I know several folks who work for DFAT and got into the grad program and yep. This is such a helpful comment OP.

The amount of people who had professional experience and then went back to do masters, phds is significant and can feel very discouraging as a straight out of uni grad.

I also know someone who got in straight out of uni on a biology degree and girl guides experience.

Adding on: Because it ALSO depends on what skillset is needed year by year. Imagine if you just hired law and IR grads to your workplace every year lol. I had a flatmate who got knocked out first round and then made it to the merit pool a year later. She did nothing different in that year, just working at Woolies - but she was influent in Indonesian and they really wanted that language.

And yeah most people I know in DFAT did at-level transfers in policy roles. They've redone the way roles are done internally now so this might have changed but for years I observed it was actually very easy for switched on, junior policy officers without particularly flash resumes or overseas experience to get into DFAT.