Why do Selection Criteria not select?

Often, the candidate receives and completes the Selection Criteria response at (very) short notice. But even with a response that both recruiter and candidate think is convincing and impressive, there is no go. Bewildered and confused, the candidate asks why so? What happened? Was it all window dressing? Was Mr X or Ms Y, the chosen job winner, just waiting in the wings?

Two issues come to mind, priority and length. In the ten or so Mandatory Criteria, there is no priority ranking to guide us. In practice, surely all criteria cannot be of equal weight. One solution would be to add a short Primarily statement e.g. "We are primarily looking for an ace technician in this area, a person work works well in teams. We are primarily looking for someone who has worked in large government agencies like this."

Also, the length of our responses is never right, always too long or too short. Despite the fact that it takes words/space to express an appropriate and convincing response in an easily understood way. And more for elaborate criteria. That implies the selectors didn't want such a response. In turn, that means there was an unstated, undetected priority that was missed.

Can you shed some light here?

This sounds like a situation where a manager is forced to advertise a job internally when he or she knows exactly who they want for the job.

Happens where my wife works all the time. Results in frustration for people who apply for the same job every time it comes up. Realistically they are never going to get the job, because they are fundamentally a poor fit and the manager has already made their mind up who they want but has to go through the motions because of "policy".