By Chanuka Jeewantha · Published · Updated
An Australian resume looks similar to a UK CV or a US resume at a glance and behaves differently underneath. It runs longer, it expects referees to be named rather than hidden, and for a large share of government, health and large-employer roles it is only half the application, with a separate key selection criteria response doing the other half of the work. This guide goes through the Australian format section by section, with the specific local details that differ from British, American and South Asian conventions. For the criteria response itself, see the dedicated guide to key selection criteria; for how to handle referees specifically, see the referees guide. For length and structure that apply everywhere, the global guide to CV length and the guide to writing a professional CV go deeper. This page is about the Australian shape.
The standard order of an Australian resume
Most working Australian resumes follow a consistent order, and departing from it needs a reason, such as a recent graduate leading with education because it is currently their strongest evidence.
- Contact details: name, phone with country code if overseas, email, city, LinkedIn URL
- Profile summary: three to five lines on your level, specialism and direction
- Key skills: a short, grouped list of specific skills and tools, common and expected
- Work experience: most recent role first, with dates, employer, location and achievements
- Education: qualification, institution and dates, with grade stated as awarded
- Licences, certifications and professional memberships: relevant to the target occupation
- Referees: two, named with role and current contact details, or noted as available on request
The header and what it should and should not include
An Australian header stays fairly minimal: full name, mobile number with the country code if you are outside Australia, a professional email, your city, and your LinkedIn URL. A full street address is not needed; your suburb or city, or a country and intended location if you are applying from abroad, is enough for a reader to judge distance or relocation.
What stays out is a personal details block: no photo by default, no date of birth, no marital status, no religion. None of it is prohibited by law the way some markets suggest, but it does not help a corporate or government application and it slightly signals a resume built for a different market.
Work rights earns a place that most personal details do not. A short line such as "Australian citizen" or "Permanent resident, full work rights" or the relevant visa subclass answers a question almost every Australian employer has to resolve before shortlisting.
Writing the profile summary and key skills
The profile summary sits directly under your contact details and should say, in three to five lines, who you are professionally, one or two pieces of evidence, and the role or direction you want next. Australian readers respond to plain, specific claims: a scope statement in AUD or a team size does more work than an adjective like "dynamic" or "results-driven".
A key skills section is common and useful, particularly for technical, healthcare and trades roles where an employer or ATS is scanning for named tools, systems, licences or clinical settings. Group skills by type rather than listing them alphabetically, and make sure each skill you list is also demonstrated somewhere in your experience section, not asserted on its own.
Work experience, length and the case for detail
Each role opens with a consistent line: job title, employer, location and dates, written as month and year. Under each employer, particularly an overseas one, a single line of context helps: what the organisation does, its size or sector, and your scope within it, since an Australian reader is unlikely to recognise a regional bank or a mid-size firm from another country by name.
This is where Australian convention diverges most clearly from a UK CV. Where two pages is a hard ceiling in the UK, an Australian resume can extend to three pages for an experienced professional, or four when a key selection criteria response or a longer technical project history is genuinely relevant. The test is not the page count, it is whether every section still earns its place: a three-page resume padded with duties an employer would assume anyway reads worse than a tight two-page one.
Bullets should state outcomes with scope rather than duties: "Reduced average patient wait times from 40 to 22 minutes across two clinics" carries more weight than "Responsible for patient flow". Recent roles get four to six bullets; roles from a decade or more ago shrink to one or two lines.
Education, licences and professional recognition
State your qualification as awarded, with institution, country and grade, whether that is a GPA, a class of degree, or a local grading system. Do not convert an overseas result into a guessed Australian equivalent. For regulated occupations, name the Australian body that assesses or registers your profession, such as AHPRA for health practitioners, ACS for ICT, Engineers Australia for engineering, or CPA Australia and CA ANZ for accounting, and state your status with that body accurately rather than implying full registration before it exists.
Licences relevant to the role, a driver's licence for a trades or logistics position, a working with children check, a white card for construction, belong in their own short section near the end, named exactly as they are issued.
Referees, spelling and the small details that mark origin
Where a UK CV drops referees entirely, an Australian resume more often names two directly, with their role and current contact details, once you have asked their permission. This is covered in full in the dedicated referees guide, but the short version is: pick people who directly supervised your work, tell them to expect a call, and list them rather than defaulting to "available on request" unless the job ad specifically asks you to hold that information back.
Spelling is the fastest tell of an imported resume. Australian English sits close to British spelling: organise, analyse, labour, centre, program only for a computer program (Australians still write "programme" for a schedule of events, matching British usage). American date formats and US spelling on a resume aimed at Australian employers are a small, avoidable mismatch that a careful reader notices immediately.
The short version
- Follow the standard order: contact details, profile, skills, experience, education, licences, referees.
- Two to three pages suits most professionals; four is normal with a selection criteria response.
- Name two referees directly, with permission, rather than defaulting to "available on request".
- State overseas qualifications as awarded and name the relevant Australian assessing or registration body.
- Use Australian English and day/month/year dates throughout.
Official sources
Orientation only, not legal or immigration advice. Rules change: always check the official source.