Success profiles: candidate guide

Your Supporting Statement

The purpose of a Supporting Statement is to showcase your relevant skills and experience against the Success Profile criteria contained in the job advert.

The statement is your opportunity to give evidence and examples of how you meet the criteria.

When writing a Supporting Statement it is important that you:

• read the job advert so you are clear about the criteria required
• outline the skills and experience that you have that are relevant to the job and use examples to help demonstrate this, wherever possible include specific facts and figures that demonstrate the tangible results of your work
• keep to the word limit, if your statement is too brief it will not provide the required depth of detail and evidence to be assessed fully
• proofread your statement before submitting it to make sure it is clear, easy to read and relevant
• The Supporting Statement is an opportunity for you to include additional evidence beyond what is contained in your CV.  For example, if your CV contains a reference to a successful outcome, the supporting statement is a good place to describe how you achieved that outcome.

Tips for writing your Supporting Statement

Here are some points to keep in mind while writing your Supporting Statement:

• be concise: to allow you to provide as much evidence as possible, try to summarise points in short sentences
• be clear: describe scenarios using plain English, avoid using acronyms or jargon
• tailor your application: the job advert will contain all of the criteria you will be assessed against, select the best evidence to support your application and ensure you have included relevant transferable skills
• provide evidence: the hiring panel are looking for evidence to assess your application against the published criteria, instead of writing “I have excellent communication skills”, describe how you have developed or used those skills in a relevant context such as “I set up a networking forum across multiple teams to share ideas and solutions for the project”
• use headings: to help the panel understand your evidence, it’s a good idea to use headings based on the criteria
• consider using the STARR  (situation, task, action, result, reflection) approach: using this approach is not essential but it may help you structure your statement - think about what was needed, what you did and how you did it, what happened and what the outcome was