A career with us The Recruitment Process

When applications open, you can view the current round on Home Affairs Career Opportunities. Search for and select either:

• Border Force Officer Recruit (BFORT) First Nations Affirmative Measures
• Border Force Officer Recruit (BFORT) Generalist.

You will need to provide some background information, your resume, and details of two referees. You will also need to answer some questions.

Remember our eligibility requirements – you must be an Australian citizen and be 18 years of age or older.

When applications close, you may be invited to undertake an assessment consisting of 4 parts. These assessments will be administered by an external service provider. These assessments should take a total time of approximately 50 minutes to complete.

The assessments measure your:

• cognitive ability
• emotional intelligence - your ability to perceive, understand and manage emotional behaviours
• role specific behaviours – your views and attitudes towards various work related issues
• English Language proficiency.

Cognitive ability (Cognify)

This is a game-based assessment with 3 mini games:

1. Gridlock assesses your reasoning skills as you fit shapes in a defined area.
2. Numbubbles measures how you comprehend quantitative and numerical concepts.
3. Proof it assesses your visual ability to identify spelling, comprehension and grammar errors in a text.

You will have 15 minutes to complete all games.

For more information and example questions visit Cognify Criteria. 

Emotional intelligence (Emotify)

This tool enables us to assess your capability in:

• emotional perception
• understanding
• self-management.

You will undergo 3 assessments over 20 minutes:

• Matching faces: You will view faces and match these to the emotions.
• Emotional ties: You will read several everyday situations and predict what emotional responses may arise from them.
• Emotion in actions: You will indicate the most effective action to take to manage a range of emotions.

For more information and examples visit Emotify Criteria.

Role specific behaviours (Illustrait)

This is a personality assessment that aligns with work relevant traits. This assessment helps us understand how a candidate is likely to:

• approach a role
• fit with a team
• align with the Home Affairs and ABF culture.

You will have 8 minutes to complete this assessment.

For more information and examples visit Illustrait Criteria.

English Language Proficiency Test

This assessment will measure your ability to understand and communicate in English across three skill areas:

• Reading
• Writing
• Listening

You will have 7 minutes to complete this assessment.

At the end of this process you will receive a report outlining workplace insights. This will help you determine where your strengths lie and how to build on your skills.

For more information and examples visit Language Proficiency Criteria .

If you are successful throughout the capability step, we may invite you to complete a one-way video interview. This helps us to learn more about you, your motivation and interest in working for the ABF.

We conduct one-way video interviews through our external service provider’s online portal. You can complete this at any time in the comfort of your own home. The assessment panel will review your recorded responses.

You will have 3 behavioural interview questions, one written task and one verbal task to complete.

Advantages of video interviews include:

• Applicants remain focused on their responses - they are not distracted by how the interviewer is responding to them.
• Applicants can record their responses in a more convenient, relaxed environment.
• Applicants can complete the interview at a time that suits them - this helps with juggling work, family and other commitments.

We ask applicants the exact same questions. We will give you time to prepare your response and a time limit to respond. Preparation for the interview is important as you will have one opportunity to respond to the questions. We highly recommend you research the STAR model. For more information visit the Australian Public Service Commission - cracking the code webpage.

We will assess your responses to the interview questions against the Integrated Leadership System.

Once the video interview and written task have been collated we may contact your referee to get a referee check. A referee can include a workplace referee or a former supervisor.

If you are successful through the recruitment stages we will send you an email to tell you.

Based on operational priorities, we will invite you to progress through the mandatory conditions of engagement. You must be found suitable at every assessment to get an offer of employment.

These assessments include:

• a medical and fitness assessment
• ESC and AGSVA security clearances.

BFORT entry level programs are scheduled according to operational needs throughout the year. We may not contact all candidates who were found suitable at the same time. We encourage you to check your emails regularly for more information.

For more candidate information, download the BFORT Candidate Info pack (266KB PDF).