The Officer Selection Board

What is published

What it is

A competitive job interview for an officer appointment

Group activities

In person boards. A virtual board most likely has none

Format

In person, or virtually over Microsoft Teams

How long

Be available for the whole day

The panel

Three serving officers, one per service, and a psychologist

The interview

Around 45 minutes

Assessed on

Leadership, communication, decision making, motivation

How the day runs

1. 1

   An early start

   Boards commence in the morning on NSW and ACT local time, so check what that means where you are if yours is virtual. You are expected to be available for the whole day rather than a fixed slot.

2. 2

   Group activities, if you are attending in person

   Including your introduction to the board and an impromptu speech. The material for the speech is given to you on the day, so there is nothing to prepare in advance. A virtual board will most likely skip the group work, since it does not translate to a screen, which leaves more of the day resting on the interview.

3. 3

   The officer interview

   Around 45 minutes with three serving officers and a psychologist. This is the part the whole day builds towards.

The thing candidates get wrong about the speech

The published guidance is explicit that there is no requirement to prepare an oral presentation beforehand, because the material is given to you on the day. Candidates still arrive having rehearsed one, then deliver it regardless of what they were actually asked.

The board is not assessing the content. It is watching how you handle being handed something unfamiliar and asked to speak about it, which is a reasonable proxy for a great deal of the job.

What actually helps

• Know why this service and this role, specifically, and be able to say it without sounding rehearsed. It is the question everything else hangs off.
• Know your own application. Dates, choices, why you left things, what you have done since. Vagueness about your own history reads badly.
• Practise speaking about an unfamiliar topic for two minutes with no notes. Not a prepared speech, which is the opposite of what is being tested.
• Have real examples of leading something, and be able to say what went wrong in them. An example with no difficulty in it is not an example.
• Treat it as a job interview, because that is what the ADF calls it. Dress and behave accordingly, in person or on a screen.

Read the official candidate guidance rather than anybody’s summary of it, this page included. ADF Careers publishes documents for candidates attending an OSB, and they are the only source that is actually authoritative.

Before you get here

The OSB comes after the aptitude testing, not before it. For aviation candidates that means the GAT and maths at your YOU Session, then the aviation Additional Testing, and then MACTS at the Aviation Screening Program at East Sale. Those are the stages practice can move, and they are the ones that decide whether you reach a board at all.

Keep reading