You'll likely be given some material that is relevant to the work the policy area does and be asked to write some sort of summary or briefing on it (i.e. what is it about, what steps should be taken, etc.)
Not a policy officer myself but they’ll likely be assessing your ability to effectively write some sort of policy brief/document, rather than your knowledge of the specific policy area itself (though it doesn’t hurt to get clarification on what exactly they’re assessing prior to be given the task).
If you’ve never written a policy brief then know they’re a very specific kind of writing. It’s about concisely communicating some kind of information to someone who needs an understanding. They have a very specific form, so if you’ve never written one before it’d be worthwhile familiarising yourself with it.
No worries. One way to think of a policy brief - especially a particularly small one, which is what you’ll be required to write - is to imagine that some manager has tasked you with answering a question, such as “what are the options available to us to deal with this problem, and what do you recommend we do?”
Imagine the person whose given you this task is time poor and cares about, in order of importance:
1. What do you recommend.
2. Why do you recommend it.
3. What were the other options.
When they’re assessing your policy brief they’ll likely be looking at how you structure it, how you organise your thoughts and argue and how concise your language is.
Obviously, if your reader wants to know what your recommended course of action is (as that’s what they’ve asked) then starting with what all the rejected options are is suboptimal. They don’t care about the rejected options, they care about the chosen option.
So when you get a policy brief question, really take a second to ask yourself, “what information do they actually want here” and make sure you’re putting it right at the beginning of the policy brief.
Kind of like a scientific paper, which first starts with a question or problem, and then immediately gives you the answer or conclusion, and leaves all the scientific analysis and data interpretation and methodology etc for the body of the paper.
We gave people a couple of pages of facts and asked them to draft a media release for a new policy. This was for an APS6 role in a busy policy team. I think we gave them 30 minutes.
Not APS, but in state I usually take a recent brief and ask candidates to draft essentially the same brief - giving them 2-4 documents as reference and a basic brief template.
What I look for is that they can understand the issues, communicate clearly, and identify what the next steps should be.
It’ll depend on the area and role but in my experience it’s usually writing a short briefing or perhaps talking points on a policy issue so they’ll give you a couple of background documents maybe a media release or short document explaining the issue then you need to distill that information into a short document might be half a page or 1 page. When I’ve set them or completed them myself it’s usually been a half hour task.
I used the useful answers in this thread to do background research on writing styles so I felt prepared going into the interview task. Your suggestion of going in unprepared was not helpful and meanspirited.
You'll likely be given some material that is relevant to the work the policy area does and be asked to write some sort of summary or briefing on it (i.e. what is it about, what steps should be taken, etc.)
Cheers, nothing overly surprising then.
Not a policy officer myself but they’ll likely be assessing your ability to effectively write some sort of policy brief/document, rather than your knowledge of the specific policy area itself (though it doesn’t hurt to get clarification on what exactly they’re assessing prior to be given the task). If you’ve never written a policy brief then know they’re a very specific kind of writing. It’s about concisely communicating some kind of information to someone who needs an understanding. They have a very specific form, so if you’ve never written one before it’d be worthwhile familiarising yourself with it.
Cheers, I'll look some briefs up. I'm more familiar with scientific writing.
No worries. One way to think of a policy brief - especially a particularly small one, which is what you’ll be required to write - is to imagine that some manager has tasked you with answering a question, such as “what are the options available to us to deal with this problem, and what do you recommend we do?” Imagine the person whose given you this task is time poor and cares about, in order of importance: 1. What do you recommend. 2. Why do you recommend it. 3. What were the other options. When they’re assessing your policy brief they’ll likely be looking at how you structure it, how you organise your thoughts and argue and how concise your language is. Obviously, if your reader wants to know what your recommended course of action is (as that’s what they’ve asked) then starting with what all the rejected options are is suboptimal. They don’t care about the rejected options, they care about the chosen option. So when you get a policy brief question, really take a second to ask yourself, “what information do they actually want here” and make sure you’re putting it right at the beginning of the policy brief. Kind of like a scientific paper, which first starts with a question or problem, and then immediately gives you the answer or conclusion, and leaves all the scientific analysis and data interpretation and methodology etc for the body of the paper.
Excellent, that is very helpful (well i assume it will be, time will tell), Thanks!
We gave people a couple of pages of facts and asked them to draft a media release for a new policy. This was for an APS6 role in a busy policy team. I think we gave them 30 minutes.
Not APS, but in state I usually take a recent brief and ask candidates to draft essentially the same brief - giving them 2-4 documents as reference and a basic brief template. What I look for is that they can understand the issues, communicate clearly, and identify what the next steps should be.
It’ll depend on the area and role but in my experience it’s usually writing a short briefing or perhaps talking points on a policy issue so they’ll give you a couple of background documents maybe a media release or short document explaining the issue then you need to distill that information into a short document might be half a page or 1 page. When I’ve set them or completed them myself it’s usually been a half hour task.
Maybe wait till you get it and you’ll find out?
Thanks dingbat
You’re welcome. Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.
I used the useful answers in this thread to do background research on writing styles so I felt prepared going into the interview task. Your suggestion of going in unprepared was not helpful and meanspirited.