Choose from a wide range of NEWCV resume templates and customize your NEWCV design with a single click.
Use ATS-optimised Resume and resume templates that pass applicant tracking systems. Our Resume builder helps recruiters read, scan, and shortlist your Resume faster.
Use professional field-tested resume templates that follow the exact Resume rules employers look for.
Create Resume
Use professional field-tested resume templates that follow the exact Resume rules employers look for.
Create ResumeAn ATS friendly resume in Australia is a clean, simply formatted resume that can be read properly by applicant tracking systems and understood quickly by recruiters and hiring managers. The best ATS friendly resume template avoids tables, text boxes, graphics, columns, icons, photos, headers, footers, and unusual fonts. But here is the part many candidates miss: passing the ATS is not the goal. Getting shortlisted is the goal.
I see plenty of resumes that are technically ATS compatible but still weak because the content is vague, overstuffed, or positioned badly. A good Australian ATS friendly resume needs three things working together: readable formatting, the right keywords, and strong evidence that you can do the job. The system may help sort applications, but people still make the hiring decision. Your resume has to satisfy both.
An ATS friendly resume is designed so applicant tracking systems can scan, parse, and categorise your information without misreading it. In practical terms, that means your resume should be easy for software to read and easy for a recruiter to skim.
That sounds simple, but many candidates misunderstand it. They assume an ATS friendly resume means a boring resume, or a resume stuffed with keywords, or a resume that needs to beat a robot before a human sees it. That is not quite how hiring works.
In Australia, most medium and large employers use some form of applicant tracking system to manage applications. Recruitment agencies use them too. The ATS stores your application, helps recruiters search for relevant terms, tracks hiring stages, and keeps candidate records organised. It is not usually sitting there making a magical yes or no decision with a sinister little clipboard.
The real issue is this: if your resume is badly formatted, the ATS may not read it properly. If your resume lacks the right role language, recruiters may not find it when searching. If your resume is vague, the hiring manager may not see why you are worth interviewing. Different problems, same result: you do not get shortlisted.
An ATS friendly resume should therefore be:
Easy for applicant tracking software to parse
Easy for recruiters to scan in seconds
Clear enough for hiring managers to understand your fit
Use this structure for most Australian job applications. It works well for professionals, graduates, career changers, skilled migrants, returning workers, and candidates applying through job boards, employer portals, or recruitment agencies.
Place your contact details at the very top of the resume in the main body of the document, not in the header section.
Include:
Full name
Mobile number
Professional email address
City and state
LinkedIn profile URL, if relevant and up to date
Portfolio, website, or GitHub link, if relevant to the role
Do not include:
Specific enough to match the role without sounding copied from the job ad
Structured in a way that makes your experience, skills, and achievements obvious
The best resume template is not the fanciest one. It is the one that removes friction from the hiring decision.
Photo
Date of birth
Marital status
Full residential address
Nationality, unless it is directly relevant to work rights
Personal identification numbers
In Australia, a photo is not expected for most professional resumes. It can also create unnecessary distraction. Hiring managers are not trying to assess your LinkedIn headshot. They are trying to work out whether you can do the job.
Good Example
Priya Sharma
Melbourne, VIC
0412 345 678
linkedin.com/in/priyasharma
Weak Example
Priya Sharma
Full address, date of birth, marital status, photo, multiple phone numbers, decorative icons, and a personal quote
The weak version creates noise. The good version gives the recruiter exactly what they need.
Your professional summary should be short, specific, and aligned with the role. Think of it as your positioning statement, not your life story.
A strong summary usually includes:
Your profession or target role
Years or depth of relevant experience, if useful
Core areas of expertise
Industry or role context
One or two strengths linked to the job
Keep it to three to five lines. Do not write a generic paragraph about being hardworking, passionate, reliable, and a team player. I see those words constantly, and they rarely influence a hiring decision because they do not prove anything.
Good Example
Commercially focused HR Advisor with experience supporting employee relations, performance management, policy interpretation, and workforce planning across multi-site environments. Confident partnering with managers, resolving people issues early, and improving HR processes without making everything more complicated than it needs to be.
Weak Example
I am a passionate and hardworking professional with excellent communication skills who works well in a team and independently. I am looking for an opportunity to grow and contribute to a successful organisation.
The weak version could belong to almost anyone. The good version tells me what kind of work the candidate has actually done.
The key skills section is important for both ATS keyword matching and human scanning. But this is where candidates often go wrong. They either list every skill they have ever touched, or they copy the job ad so closely that the resume starts looking desperate.
Use a focused skills section with terms that genuinely match your experience and the role.
For example, for an administration role:
Diary and inbox management
Data entry and records management
Customer service
Document preparation
Microsoft Office
Stakeholder communication
Accounts support
Scheduling and coordination
For a project coordinator role:
Project coordination
Risk and issue tracking
Stakeholder updates
Project documentation
Reporting and dashboards
Budget tracking
Vendor coordination
Agile or waterfall environments
Recruiter reality: I do not shortlist someone because they have a pretty skills list. I use the skills list to quickly understand whether their background is in the right lane. The proof still needs to appear in the work experience section.
This is the most important part of your resume. The ATS may help surface your application, but the work experience section is where recruiters and hiring managers decide whether your background makes sense.
Use this format:
Job Title
Company Name, Location
Month Year to Month Year
Then add a short context line if the company or role is not immediately obvious.
Under each role, include a mix of responsibilities and achievements. Do not turn your resume into a position description. Hiring managers already know what most job titles involve. They want to know what you handled, how complex it was, what tools you used, who you worked with, and what changed because of your work.
Strong bullet points often show:
Scope
Tools
Stakeholders
Volume
Complexity
Outcomes
Improvements
Commercial or operational impact
Good Example
Managed end-to-end recruitment coordination for corporate and operational roles, including interview scheduling, candidate communication, reference checks, and onboarding documentation
Supported hiring managers across multiple departments by preparing shortlist packs, tracking recruitment activity, and keeping candidate progress visible during busy hiring periods
Improved candidate follow-up by introducing clearer email templates and tracking steps, reducing missed updates and avoidable candidate drop-off
Maintained accurate records in the applicant tracking system, ensuring candidate details, interview notes, and compliance documents were complete and easy to retrieve
Weak Example
Responsible for recruitment
Helped with interviews
Used ATS
Good communication skills
Worked in a busy environment
The weak example technically includes keywords, but it gives me very little confidence. The good example shows what the candidate did, how they worked, and why it mattered.
For most Australian resumes, education should appear after professional experience unless you are a graduate, student, or applying for a role where your qualification is the main selling point.
Include:
Qualification name
Institution
Location, if helpful
Completion year, if recent or relevant
Relevant licences, certifications, or registrations
For example:
Bachelor of Business, Human Resource Management
RMIT University, Melbourne
Completed 2021
For regulated or technical roles, make sure licences and registrations are clear. For example, nurses, teachers, electricians, accountants, engineers, and childcare workers may need specific registrations, checks, or certifications.
Recruiter reality: if a role requires a qualification and I cannot find it quickly, I have to pause. Pausing is bad. Your resume should not make the recruiter go on a scavenger hunt.
Add this section if relevant. Do not include random online courses unless they strengthen your fit.
Useful inclusions may include:
First Aid Certificate
Working with Children Check
White Card
RSA
Forklift Licence
CPA or CA status
Agile, Scrum, or PRINCE2 certification
Software platforms
Programming languages
CRM, ERP, HRIS, ATS, or accounting systems
Be specific. “Computer skills” is too vague. “Advanced Excel including pivot tables, lookups, and reporting dashboards” is more useful.
Only include optional sections when they support the job application.
Useful optional sections may include:
Selected projects
Volunteer experience
Professional memberships
Publications
Languages
Awards
Security clearance
Work rights
Avoid sections that add personality but no hiring value. Hobbies can occasionally help for graduate, hospitality, community, or culture-heavy roles, but for most professional applications, they are not needed.
ATS friendly formatting is not complicated. The problem is that many resume templates online are designed to look good in a preview, not to survive an employer portal.
Follow these formatting rules:
Use a simple, single-column layout
Use standard section headings
Use a readable font such as Arial, Calibri, Aptos, Helvetica, or Times New Roman
Keep font size around 10.5 to 12 points for body text
Use bold text for headings and role titles
Use normal bullet points
Avoid tables, text boxes, columns, graphics, icons, and charts
Avoid putting key information in headers or footers
Use consistent spacing
Save as a Word document or PDF, depending on the employer’s instructions
Name the file clearly
A good file name looks like this:
Priya Sharma Resume HR Advisor.pdf
A weak file name looks like this:
Resume final final new version 3 updated REALLY final.pdf
Yes, recruiters notice. No, it does not destroy your application. But it does quietly suggest chaos, and that is not usually the brand we are going for.
Here is the clean structure I would recommend for most Australian candidates.
Full Name
City, State
Mobile Number
Email Address
LinkedIn URL
Professional Summary
Three to five lines explaining your role fit, relevant background, and strongest value for the target job.
Key Skills
Skill aligned with the role
Skill aligned with the role
Skill aligned with the role
Skill aligned with the role
Skill aligned with the role
Skill aligned with the role
Professional Experience
Job Title
Company Name, Location
Month Year to Month Year
Short context line about the role, company, team, or scope if helpful.
Strong responsibility or achievement with scope and context
Strong responsibility or achievement with tools, stakeholders, or process detail
Strong responsibility or achievement showing measurable or practical impact
Strong responsibility or achievement aligned with the target role
Previous Job Title
Company Name, Location
Month Year to Month Year
Relevant responsibility or achievement
Relevant responsibility or achievement
Relevant responsibility or achievement
Education
Qualification Name
Institution Name
Completion Year, if relevant
Certifications and Licences
Certification, licence, or registration
Certification, licence, or registration
Technical Skills
System, tool, platform, or software
System, tool, platform, or software
Additional Information
This template works because it respects how hiring teams actually read resumes. Recruiters scan for match. Hiring managers look for proof. Applicant tracking systems need clean structure. This format supports all three.
A recruiter does not read your resume like a book. We read it more like a risk assessment with a stopwatch.
That may sound harsh, but it is useful to understand. During the first screen, I am usually trying to answer a few quick questions:
Is this person in the right profession or job family?
Have they done similar work before?
Are they at the right level for the role?
Do they have the required skills, qualifications, or work rights?
Is their experience recent enough?
Are there unexplained gaps or confusing moves?
Does the resume make sense for the salary, location, and expectations of the role?
Can I confidently present this candidate to a hiring manager?
This is why clarity matters so much. A beautiful resume that makes me work hard is not doing its job. A plain resume that shows relevant experience quickly is often much stronger.
Hiring managers look slightly differently. They are usually asking:
Can this person solve the problem I am hiring for?
Have they worked in a similar environment?
Will they need too much support?
Do they understand the pace, complexity, or stakeholder demands of the role?
Will they fit the team without creating unnecessary management headaches?
This is where many candidates lose opportunities. They focus on describing themselves, but hiring teams are evaluating fit, risk, evidence, and relevance.
ATS keywords matter because recruiters and systems use job-related language to search, filter, and assess applications. But keyword stuffing is not strategy. It is usually obvious, and it can make your resume weaker.
Good keyword use means reflecting the language of the role naturally throughout your resume.
For example, if a job ad asks for stakeholder management, reporting, CRM experience, and process improvement, those terms should appear where they genuinely match your background. Not in a random block of keywords. Not repeated twenty times. Not hidden in white text, which is still terrible advice and needs to be retired permanently.
Use keywords in:
Professional summary
Key skills section
Work experience bullet points
Technical skills section
Certifications section
The strongest keywords are usually tied to evidence.
Weak Example
Stakeholder management
Stakeholder management
Stakeholder management
Good Example
The good version contains the keyword, but it also proves the candidate has actually done the work.
Tailoring your resume does not mean rewriting the whole document every time. That is how candidates end up exhausted, inconsistent, and quietly resentful before they even get an interview.
A practical tailoring process looks like this:
Adjust your professional summary to match the target role
Reorder your key skills so the most relevant ones appear first
Add missing role-specific keywords if they genuinely apply
Strengthen the first few bullet points under your most recent role
Remove or reduce details that do not support the application
Make sure required qualifications, licences, or systems are easy to find
The first half of page one matters most. That is where the recruiter decides whether to keep reading properly or move into polite rejection mode.
Here is what I usually tell candidates: do not tailor your resume to impress the ATS. Tailor it so a tired recruiter can immediately see why you belong in the shortlist.
That is the real game.
Most ATS resume problems are not dramatic. They are small issues that create friction. And in recruitment, friction is expensive.
Many online templates use columns, tables, icons, graphics, and text boxes. They look modern, but they can confuse applicant tracking systems. Your job title might be read in the wrong order. Your dates might separate from your roles. Your contact details might be missed.
If a recruiter has to manually piece together your background, you have already made the process harder than it needed to be.
Many candidates write resumes around what they are proud of. That is understandable, but hiring teams are not only asking what you have done. They are asking whether your background solves their problem.
Your resume should be written through the lens of the target role.
Words like motivated, reliable, passionate, enthusiastic, and hardworking are not automatically bad. They are just weak without evidence.
Instead of saying you are organised, show what you coordinated. Instead of saying you are a strong communicator, show who you communicated with and what outcome it created.
Some candidates bury their strongest experience halfway down page two. This happens often with career changers, skilled migrants, and people returning to the workforce.
Recruiters should not have to discover your relevance accidentally. Bring the most relevant information forward.
More information does not always create more confidence. Sometimes it creates doubt because the reader cannot work out what matters.
A strong ATS friendly resume is not a complete career archive. It is a targeted business case for why you should be interviewed.
Yes, mirror relevant language. No, do not paste the job ad back at the employer. Recruiters can see when a resume has been artificially inflated to match a role.
The resume still needs to sound like your actual experience.
Candidates often worry that a simple ATS friendly resume looks too plain. I understand the concern, especially when social media is full of dramatic resume makeovers that look like magazine layouts.
But hiring is not a design competition for most roles.
What works better than fancy formatting is clear positioning.
Strong positioning means the reader can quickly understand:
What role you are targeting
What level you operate at
What environments you have worked in
What problems you solve
What tools, systems, or methods you use
What outcomes you have contributed to
Why your background makes sense for this job
A simple resume with strong content will outperform a beautiful resume with vague claims.
There are exceptions. Designers, creatives, marketers, and portfolio-based professionals may need visual presentation somewhere in the application process. But even then, I usually recommend having a clean ATS friendly resume plus a separate portfolio or website. Let the resume do the screening job. Let the portfolio do the creative proof.
Use the file format requested in the job ad or application portal. If no format is specified, PDF is usually safe for preserving layout, while Word can be useful for some recruitment agency systems.
In Australia, both PDF and Word are commonly accepted. The bigger issue is not the file type. It is whether the document itself is cleanly formatted.
Use PDF when:
The employer accepts PDF uploads
You want to preserve layout
Your formatting is simple and text-based
You are applying directly through a company website or job board
Use Word when:
The recruiter specifically requests it
The agency needs to edit, format, or brand candidate profiles
The portal struggles with PDF parsing
You are asked to submit a .doc or .docx file
Do not submit image-based PDFs where the text cannot be selected. If you cannot highlight and copy the text, there is a good chance the ATS may struggle too.
For most Australian professionals, two to three pages is normal. One page can work for graduates, early-career candidates, casual roles, or very focused applications. Senior candidates may need three pages, sometimes more for academic, government, technical, or project-heavy backgrounds.
The right length depends on relevance, not ego.
A good guide:
Graduate or entry-level: one to two pages
Early to mid-career professional: two pages
Experienced professional: two to three pages
Senior leader or specialist: three pages, if the content earns the space
Academic, research, medical, or government CV: longer may be appropriate
The mistake is not having a three-page resume. The mistake is having three pages of repeated responsibilities, generic claims, and old tasks that no longer support your target role.
Every section should answer the silent recruiter question: “Does this help me assess the candidate for this job?”
If it does not, cut it or reduce it.
The same template can work for different candidates, but the emphasis should change depending on your situation.
Put education, internships, placements, projects, volunteering, and technical skills higher if your paid experience is limited. Hiring managers are not expecting ten years of experience. They are looking for evidence of potential, reliability, communication, learning ability, and role-relevant exposure.
Focus on:
Relevant coursework
Internships or placements
Part-time work showing transferable skills
Projects
Tools and software
Customer service or teamwork experience
Availability and work rights, where relevant
Do not apologise for being early-career. Just make the relevant evidence easy to find.
Your resume needs to bridge the gap. Do not expect the recruiter to translate your experience for you.
Focus on:
Transferable skills that directly match the target role
Relevant projects, training, or certifications
Similar stakeholders, systems, or environments
Achievements that show adaptability
A clear professional summary explaining the shift
Career changers often make the mistake of either hiding their previous background or over-explaining it. You need a clear link between where you have been and where you are going.
Australian employers may not immediately recognise overseas companies, titles, or qualifications. That does not mean your experience is less valuable. It means your resume needs to provide more context.
Add short context where useful:
Company size or industry
Region or market scope
Equivalent responsibilities
Recognised systems or standards
Australian work rights
Local certifications, if required
Do not assume the hiring manager understands your previous market. Help them evaluate your experience without making them research it.
You do not need to confess every personal detail. But unexplained gaps can create questions, especially if they are recent or long.
Use simple, professional wording where needed:
Career break
Parental leave
Family responsibilities
Study and professional development
Relocation
Contract completion
The goal is not to over-explain. The goal is to remove unnecessary doubt.
Government applications may need more detail than private sector resumes, especially when selection criteria are involved. Still, the resume should be clean and ATS friendly.
Focus on:
Clear role scope
Stakeholder groups
Policy, compliance, or service delivery context
Systems and reporting
Measurable outcomes
Selection criteria alignment, where required
Do not rely on a generic private-sector resume for a government role. The evaluation process is often more structured, and your evidence needs to be easier to map against requirements.
Before submitting your resume, check it against this list.
Contact details are in the main body of the document
Resume uses a simple single-column layout
No tables, text boxes, graphics, icons, photos, headers, or footers contain important information
Section headings are standard and clear
Work history includes job title, company, location, and dates
Professional summary is specific to the target role
Key skills match the job ad without keyword stuffing
Bullet points show evidence, scope, tools, stakeholders, and outcomes
Required qualifications, licences, and work rights are easy to find
File name is professional
Resume length matches your career stage and relevance
Spelling uses Australian English
The first page clearly shows why you are suitable
The resume can be copied and pasted without turning into nonsense
That last test is useful. Copy your resume text into a plain text document. If the order becomes strange or important details disappear, the ATS may have the same problem.
This is the test I wish more candidates used before applying.
Look at your resume and ask:
Can I understand the candidate’s target role within ten seconds?
Can I see the most relevant experience on the first page?
Can I match the resume to the job ad without guessing?
Are the strongest achievements specific enough to be believable?
Does the resume show the level of responsibility clearly?
Would I feel confident sending this to a hiring manager?
Does anything create avoidable doubt?
That last question matters more than people realise. Hiring decisions are not only about positive evidence. They are also about risk. Confusing dates, vague job titles, unexplained gaps, inflated wording, messy formatting, and generic claims all create small doubts.
One small doubt may not matter. Ten small doubts become a rejection.
A strong ATS friendly resume reduces friction. It gives the recruiter enough confidence to keep you in the process and gives the hiring manager enough evidence to want a conversation.
An ATS friendly resume is not about tricking software. It is about making your experience easy to read, easy to understand, and easy to match to the job.
The candidates who do this well are not always the most qualified on paper. They are often the candidates who explain their value clearly. That matters because hiring teams are busy, imperfect, and often reviewing resumes under pressure. Your resume has to do more than exist in the system. It has to make the decision easier.
Use a clean format. Use the right keywords naturally. Show evidence. Remove anything that creates confusion. And remember that the ATS is only one part of the process. The real goal is not to pass a system. The real goal is to make a recruiter think, “Yes, this person makes sense for the role.”
That is what gets you shortlisted.
Written by Simar Malhi, a recruiter and headhunter with international recruitment experience. I write about CVs, job applications, hiring decisions, and the reality behind recruitment processes. My goal is to help candidates understand more honestly how employers, recruiters, and hiring managers actually select candidates.
Upload Resume
Import from Linkedin