What Is a Statement of Qualifications (SOQ)?

A statement of qualifications (SOQ) is the credentials package a firm submits to prove it can perform a specific scope of work - most often in response to a request for qualifications (RFQ). Where a proposal argues how you will do a job and at what price, an SOQ argues that you are qualified to be considered at all: it presents your firm’s relevant experience, key personnel, and track record so an evaluator can shortlist you on merit before any pricing conversation begins.

This guide explains what a statement of qualifications is, how it differs from a capability statement and from the federal SF 330 form, what goes into it, and how firms assemble one quickly by reusing a project and personnel database. If you mainly need the distinction between the two most-confused documents, jump to statement of qualifications vs capability statement.

On this page:

• What is a statement of qualifications?
• When is an SOQ requested?
• What goes in a statement of qualifications
• Statement of qualifications vs capability statement
• Statement of qualifications vs SF 330
• How to write a statement of qualifications
• Sourcing an SOQ from your project data
• Common SOQ mistakes
• FAQ

What is a statement of qualifications?

A statement of qualifications is a structured, multi-page document that establishes a firm’s competence to perform a defined body of work. It is the standard response to a request for qualifications (RFQ) - a solicitation in which a buyer asks firms to demonstrate their qualifications so the buyer can select a shortlist, or a single most-qualified firm, before negotiating scope and fee.

The genre is rooted in qualifications-based selection (QBS), the principle that certain professional services - engineering, architecture, and related design work - should be procured on demonstrated competence rather than lowest bid. In US federal architect-engineer procurement this principle is codified in the Brooks Act and FAR Subpart 36.6, and it flows down into how state, local, and private buyers structure their own RFQs. The SOQ is the document that carries a firm’s qualifications into that evaluation.

Two properties define the SOQ and separate it from a proposal:

1. It sells fit, not price. The reader is deciding whether you belong on the shortlist, not what you will charge. Relevant experience and the right people carry the document.
2. It is tailored to one RFQ. Unlike a general marketing piece, an SOQ answers a specific solicitation’s evaluation criteria, in the structure and within the page limit that solicitation defines.

When is an SOQ requested?

You will be asked for a statement of qualifications whenever a buyer runs a qualifications-first selection. The most common triggers are:

• Public RFQs for design services. State departments of transportation, municipalities, water and school districts, and other public owners issue RFQs for architecture and engineering work and evaluate SOQs to shortlist firms.
• On-call and IDIQ contracts. Buyers assembling a bench of pre-qualified firms for multi-year task-order work select through SOQs.
• Private and institutional selections. Developers, universities, and healthcare systems frequently request an SOQ before inviting a smaller group to interview or propose.
• Two-step procurements. Many selections use the SOQ as step one (shortlist on qualifications), followed by interviews or priced proposals from the shortlisted firms.

In each case the SOQ is the first cut. A generic or poorly targeted SOQ ends the pursuit before the interview stage, which is why the strongest firms treat SOQ preparation as a repeatable assembly process rather than a one-off writing project.

What goes in a statement of qualifications

The exact structure follows the RFQ, but most statements of qualifications contain the same building blocks:

Section	What it contains	Purpose
Cover letter	A brief, signed letter addressing the specific opportunity	Signals you read the RFQ and are responsive
Firm profile	History, size, offices, disciplines, and areas of focus	Establishes scale and stability
Relevant project experience	Descriptions of comparable projects with owner, value, dates, role, references	The core evidence of fit
Key personnel	Resumes of the people who would do the work, with registrations	Proves the named team has done comparable work
Approach / methodology	How the firm delivers this type of work	Where the RFQ asks for it
Certifications and codes	Licenses, registrations, and (for federal work) UEI, CAGE, and NAICS	Confirms eligibility

The single most important discipline is to mirror the RFQ’s evaluation criteria. If the solicitation lists five scored criteria in a given order, the SOQ should answer them in that order, so the evaluator can find and score each one without hunting. Relevant project experience and key personnel almost always carry the most weight, so lead with your best-matched projects rather than your largest.

Statement of qualifications vs capability statement

These two are constantly confused, and using the wrong one signals inexperience:

• Capability statement: a one-page firm summary written for fast screening across many buyers and events. It is not tied to a specific opportunity, carries registration codes, and is handed out broadly.
• Statement of qualifications: a multi-page package written to one RFQ, with detailed project descriptions, key-personnel resumes, and an approach section, structured to the solicitation’s criteria.

Put simply, the capability statement gets you noticed; the SOQ competes for a named opportunity. Both draw on the same underlying facts - your projects, your people, your credentials - which is why firms that store that data once can generate a screening capability statement and a full SOQ from the same source. For a focused side-by-side, see statement of qualifications vs capability statement.

Statement of qualifications vs SF 330

The SF 330 is a specific, mandated US federal form - the Architect-Engineer Qualifications form - with fixed sections A through H and an evaluated scoring process. A statement of qualifications is a more flexible document format used across state, local, and private RFQs that do not mandate a federal form.

They overlap heavily in substance: both present firm qualifications, key-personnel resumes, and relevant project experience, and both exist to support a qualifications-based shortlist. The practical difference is rigidity. The SF 330 dictates exactly where each fact goes (Section E resumes, Section F example projects, the Section G matrix); an SOQ lets you organize the same facts to fit the RFQ. A firm pursuing both federal and non-federal design work keeps one project-and-personnel database and renders it into either format as the opportunity demands - an SF 330 Section F box here, an SOQ project description there.

How to write a statement of qualifications

1. Read the RFQ twice and extract the criteria. List every evaluation criterion, page limit, and submission requirement. These define the structure of your SOQ, not your firm’s house template.
2. Select relevant projects first. Choose the projects that most closely match the advertised scope, size, and type. For each, prepare a description with owner, value, dates, your role, and a reachable reference. See the entry format in past performance examples.
3. Build the key-personnel section from current resumes. Feature the people who will actually do the work, and tie each resume to the relevant projects they delivered.
4. Write the firm profile and approach to the opportunity. Keep the profile tight and factual; write the approach section to the specific scope, not as boilerplate.
5. Answer the criteria in order, within the page limit. Structure the document so an evaluator scoring criterion three finds section three. Never exceed the stated page count.
6. Include the required codes and certifications. For federal-facing work, include UEI, CAGE, and NAICS; for other buyers, the licenses and registrations they verify. A federal capability statement is a useful companion for the pre-RFQ screening conversations.

Sourcing an SOQ from your project data

The slow part of an SOQ is not the writing - it is re-gathering the same project and personnel facts under deadline for the third time this quarter. Keep the data structured and the SOQ becomes an assembly job:

• One record per project - owner, value, dates, role, outcome, reference - feeds relevant-experience sections, project reference sheets, and SF 330 Section F boxes alike.
• One record per key person - education, registrations, project history - feeds the resumes an SOQ needs and the CVs kept current in a CV and skills tool.
• One firm record - codes, disciplines, certifications - supplies the eligibility facts every submission requires.

This is exactly the reuse the project reference manager is built for: store each project and person once, and assemble a tailored SOQ, a capability statement, or an SF 330 from the same source rather than retyping them. For the tender-side equivalent in EU and other public procurement, see project references for tenders.

Common SOQ mistakes

The errors that lose the shortlist repeat across firms:

1. Ignoring the RFQ’s structure. A house-template SOQ that does not follow the solicitation’s criteria forces the evaluator to hunt - and scores lower for it.
2. Leading with size instead of relevance. Your biggest projects lose to your best-matched ones. Lead with fit.
3. Generic key-personnel resumes. Resumes that do not connect the named people to comparable projects fail to prove the team can do this work.
4. Exceeding the page limit. Many buyers stop reading - or disqualify - at the stated limit.
5. Stale or unreachable references. A reference contact who is not expecting a call, or whose details are wrong, undermines the whole package.
6. Rebuilding from the last SOQ. Copying a previous submission imports its stale data and off-target framing. Assemble each SOQ fresh from current records.

Build your statement of qualifications from your data

A statement of qualifications is only as fast and as accurate as the project and personnel data behind it. Firms that store the documents redo the work every time; firms that store the data reselect and assemble. SUNAGO’s project reference manager keeps each project, reference, and person in one structured record, so relevant-experience sections, key-personnel resumes, and reusable firm facts stay current and ready for the next RFQ. Build these from your projects automatically - create a free SUNAGO account.