How shortlisting is scored: NHS, councils and the Civil Service

A shortlister scores your statement against the criteria in the person specification, one criterion at a time. How the mark is given depends on the employer. NHS Jobs gives a tick, the trust, council and university documents below set scales from 0 to 2 up to 0 to 4, and one Civil Service body publishes a scale of 1 to 7.

NHS Jobs: a tick for each criterion you evidence

The NHS Jobs Training and Support Team wrote a user guide to scoring applications for employers, published on the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) site. The guide prints no date. It tells the shortlister to "score the criteria against the applicant's evidence." In the Essential criteria section the shortlister is told to "select all the boxes they have evidenced". The Desirable criteria section works the same way.

The score page then counts the ticks. In the guide's screenshot it reads "2 out of 3 for essential criteria". The shortlister can also add notes to an application, which the guide says "could be requested as feedback by the applicant." The guide does not say what score puts an application on the shortlist. For that step it points to a separate NHS Jobs guide on how to shortlist applicants for interview.

Scoring scales at two trusts, a council and a university

Some employers print a scoring scale in their recruitment documents. Each row below is one employer's own document. The council's guide is dated May 2016, so it shows what the council advised then. The council job guide reads how five councils shortlist; none of their pages prints a scale.

Employer and document	Scale	The marks in the document's words
Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (WWL), procedure for Trac, approved December 2023	0 to 2; a named qualification scores 1 or 0	2 "fully demonstrated", 1 "partially demonstrated", 0 "failed to demonstrate"
Sheffield Health and Social Care Trust, recruitment policy, July 2025	0 to 3, "recommended"	0 Weak, 1 Development needed, 2 Competent, 3 Strong
Warwickshire County Council, shortlisting guide, May 2016	0 to 2	0 Not Demonstrated, 1 Partially Demonstrated, 2 Fully Demonstrated
Aberystwyth University, recruitment procedure	0 to 4	Five lines with no number beside them: "no evidence", "limited evidence", "satisfactory evidence", "good evidence", "excellent evidence"

The WWL procedure says "usually recommended" for its 0 to 2 scale, and the Sheffield policy says "recommended" for its 0 to 3. Warwickshire's 2016 guide calls its scale "good practice". Aberystwyth's procedure says an applicant "should be scored 0-4" against each criterion. Under that sentence it lists the five lines of evidence in the order shown and prints no number beside any of them.

Each scale marks how well a criterion is evidenced. Sheffield's lowest mark is "little or no evidence of the criteria displayed". Its top mark is "Fully competent in all aspects of the criteria and followed up with appropriate reasoning."

WWL and Aberystwyth set a cut-off on the essential criteria:

• WWL's procedure says only candidates who scored at least 1 out of 2 on every essential criterion "should be progressed to interview".
• Aberystwyth does not invite a candidate who scored 0 or 1 on any essential criterion, "regardless of how well they have scored elsewhere".

Desirable criteria come after. Warwickshire's 2016 guide says they "can be reviewed to further rank the candidates" where many applicants meet the essential ones. Aberystwyth's procedure can turn to them when there are "lots of high-scoring applications".

On Trac, WWL's procedure says to copy "the essential criteria only" from the person specification into the shortlisting tab. It says evidence of skills, knowledge and experience "may be demonstrated within the employment history section, as well as the supporting information section", so "all aspects of the application form should be considered". Warwickshire's 2016 guide has each panel member score the applications "individually", and the panel then compares the scores.

A Civil Service scale: COPFS

The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) publishes its own scoring for Success Profiles applications on a page headed "How your application is assessed - Success Profiles", last updated 8 September 2026. It says "Applications are scored using the 7 point scale noted below". The page sets the marks out in a table: 1 Not Demonstrated, 2 Minimal Demonstration, 3 Moderate Demonstration, 4 Acceptable Demonstration, 5 Good Demonstration, 6 Strong Demonstration and 7 Outstanding Demonstration.

The table describes a 4 as "Adequate positive evidence and any negative evidence would not cause concern". A 7 is "The evidence provided wholly exceeds expectation at this level". The selection panel sifts personal statements "based on the essential criteria for the post". At interview COPFS scores behaviours, experience and technical skills "on the same 1-7 rating scale used at Sift". Its standard benchmark includes "scoring 4 or more in all behaviours", though "a candidate can score a single score of 3 where scores for all other behaviours are high".

The guide to the Civil Service statement of suitability quotes a Defra recruiter on "a Civil Service rating scale between 1 and 7", and covers what the Civil Service has said about Success Profiles.

What this means for your statement

• Give each essential criterion its own example, so each has something to score.
• Cover every essential criterion before you add anything else. At Aberystwyth, one 0 or 1 on an essential criterion means no interview, whatever else the application scores.
• Say what you did and why. Sheffield's top mark asks for criteria "followed up with appropriate reasoning".
• Put the evidence where the shortlister will look. At WWL the shortlister considers "all aspects of the application form", the employment history as well as the supporting information.

The guide to essential and desirable criteria shows how to tell the two apart. The guide to what a person specification is shows where the criteria sit.

Before you submit

• List the essential criteria and find the example you wrote for each.
• Check that a criterion with several parts has an answer to every part.
• Add examples for the desirable criteria you meet once every essential criterion has one.
• Read the draft once more against the person specification.

You can also check your draft against the person specification.