How to Write a Resume in Australia 2026

How Long Should an Australian Resume Be?

Australian resumes are typically 2-3 pages for experienced professionals and 1-2 pages for graduates or entry-level candidates. If you are just starting out, our guide on how to write a resume with no experience shows how to fill those pages with transferable skills. Unlike the US, where one page is standard, Australian hiring managers expect more detail — but don't pad it out unnecessarily. Not sure whether to call it a resume or a CV? In Australia, the two terms mean the same thing for most jobs.

What to Include in an Australian Resume

A strong Australian resume includes: contact details (name, phone, email, LinkedIn, suburb and state — no full street address needed), a professional summary of 3-4 sentences, work experience in reverse chronological order, education and qualifications, key skills, and optionally professional memberships or referees.

Contact Details — What to Include and What to Leave Out

Do include your name, phone number, professional email address, LinkedIn profile URL, and your suburb and state. Do not include your date of birth, photo, marital status, or nationality — these are not standard in Australia and including them can expose employers to discrimination risks.

Professional Summary

Open with a 3-4 sentence professional summary that positions you clearly for the role. Avoid generic phrases like 'hardworking team player.' Instead, lead with your years of experience, your specialist area, and one or two key achievements. For example: 'Senior project manager with 8 years of experience delivering infrastructure projects across Queensland. Proven track record of delivering on time and under budget, including a $4M road upgrade completed 6 weeks ahead of schedule.'

Work Experience

List roles in reverse chronological order (most recent first). For each role include: job title, employer name, location (suburb/state), dates (month and year), and 4-6 bullet points describing your responsibilities and achievements. Quantify achievements wherever possible — numbers, percentages, and dollar figures stand out to both ATS systems and hiring managers. If your work history includes an employment gap, see our guide on how to explain a career gap on your Australian resume.

How to write an achievement bullet point

The single most common weakness in Australian resumes is bullet points that describe duties rather than results. A hiring manager already knows roughly what a payroll officer does; what they cannot guess is how well you did it. A reliable formula is action verb, then what you did, then the measurable outcome.

• Weak: "Responsible for managing the payroll system."
• Strong: "Managed fortnightly payroll for 340 staff across three states, reducing processing errors by 62% over 12 months by rebuilding the award interpretation rules."
• Weak: "Assisted with customer enquiries."
• Strong: "Resolved an average of 45 customer enquiries daily, maintaining a 94% first-contact resolution rate against a team target of 85%."
• Weak: "Involved in the office relocation project."
• Strong: "Coordinated the relocation of a 120-person office over one weekend, delivered $18,000 under budget with no business downtime on the Monday."

If you genuinely do not have numbers, use scale or frequency instead — team size, budget managed, number of sites, how often. Anything that gives the reader a sense of proportion is better than an unqualified verb.

Australian-Specific Things to Include

A few items belong on an Australian resume that would look out of place elsewhere, and leaving them off can quietly cost you interviews:

• Working rights — if you are not a citizen or permanent resident, state your visa status and work entitlement plainly near your contact details. Recruiters screen for this early and ambiguity gets applications set aside.
• Licences and tickets — White Card for construction, Responsible Service of Alcohol for hospitality, forklift or heavy vehicle licences, Working with Children Check, and National Police Clearance where relevant. List these in their own short section.
• Professional registration — AHPRA registration for health practitioners, CPA or CA for accountants, Engineers Australia membership, admission to practice for lawyers, or state teacher registration. Include your registration number where you have one.
• Driver licence — worth including for roles involving travel or regional work, particularly in Western Australia and Queensland.
• Overseas qualification equivalence — if your degree was earned outside Australia, note the Australian equivalent where a skills assessment has established one.

How an Australian Resume Differs From US and UK Resumes

If you are adapting a resume written for another market, these are the differences that matter most. Australian resumes run two to three pages, where American resumes are typically held to one. Australian spelling conventions apply — "organised" rather than "organized", "programme" in some contexts, and "specialising" rather than "specializing". Dates are written day-month-year. Spell out Australian state abbreviations correctly (WA, NSW, VIC, QLD, SA, TAS, NT, ACT).

Australian resumes also omit personal details that remain common in parts of Europe and Asia — no photograph, date of birth, marital status, nationality or gender. This is not merely stylistic. Australian anti-discrimination law makes employers cautious about holding that information, and including it can genuinely count against you.

Adapting Your Resume for Government Roles

Public sector applications work differently. Your resume matters, but it is usually assessed alongside separate written responses to selection criteria, and those responses carry most of the weight in merit-based selection. Keep the resume factual and well-organised, mirror the capability language used in the job pack, and put your detailed evidence into the criteria responses rather than trying to compress it into bullet points. Our selection criteria examples for government jobs and STAR method guide cover how to structure those responses.

Australian Resume Format Tips

Use a clean, professional font such as Calibri, Arial, or Georgia at 10-12pt. Keep margins at 2cm. Use clear section headings. Avoid tables, text boxes, and graphics if applying through an online portal — these confuse ATS systems. Save as PDF unless the job ad specifically requests a Word document. For a full comparison of resume formats for Australian jobs, see our dedicated guide.

ATS Optimisation for Australian Job Applications

Most Australian employers with more than 50 staff use Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to filter resumes before a human sees them. To pass ATS screening: use keywords from the job description, avoid headers and footers for important information, use standard section headings, and submit in the file format requested.

Common Australian Resume Mistakes

• Including a photo (not standard in Australia)
• Using a US-style one-page resume
• Listing references with full contact details unprompted
• Using an unprofessional email address
• Failing to tailor the resume to each role

Frequently Asked Questions

How many pages should an Australian resume be in 2026?

Two to three pages for most experienced professionals; one to two pages for graduates. Unlike the United States where one page is the standard, Australian hiring managers expect more detail.

What personal information should I leave off an Australian resume?

Leave out your date of birth, photo, marital status, nationality, and religion. These are not standard on Australian resumes and including them can expose employers to unconscious bias — which most Australian employers actively try to avoid.

Should I list referees on my Australian resume?

Write "References available on request" or leave it out entirely. There is no need to include referee names and contact details on your resume — employers will ask for them at the appropriate stage of the process.

What is the best file format for an Australian resume — PDF or Word?

PDF is preferred for most applications because it preserves your formatting across all devices. Only submit a Word document if the job ad specifically requests it or if the employer's ATS is known to have trouble reading PDFs.

Do I need a different resume for each job application in Australia?

Yes — at minimum, tailor your Professional Summary, skills list, and key bullet points to match each role. A resume tailored to the specific job description significantly outperforms a generic one in both ATS screening and with human reviewers.

Should I put my visa or working rights on my Australian resume?

Yes, if you are not an Australian citizen or permanent resident. State it briefly near your contact details — for example, "Subclass 482 visa, full working rights until March 2028". Recruiters check working rights early in screening, and leaving it unclear is one of the most common reasons otherwise strong overseas applications are set aside.

Should I use Australian or American spelling on my resume?

Australian spelling, consistently. Use "organised", "specialised", "analyse", "centre" and "licence" (noun). It is a small detail, but American spelling throughout a resume signals to an Australian reader that the document was not written for them — and set your word processor's language to English (Australia) so autocorrect stops fighting you.

How far back should my work history go on an Australian resume?

Roughly 10 to 15 years in detail. Older roles can be condensed into a brief "Earlier career" section listing job title, employer and years only. This keeps the resume focused on relevant recent experience and reduces the risk of age-related bias.

Do I need to include a career objective on an Australian resume?

No. Career objectives have largely been replaced by the professional summary, which is more useful because it describes what you offer rather than what you want. Use three to four sentences summarising your experience, specialisation and strongest achievements.

Use AI to Optimise Your Australian Resume

ProfessionalResume.au's AI Resume Rewriter analyses your resume against the job description and rewrites your bullet points to match the language hiring managers and ATS systems are looking for — built specifically for the Australian job market. For more strategies, see our top 10 resume tips for Australian job seekers. Try it free.