How to Write an Australian Resume When You're New to Australia

You moved to Australia, you started applying for jobs, and then... nothing. No callbacks. It's a common and demoralising experience, and most of the time it has very little to do with you. It's your resume. Australian employers expect a particular format, and a resume built for your home country often gets screened out before a person even reads it.

The good news: these rules are learnable, and once your resume follows them, you usually start getting replies. Here's how to write an Australian resume when you're new here.

Why your overseas resume isn't working

Every country has its own resume conventions. A CV that worked perfectly in Europe, South America or Asia can look wrong to an Australian hiring manager — or get filtered out by the software many employers use to scan applications (an ATS, or Applicant Tracking System). The fixes below are mostly small, but together they make a real difference.

1. No photo, no date of birth, no personal details

This is the single most common mistake people new to Australia make. In many countries, a photo on your resume is normal. In Australia, it isn't — and it can actually count against you. Because of anti-discrimination norms, Australian employers generally don't want personal details that could expose them to bias: no photo, no date of birth, no marital status, no nationality, no religion, no gender. Leave all of it off. Your resume should be about your skills and your work, full stop.

2. Use the Australian format

A typical Australian resume is clean and straightforward, usually in this order:

• Name and contact details — an Australian phone number (get a local SIM early) and an email. A suburb and state, like "Bondi, NSW", is enough; you don't need your full street address.
• A short professional summary — two or three lines on who you are and what you're looking for.
• Key skills — a short list, tailored to the job.
• Work experience — most recent first, with your role, the employer, the dates, and a few bullet points on what you actually did.
• Education and certificates.
• References — "Available on request" is fine.

Keep it to one or two pages. Australian employers prefer concise; they don't want a five-page document.

3. Put your tickets and certificates near the top

In Australia, certain jobs legally require a certificate, and employers screen for them closely. If you have one, don't bury it on page two — put it near the top where it's one of the first things they see:

• RSA (Responsible Service of Alcohol) — needed for almost any hospitality role that involves serving alcohol: bars, cafes, restaurants, bottle shops. Many venues won't even call you without it.
• White Card — needed for most construction and building-site work.
• Barista, food safety or first aid certificates — useful for the relevant roles.

If you don't yet have the ticket a job needs, getting it is often the single fastest way to become hirable. The RSA, for example, is a short course in most states.

4. Write in plain Australian English

If your resume reads like it was translated word-for-word, it can put employers off — not because your English needs to be perfect, but because clarity matters. Keep your sentences short and simple. Use Australian spelling where you can ("organise" not "organize", "centre" not "center"). When in doubt, plain and clear beats big words that don't quite land.

5. Be honest about your visa and any gaps

You don't have to lead with your visa, but many employers want to know your work rights, so being upfront usually helps:

• On a Working Holiday Visa (subclass 417 or 462), you can say so and note that you're available to start immediately. Employers in hospitality, farm work and retail are used to this and often value the flexibility.
• As an international student, you can mention you're available for part-time and casual work and reliable around your studies. (Student visa work-hour limits apply and can change — check your current visa conditions.)
• Travel gaps are normal for people new here. You don't need to hide them; a short honest note such as "travelling / relocating to Australia" is enough.

Never invent a visa status or work rights you don't have. Honesty here protects you.

6. Frame your availability the way employers expect

Many first jobs in Australia are casual — bar work, hospitality, warehouse, farm work, retail. Employers for these roles often care less about a polished career story and more about three things: Can you work the shifts? Are you reliable? Do you have the ticket? Make those answers easy to find. A simple line like "Available 7 days, including nights and weekends" can matter more than a clever summary.

7. Keep it ATS-friendly

Many employers run resumes through software before a human sees them. To get through it, keep the design simple: a standard layout, normal headings, no tables inside tables, no text trapped inside images, a common font, and save it as a PDF. Heavily-designed templates often confuse the scanner and get you filtered out. Simple and clear wins.

Your quick checklist

• No photo, no date of birth, no personal details
• One or two pages, clean layout
• Australian phone number and email at the top
• Tickets (RSA, White Card) near the top if you have them
• Plain, clear English with Australian spelling
• Work rights and availability stated honestly
• Saved as a simple PDF

A faster way to do all of this

Getting every one of these right by hand — in a new country, in a hurry, sometimes in your second or third language — is a lot. That's exactly why we built Aussie Resume: you answer a few simple questions and it produces a resume and cover letter in the Australian format, with the local rules already handled — no photo, work rights framed properly, tickets in the right place, ATS-friendly.

You can preview it for free and only pay when you're happy with what you see.