers where they give some background, outline an issue, give their evidence and analysis, and make a recommendation. So they know what a basic argument in paper form looks like when you’re trying to convince someone of something. Which is what a cover letter is — it’s an argument in paper form to me as the hiring manager trying to convince me that you meet the experience requirements.

Of some 84 people who applied, only 25 did their cover letter the way I outlined above. Heading, proof, heading, proof. How many did I screen in? 24. Of the 25, all of them had the proof laid out very clearly and 96% convinced me. Because it was clear proof. The one who didn’t make it wrote a good letter, and they almost convinced me even though they were doing very different work than what I was looking for in the poster. Almost close enough. I even went so far as to ask for a second opinion from another manager because they were close.

Of the original 84, 20 people had no cover letter whatsoever. In the current climate, where the regs are much clearer now, they would immediately be rejected. No letter = no proof, they’re out. A resume is not sufficient. However, in 2007, the department I was in was not ready to be quite so harsh so I had to play forensic detective on their resume to see if they had, somehow, managed to demonstrate all the elements for the job in the resume. Do you know what NONE of them mentioned? Oral briefings. I had an element in the poster that asked for experience in providing oral briefings to management. But, by habit, almost no ECs ever think to include that in their resume. They think about written briefings, and that is documented out the wazoo. Yet most never mention oral briefings. They missed on some other elements too, but they all missed was on oral briefings. Since they never said they did it, I had no proof to base my evaluation on, and since it is THEIR job to prove it to me, they were automatically out. That’s not me being harsh or draconian or rigid — it is like an eligibility requirement. If they don’t work for ESDC, and that’s the scope, they’re out; if they give me no evidence in their application of oral briefings, they’re out. The regs don’t ALLOW me to screen them in. {Okay, small exaggeration there — the regs do say to screen them out, but there are ways to fudge the requirement and let them in, but officially, I was supposed to screen them out, and I did.}

That left 39 people who had done their cover letters mostly like the private-sector examples. They gave me lovely intro letters, mostly in a single page telling me they had experence, loads of experience, tons of experience, they were the Donald Trumps of experience, but gave me no examples or proof of how they had it. About ten recycled previous cover letters and didn’t even bother to make the effort to tailor it in anyway to my job. (Small tip — if I’m looking for an analyst, and one of the elements is “attention to detail”, and you send me a cover letter saying you’re applying for the “project manager” position, it doesn’t look too good). Again, as with those with no cover letter, I had to play forensic detective. Of the 39, I screened in about ten. Or approximately 25%.

Let’s recap:

• With proper cover letter — 96% screened in;
• Cover letter done badly — 25% screened in;
• No cover letter — 0% screened in.

I did several comps around the same time, and they all had similar outcomes.

Somewhere around 2012, Health Canada started including a phrase in their posters. It said, basically, “Please note that it is the candidate’s responsibility to prove in their cover letter that they meet the criteria in the poster. Information in the resume is not sufficient. One way to do this is to use each experience as a heading and provide your examples under it.”

They ACTUALLY told candidates how to write the letter, and people still didn’t do it. Each competition, people would try and be creative and then wonder why they got screened out. By 2015, all departments were applying the same standard — if there was no cover letter, the application was tossed immediately. And the regs were updated to not only say they “could” toss them, they know say they “should” toss them. It’s the only way to ensure fairness across the process. We transparently evaluate what you tell us, we don’t go fishing.

Proper preparation

Yet, even with the proper format, people sometimes get screened out for jobs they are completely competent to perform. Why? Because they don’t give enough evidence in the cover letter.

Many candidates follow a typical approach of simply matching experience headings with the closest previous job that matches. So, here’s what that looks like:

Experience 1	Job 1
Experience 2	Job 2
Experience 3	Job 1, 3

When they go to write the cover letter, they will talk only about Job 1 to substantiate / prove they meet the requirements for “Experience 1”. Similarly for Experience 2. From time to time, they might talk about two jobs, but not often.

Because we as candidates tend to think of our past experiences in terms of “what jobs I had”, not the sub-elements of each of those jobs. So when we prepare, we miss stuff. Contrast the above table with the following template. In my presentations, I have frequently called it “Secret Template #1”, but you’ll see that is a bit grandiose of a name for what I’m talking about.

Secret Template #1 – Quacking like a duck!
	Job 1	Job 2	Job 3	Academic	Volunteer
Experience 1	x	x	x	x	x
Experience 2	x	x	x	x	x
Experience 3	x	x	x	x	x

From that table, you should notice three things:

1. I have put all the past jobs across the top so that you can see which apply to each experience;
2. I’ve added any academic or volunteer experience you might have; and,
3. I have put an X in every single box.

Why did I do this and what difference does it make?

Start with the Xs in the first row. Using this template, your preparation is a lot more rigorous. Rather than saying “Which of my jobs lines up with Experience 1”, you are now instead asking, “For experience 1, what did I do in Job 1 that was related to this?”, then “What did I do in Job 2?”, etc. Your goal is to put something in every box, no matter how minor.

Let me give you an example, and it will become a lot more clear why this helps. Suppose the experience requirement #1 was experience in managing financial resources. If you’re an EC, this may be a HUGE challenge for you to answer. You want to apply, but you’ve never been in charge of the budget before. Which might suggest you’re out before you even start (that happens).

Except, wait a minute. In Job 1, you were doing some research and you hired a contractor to help you. Contracts have financial components. Put it down. In Job 2, your boss asked you to do an analysis of research by the division for various research projects over the previous three years, and the project list included costs and totals for the division. Plus you “forecast” the expected projects for that year too, with the costs attached. Again, it’s finance-related. Put it down. Maybe your third job was when you were a waitress. Pretty sure you had to manage money, do totals, ring in expenses, right? Put it down. Oh, look, in your academic courses you took accounting and budgeting. And in your volunteer work, you were the treasurer of your church choir. Put it down.

You now have five separate examples for that experience requirement that you can combine into a single kick-ass paragraph. Will it be enough to screen you in? I have no idea. Depends on the person doing the screening. And what other people say too. But that isn’t your job to worry about — your job is to write the best dang paragraph you can about YOUR experience. Maybe something like this.

I have experience with managing financial resources throughout my academic, volunteer and professional career. During my academic studies, I studied accounting and budgeting, and was able to put it into practice as the Treasurer for the St. Alphonse Church Choir, 2003-2006. I was responsible for managing the budget, forecasting expenses, producing reports, and co-signing on all disbursements. While I was at university, I was the senior waitress for the ACME Diner (200x-200x), and had to verify all cashes at the end of the night, and balance the floats for each waitress. In addition, I regularly had to make the night deposits. Since joining government, I have also managed research contracts to do x, as well as analysed past costs against current budgetary projections for all research projects for our division (previous three years plus current).

Is that enough? I still don’t know. As I said, that’s up to the hiring manager to decide, and you should make HIM or HER decide. Don’t decide for them. Your job is to craft the best paragraph you can, without lying. You might embellish a little, make yourself sound a little more professional than you were, or more important than you were, but don’t go too far outside the lines. It’ll just bite you later.

But for each and every experience requirement, if you follow the template above, you stand the best chance of coming up with enough evidence to support your claim that you meet the requirement. You don’t have to use ALL the examples you come up with, just the best ones. You want to prove overwhelmingly you meet it, and often one single job isn’t enough to show it.

Be A Duck, Not a Swan

Yet people feel uncomfortable writing the above. They say, “But that’s not what they mean by managing financial resources!”. My response to that is two-fold:

1. If you don’t think you meet it, why are you applying?
2. How do you know what they mean?

Seriously, it’s your choice. If you don’t think you meet it, don’t apply. If you think you’re close, apply and LET THEM make the decision as to whether it is enough. Don’t decide for them.

But people don’t do that. You know what they do instead? They try to be self-deprecating and hedge their wording by saying, “While I have no experience in managing financial resources,…”. And then they write the para above. Because they think that’s more “honest”.

Except the hiring manager isn’t reading any longer. You told her in the first sentence you don’t meet the requirement. You said it VERY CLEARLY. So she stopped reading, put an X in the box for that element and moved on. You TOLD HER to do it. You SAID very clearly, you don’t meet that element. So why would she keep reading?

Ignore the specifics of the above, the financial or HR management stuff. Think of it as a random person who says they want to hire a duck.

Yes, a duck. Why they need a duck is not for me to judge. They said they need a duck, let’s assume they need a duck.

If you want the job, do you say “I’m not really a duck…”? Do you say, “I’ve never really been a duck…”? Do you say, “I have lots of friends who are ducks…”?

No, if you want the job, you say “Quack, quack, quack!”.

If you want to be a bit more verbose, you say, “I’m a duck, I’ve always been a duck, I’m the best damn duck you ever saw, quack, quack, quack!”.

Because they are hiring ducks. If you say “I’m not really a duck”, they move on. They’re busy and you just told them you don’t qualify. Why are you wasting their time?

I know, you’re a special swan, but you could be a duck if you only had the chance. Fine, tell them you’re a duck. Tell them you flap your wings. Tell them you speak duck. Tell them you are slightly off-yellow. Tell them you have webbed feet. DO NOT TELL THEM YOU’RE NOT A DUCK. That’s their job to decide i.e. if having wings, speaking duck, being off-yellow, and having webbed feet qualifies you as being a duck?

You’re still not completely comfortable with this, I know. But you already decided you think you can do the job or you wouldn’t be applying. You think you can be a duck. This part of the process isn’t evaluating whether you’re actually capable of being a duck, it’s seeing whether the experience you have is enough to qualify for an interview to be a duck.

Maybe for you, off-yellow is enough. For them, maybe you have to be fuzzy and bright yellow. You don’t know. The only way to know if you meet their threshold is to apply.

Now, if you do the above chart and you have NOTHING in that row, yep, you’re probably stretching too far. Or if you feel like you’re stretching two or three elements. But, other than that, it’s up to you if you want to try to be a duck or not. They said they’re hiring ducks. If you tell them you’re not a duck, they move on.

Completing the cover letter

So now that you have Secret Template #1, you can go through and do a bit of analysis of what experience you have for each element. Then craft a paragraph or two for each one. In the end, your cover letter probably looks like this:

Dear xxxx,

[Opening] — I am writing….(info about comp, number, your basic eligibility, conditions of employment, etc.)

Education:

xxxx

Experience 1:

xxxx

Experience 2:

xxxx

Experience 3:

xxxx

[Closing]

So that is your basic cover letter. Wait, what do I mean by “basic”?

I mean there are two other elements that you have to address. First, there are “asset experiences”.

The ones I mentioned above are the first part of the poster and are considered “essential experience” requirements. But often posters also have what are known as “asset qualifications”. So, for example, suppose a hiring manager is looking for an office manager, AS-04 level.

The essential experience might be having worked as office manager previously, managing some staff, handling correspondence, and coordinating a calendar for a senior manager.  Standard stuff, and often core to the position.

Yet the hiring manager might also look at the position and think, “You know, they also have to help with staffing, managing the budget, and our internet site. It would be great if they had that too.”

To put it simply, the first elements were “must haves” and now these three are “nice to haves”. So, the first four would go in as Essentials, and the last three might go in as assets:

1. Experience in coordinating staffing actions;
2. Experience in coordinating a budget for a directorate;
3. Experience in managing an external website;

The wording might be better in an actual case, but you get the idea. These aren’t REQUIRED to apply, so they are listed separate.

But if you have them, you HAVE to tell them in the cover letter. Not later. In the cover letter. Because a hiring manager might get 100 applicants for one position. And they can say, “Hey, that’s a lot. Let’s see how many have the asset 1 on staffing.” And do an additional screening. Suddenly that “asset” looks a LOT like an essential. Because they might now only interview those who had that asset. Why not? If they have enough applicants, they might as well only interview them.

Separately however, it is also a reason later for them to choose you at the end. Suppose ten people make the pool, but you have an asset they don’t. Why wouldn’t the manager choose you?

In both examples, it only helps you to tell them you have it and to craft the same paragraphs as you did for the essentials. Yes, it’s more work. But do you want the job or not?

You would be surprised how many people don’t bother addressing the assets. Or doing so in the barest of terms. And then being surprised later when they get screened out because they didn’t bother to tell the manager they had that experience too. And later is too late.

If you meet the assets, INCLUDE in your cover letter. Every single one that you meet.

Don’t freak out if you don’t meet something in the assets, this is the manager’s “Christmas wish list”, nobody is likely to have all of them. That’s why they are assets, not essentials.

So how long is your cover letter at this point? Three to four pages is not uncommon. I once had a first draft that was 17 pages and I cut it to 6. Usually there isn’t too much restriction on the length of a traditional cover letter, although this is changing (see notes about digital applications below).

Don’t forget your resume

You just wrote four pages about yourself, tailored to the specific job, and yes, it took you a long time. But you also have to include a resume. There are lots of exciting models out there, and there are books and books about possible models. Again, mostly for the private-sector. Few are useful for government jobs.

For example, lots of resume formats suggest having an upfront “skills section” where the candidate lists the skills they have acquired. Not surprisingly, the books recommend this list match the skills list for the job you are applying for, so the manager can “see” what skills you have.

Except listing them is irrelevant to government competitions. You had to PROVE them in the cover letter, so why re-list them again? Similarly for things like “goals” or a “description” of yourself. That’s not part of this stage of screening.

A resume has one purpose and one purpose only in a formal competition. It validates the information that you included in the cover letter by noting the jobs you had, where they were, the duration and times, and what duties you had. Think of it like it is a “supporting reference document” that acts in support of the cover letter.

Which means the simplest design is to have:

• Job title 1, Organization, Times, Experience/duties
• Job title 2, Organization, Times, Experience/duties

Here’s an example from when I was working at CIDA:

Sr. Policy Analyst, Corporate Secretariat, Deputy Minister’s Office, CIDA: December 2004 – August 2005

Responsible in newly-created analyst position in Deputy Minister’s office for horizontal analysis of broad corporate initiatives; coordination and liaison with Branches seeking project, program or policy approvals of the President and Minister; representing the Agency at internal and external meetings with Minister’s staff; coordination and liaison with sub-units of President’s office (Corporate Planning and Analysis Group, Canada Corps Unit, Business Operations Group, Parliamentary Relations, Cabinet Liaison, Correspondence Unit, and Executive Briefing Unit) for input into Agency-wide exercises; leading on Agency input into requests from central agencies; acting as Executive Assistant to the Deputy Minister during absences of the EA; and corporate analysis of Treasury Board submissions.

It tells the reviewer my title, where I was doing the job, and when, plus gives a flavour of the types of duties I performed. While it is obvious from the above descriptions of a cover letter, each cover letter is relatively unique. And equally, a resume of your past job can be rather static.

Except for one thing, which is a best practice stolen from the private-sector. In the private-sector, they advise you to sprinkle key words liberally into your cover letter and resume, using the same words as are in the job description.

For government, you can do the same. So, for example, the above resume example was one I used in my resume for a job that required experience with “horizontal analysis”, “coordination and liaison”, “Central Agencies”, and “Treasury Board submissions”. If another job required “collaboration”, I could change the “coordination and liaison” to “collaboration with…”. It’s a “nice-to-do” if you have time, as it helps validate things a little more strongly.

I consider a “nice” addition, beecause as I said at the beginning, if you do your cover letter properly, it can take you several hours to apply. Which means more time spent tweaking your resume as a “supporting” document may not be the best use of your time. The cover letter is critical, the resume is simply needed to be solid.

Applying Online

I confess that I had a large debate going on in my head for this whole chapter. I kept wanting to write phrases like “But now they do it this way…” because the online system has a completely different interface than what I just outlined. And probably 90% of the applications today HAVE to be done online, the Departments won’t accept an email version of your cover letter and resume.

So, if you’ve been paying attention, you could be really angry right now. It seems like I just spent thousands and thousands of words to explain how to do a cover letter and you don’t even use them anymore. Trust me, I wasn’t leading you astray.

Yes, the online system has automated the process, but the content is still the same. Here’s what’s different:

Area	Traditional paper or e-application	Online system
Basic Eligibility Criteria (PRI, address, etc.)	Top of the cover letter	Separate fields, pull down menus, able to be stored and “auto-filled” by the system
Conditions of Employment	Top or bottom of the cover letter	Separate fields, pull down menus to say yes or no, different for each job
Education	In the cover letter under separate heading	Combination of pull down menus and supplmentary text boxes, some of which can be auto-filled
Essential Experiences	In the cover letter under separate headings	Separate text boxes, one for each experience
Asset Experiences	In the cover letter under separate headings	Separate text boxes, one for each experience
Resume	Separate e-file, properly formatted	Separate text box, no formattting, can be auto-filled from saved versions

There are three problems with the online system, which is why I spent all the time explaining the above. And why I think you should use the above approach, even if eventually you copy and paste it into the online system.

It’s online through the internet, and thus the online system can and does time-out or crash. You can save drafts as you go, but there have been people who were working on their application quite diligently only to lose their connection or have the system time-out on them. Bye bye carefully crafted content. A giant pain-in-the-patootie. If you do it off-line first, you can just recopy and paste it.

The interface is pretty, well, basic. It looks like it was generated to be compatible with a Commodore 64. It isn’t very pleasant to look at, and people start getting focused on “I need to put something in every box” rather than “I need to answer this question with overwhelming proof that I meet the criteria”. It isn’t uncommon for people to start typing, feel constrained by the basic text box, and craft much shorter examples than they should. The threshold of proof hasn’t changed, just the way you send the info.

Finally, the format in the boxes is ASCII text. Yes, I know that’s stupid. Yes, I know HTML at least would be useful. But it is basic text. No underlining, no bolding, no indents, nada. It’s just text. Even for your resume. That’s right, you don’t get to upload an e-file (since they might have viruses embedded), you just have to copy and paste into the text box.

THREE IMPORTANT TIPS

1. Since you know it can time out, or crash, or just constrain you as you’re writing, do it offline first and copy and paste your text when you’re done.
2. Left-justify everything, the boxes don’t maintain formatting at all.
3. When you go to copy and paste, paste into a program like NotePad first as it will strip out any weird characters that Word sometimes leaves in text. Then copy and paste from NotePad into the HTML form on the website.

That last one seems stupid, I know, or not worth worrying about. Until you find out that you just applied for a job that pays $70K a year, and the manager is seeing your resume looking like:

]&; ]&; ]&; ]&; ]&; ]&; ]&; P. Sherman

]&; ]&; ]&; ]&; ]&; ]&; ]&; 42 Wallaby Way

]&; ]&; ]&; ]&; ]&; ]&; ]&; Sydney, Australia

The HTML site tries to strip all that crap out, and you may not see it on the screen, but some wordprocessing programs like to put weird codes in. Even trying to save as ASCII doesn’t really get rid of all of them. Pasting into NotePad and then recopying from there over will get rid of 99.9% of all of it. Just a thought.

In Conclusion

That was REALLY long, wasn’t it? All to tell you how to simply apply. I spent the time on it because it is the single simplest element to fix to stop you from getting screened out before you even get to the competition. If you do it right, you get to continue; if you do it wrong, you might as well not even apply in the first place.