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Last updated: 15 August 2005
Ongoing employment – Recruitment and related issues
Please note: This document is no longer current and is provided for reference purposes only.
Stage 1: Preparatory Work
Step 3. Develop supporting documentation
When an employment opportunity is to be filled, the nature of the duties (and any position title/description if used) should be examined to ensure they meet the current or future organisational requirements of the agency. Existing documentation might need to be revised. For assistance in developing selection documentation, see the Commission publication: Get it Right—a recruitment kit for managers.
Documentation and advice
The extent of selection documentation will depend on how an opportunity is to be filled. Documentation, particularly in the case of an open competitive selection process, should clearly detail the duties to be performed and identify matters such as the skills, experience, capabilities and personal qualities the agency is seeking in candidates for the employment opportunity. This will assist an agency to target the field of candidates it is trying to attract and to work out the best selection options for the particular opportunity.
Good selection documentation should also assist potential candidates to decide whether they should apply. This documentation should also include information on the selection process, requirements to undertake security checks, medical examinations or other pre-employment checks and any specific requirements such as declaring a redundancy benefit from the Commonwealth.
If a selection exercise might result in an engagement or promotion, an Agency Head must put measures in place to ensure that the purpose of the process is decided in advance and information about the process is readily available to applicants (Direction 2.3(1)(a)(i)).
Essential qualifications
Section 29(3)(c) recognises that in some cases it may be essential for an employee to hold particular qualifications in order to perform their duties. An Agency Head can impose essential qualifications in relation to a set of duties that must be met before an employee can be assigned those particular duties.
Essential qualifications for performing particular duties are not limited to formal educational or professional qualifications. They are usually relevant during the selection process but it may also be a requirement for an employee to maintain a particular qualification on an ongoing basis.
Examples of qualifications that may be essential for performing particular duties include:
- relevant tertiary, professional or trade qualifications
- membership of, or recognition by, a professional body
- obtaining and maintaining a specified security clearance
- meeting and maintaining a specified level of physical fitness above any general health clearance
- having a valid visa with appropriate work rights.
A qualification should be specified as essential only where it is genuinely essential, whether in order to perform specific duties or tasks or as a generic requirement applying to all duties in a particular work area. For example a particular level of security clearance may be a requirement for performing any duties in a particular part of an agency or across the agency as a whole. Specifying essential qualifications that are not genuinely required for performing the relevant duties, may be incompatible with the merit Value and, in some cases, anti-discrimination law.
Consistent with the Value relating to providing a fair workplace, the Agency Head should specify in advance any essential qualifications required for performing particular duties and make applicants/employees performing such duties aware of the potential consequences, including termination, should the employee lose or lack an essential qualification. In addition to qualifications specified by the Agency Head, there are other requirements that apply by force of law, whether or not they are explicitly mentioned, (e.g. being above any statutory minimum age to enter the workforce under State legislation or, in the case of a non-Australian citizen, having a valid visa with appropriate work rights).
There are wider issues involved should an Agency Head want to impose new or different essential qualifications on sets of duties which are already assigned to ongoing employees.
Agencies can access any further information on this issue via the Commission's website.
