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 ResumeNotice periods in Australia depend on whether you are resigning, being terminated, made redundant, covered by an award or enterprise agreement, or bound by a contract. That is where people get caught. They assume there is one universal rule. There is not. In practice, your notice period comes from your award, enterprise agreement, employment contract, or the National Employment Standards when your employer ends your employment. The real issue is not just how many weeks you owe or are owed. It is whether the notice is valid, whether it must be worked or paid out, what happens to final pay, and how your exit affects your professional reputation. I see candidates treat notice periods like admin. Employers often treat them like leverage. The truth sits somewhere in the middle, and you need to understand it before you resign, negotiate, or respond to termination.
A notice period is the time between the date employment is formally ended and the employee’s final day of work.
In Australia, notice periods usually apply in two situations:
When an employee resigns
When an employer ends employment through termination, dismissal or redundancy
The notice period gives both sides time to manage the transition. In theory, it allows the employer to hand over work, plan coverage and prepare final pay. For employees, it gives time to finish professionally, protect relationships and move into the next role without unnecessary drama.
In reality, notice periods can become messy because people confuse several different things:
The notice you must give when resigning
The notice your employer must give when terminating you
Whether notice must be worked or can be paid out
The most important thing to understand is that notice periods in Australia do not come from one single place for every employee.
Your notice period may be set by:
The National Employment Standards
A modern award
An enterprise agreement
Your employment contract
Company policy
A combination of these
The tricky part is that these sources do not always say the same thing.
For example, your contract might say four weeks’ notice. Your award might have a different minimum requirement. Your employer may have a policy that says resignations should be submitted in writing. The National Employment Standards set minimum notice obligations for employers when ending employment, but they do not automatically create the same resignation notice rule for every employee.
Whether your employer can send you home during notice
Whether unused leave is paid at the end
Whether your final pay can be reduced if you leave early
Whether your contract says something different from your award
This is why I always tell candidates not to rely on workplace folklore. “Everyone gives two weeks” is not a legal strategy. It is a workplace myth with a confident voice.
That is why the first practical step is always this:
Check your contract, then check whether an award or enterprise agreement applies, then check the Fair Work minimums.
Do not just ask a colleague. They might be on a different contract, different classification, different award, different employment type or different level of seniority. Same company does not always mean same rules.
When an employee resigns in Australia, the notice they need to give is usually found in their award, enterprise agreement or employment contract.
Many employees assume the standard resignation notice period is two weeks. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it is one week. Sometimes it is four weeks. Sometimes senior employees are expected to give more. Sometimes award free employees may not have a notice requirement unless their contract says they do.
This is where candidates can accidentally create problems for themselves. They resign based on what feels normal instead of what their actual employment terms require.
A practical way to check your resignation notice is to look for wording such as:
“Termination by employee”
“Notice of resignation”
“Ending employment”
“Notice required by either party”
“Award conditions”
“Enterprise agreement”
Your notice period usually starts the day after you give notice and ends on your final day of employment.
That timing matters. If you resign at 5 pm on a Friday, do not assume Friday counts as day one. In many workplace contexts, the notice starts the next day. If dates matter because you are starting a new role, write the final working date clearly in your resignation email.
Good Example
“Please accept this email as formal notice of my resignation. Based on my required four week notice period, my final day of employment will be Friday, 19 July.”
That is clean. No emotional essay. No vague “around mid July”. No room for your manager to interpret the date creatively, which some absolutely will.
When an employer ends employment, the National Employment Standards set minimum notice periods for permanent employees based on continuous service.
The minimum employer notice periods are generally:
| Length of continuous service | Minimum notice period |
| ----------------------------------- | --------------------- |
| 1 year or less | 1 week |
| More than 1 year and up to 3 years | 2 weeks |
| More than 3 years and up to 5 years | 3 weeks |
| More than 5 years | 4 weeks |
Employees over 45 years old may receive an extra week of notice if they have worked for the employer for at least two years.
This is the legal floor, not necessarily the full picture. Your award, enterprise agreement or contract may provide more generous notice. Some employers also offer more as part of redundancy or negotiated exits, especially for senior employees.
From a hiring reality perspective, employers usually think about notice in three layers:
What they are legally required to provide
What the contract or policy says
What will reduce risk, conflict or reputational damage
That last part is rarely said out loud. Employers may frame it as “supporting transition”, but behind the scenes they are often thinking about claims, morale, internal messaging, leadership optics and whether the exit could become messy.
Redundancy is not a magic word that removes notice requirements.
If your role is made redundant, your employer generally still needs to provide notice of termination or payment in lieu of notice. Redundancy pay is a separate entitlement from notice. This is where employees often misunderstand their final payout.
In a redundancy situation, there may be several different payments involved:
Notice or payment in lieu of notice
Redundancy pay if eligible
Unused annual leave
Long service leave if eligible under the relevant state or territory rules
Outstanding wages or salary
Other contractual entitlements
The mistake I see candidates make is looking at the total number and assuming it is correct because it looks large. A payout can look generous and still be wrong.
If you are made redundant, ask for the breakdown in writing. Not because you are being difficult, but because vague totals are where mistakes hide.
A proper redundancy breakdown should show what each payment relates to. If the employer cannot explain it clearly, that is a sign to slow down and check.
Yes, in many situations an employer can provide payment in lieu of notice instead of requiring you to work through the notice period.
Payment in lieu means the employer pays you for the notice period but ends the working relationship earlier. For example, if you are entitled to four weeks’ notice, the employer may decide to pay those four weeks rather than have you continue working.
This often happens when:
The employee has access to confidential information
The relationship has become strained
The employer wants a clean break
The employee is moving to a competitor
There is no useful work left to hand over
The business wants to reduce disruption
The employer does not want the employee influencing the team
Candidates sometimes take this personally. Sometimes it is personal. Often it is risk management.
When an employer says, “We think it is best if today is your last day,” what they often mean is, “We do not want this person sitting in the business while emotions, client relationships, internal politics or confidential information are still live.”
It does not automatically mean you did something wrong. It means the employer has decided the operational risk of keeping you around is higher than the benefit of having you work the notice period.
Gardening leave is when you remain employed during your notice period but are told not to attend work or perform duties. You may still be paid, still bound by your employment obligations and still technically employed until the notice period ends.
This is more common in senior roles, sales roles, recruitment, client facing roles, executive positions and jobs involving commercially sensitive information.
During gardening leave, you may be restricted from:
Starting work with a new employer
Contacting clients
Accessing systems
Attending the workplace
Representing the company
Working for a competitor
Using confidential information
This is where employees can get caught. They think, “I am not working, so I am free.” Not necessarily. If you are still employed, your obligations may still apply.
From a recruiter perspective, this matters when negotiating start dates. If a candidate tells me, “I can start immediately,” but they are actually on gardening leave for four weeks, that is not immediately. That is a compliance problem wearing a confident outfit.
Before promising a start date to a new employer, check whether your current employment has actually ended.
In some situations, annual leave can overlap with a notice period, but you should not assume you can simply disappear on leave after resigning.
If you want to take annual leave during notice, check your award, enterprise agreement, contract and employer approval requirements. Employers may agree, especially if the handover is simple. They may also refuse if they reasonably need you to work through the transition.
This is one of those areas where the legal answer and the practical answer are not always the same.
Legally, there may be rules around leave and notice. Practically, if you resign and immediately try to take your whole notice period as leave, your employer may question whether you are acting reasonably. That can affect references, relationships and final handover discussions.
My practical advice is simple: if you want leave during notice, ask clearly and put the agreed arrangement in writing.
For example:
Good Example
“I understand my final employment date remains Friday, 19 July. As discussed, I would like to take approved annual leave from Monday, 8 July to Friday, 12 July, with my final working handover completed before that date.”
That wording separates the final employment date from the final active working date. That matters.
When employment ends in Australia, final pay usually includes outstanding wages and any unused annual leave. Depending on your situation, it may also include notice paid out, redundancy pay, long service leave, commissions, bonuses, allowances or other contractual amounts.
The part employees often forget is that final pay is not just “my last salary”. It is a reconciliation of what you are owed at the end of employment.
You should check:
Salary or wages up to the final day
Unused annual leave
Annual leave loading if applicable
Notice paid out if not worked
Redundancy pay if applicable
Long service leave if eligible
Commission or incentive payments if contractually owed
Expense reimbursements
Deductions and whether they are lawful
Superannuation timing
Final pay disputes often happen because the employee and employer are talking about different things. The employee says, “My final pay is wrong.” The employer says, “Payroll processed your termination.” Neither sentence proves anything.
Ask for a payslip and breakdown. Calmly. In writing. With dates.
Sometimes, but not always.
This is one of the biggest misunderstandings around notice periods in Australia. Employers cannot simply punish you because they are annoyed you left quickly. Whether money can be withheld depends on the award, enterprise agreement, contract and the specific payment being withheld.
Some awards or agreements may allow deductions from wages if an employee does not provide the required minimum notice. But this does not mean every employer can automatically deduct whatever they like.
Employees also need to be careful here. Leaving without enough notice can create financial and professional consequences.
I understand why people do it. Sometimes the workplace is toxic. Sometimes the new job wants an urgent start. Sometimes the manager has been unbearable and the thought of another two weeks feels like volunteering for psychological tax.
But before you leave early, check the actual rules. The phrase “they cannot do anything” is often said by people who will not be paying your bills if they are wrong.
Casual employees generally do not have the same notice obligations as permanent employees, although the exact situation can depend on the award, agreement, contract or workplace arrangement.
In practical terms, casual employment is usually more flexible. But that does not mean you should handle it badly.
If you are a casual employee and you want to stop accepting shifts, give reasonable notice where you can. It protects your reputation and keeps the door open.
Recruitment reality: references are not only formal. People remember whether you left professionally. Australia can be a smaller market than people think, especially in industries like healthcare, education, retail management, construction, mining, logistics, professional services and government contracting.
You do not need to overperform loyalty to an employer who has given you insecure work. But you also do not need to burn an easy bridge for no benefit.
You can resign without working the required notice, but that does not mean there are no consequences.
Resigning without notice may be appropriate in limited situations, such as serious safety concerns, unlawful conduct, severe workplace issues or circumstances where continuing is genuinely not reasonable. But if you simply prefer not to work the notice period, you need to understand the risk.
Possible consequences include:
Deductions if allowed by the applicable award or agreement
Loss of goodwill with the employer
A weaker reference
Disputes over final pay
Delayed handover issues
Damage to professional relationships
Contractual consequences in more senior roles
This is where I separate emotional satisfaction from strategic decision making.
There are times when leaving immediately is the right call. Your health, safety and dignity matter. But if the only reason is “I cannot be bothered”, that is usually short term relief with long term mess attached.
If you need to leave early, try to negotiate it properly.
Good Example
“I understand my notice period is four weeks. Due to personal circumstances, I would like to request an earlier final date of Friday, 5 July. I am happy to complete a structured handover before then and document current priorities to reduce disruption.”
That gives your employer something to work with. It does not guarantee approval, but it sounds like an adult conversation rather than a workplace mic drop.
If you resign and give the correct notice, your employer may decide they do not want you to work through the full period. Depending on the circumstances, they may pay out the remaining notice, place you on gardening leave or agree to an earlier end date.
The key question is whether the early finish is your choice or the employer’s choice.
If you request to leave early and the employer agrees, the arrangement should be confirmed in writing.
If the employer tells you to finish early after you have given proper notice, you should ask whether you will be paid for the balance of the notice period.
Do not rely on hallway conversations for this. A manager saying, “Don’t worry, payroll will sort it out” is not the same as a written agreement. Payroll can only process what the business tells them to process. Payroll is not a mind reader with a spreadsheet.
Ask politely:
Good Example
“Can you please confirm whether my employment will still end on the original resignation date, or whether the company is ending my employment earlier and paying out the remaining notice period?”
That one sentence can save a lot of confusion.
When you accept a new job, your start date should be based on your actual notice obligations, not the date your new employer wants most.
This is a common candidate mistake. A candidate gets excited, wants to impress the new employer and says they can start in two weeks. Then they check their contract and discover they owe four weeks. Now they look unreliable before they have even started.
A better answer is:
Good Example
“My notice period is four weeks, so my earliest realistic start date would be after that. I can confirm the exact date once I have formally resigned.”
That sounds professional. It also protects you.
Good employers understand notice periods. In the Australian job market, four weeks is common for many professional roles, and longer notice periods can apply for senior roles. If an employer pressures you to breach your current obligations, pay attention. That tells you something about how they may treat obligations once you work for them.
A hiring manager who says, “Can’t you just leave earlier?” may simply be under pressure. But a hiring manager who expects you to behave badly towards your current employer should not be shocked when employees eventually behave badly towards them too. Funny how that works.
Notice periods are not complicated because the concept is difficult. They become complicated because people act on assumptions.
The most common mistakes I see are:
Assuming two weeks is always enough
Resigning verbally without confirming the final date in writing
Forgetting to check the award or enterprise agreement
Promising a new employer an unrealistic start date
Confusing final working day with final employment date
Assuming unused annual leave replaces notice
Leaving early without understanding pay consequences
Thinking casual and permanent notice rules are the same
Not asking for a final pay breakdown
Getting emotional in the resignation email
Assuming the employer can reject a resignation
Assuming payment in lieu is unfair or suspicious
Not keeping a copy of resignation correspondence
The biggest mistake is treating notice as a personality test instead of a contractual and practical transition process.
You do not need to be overly sentimental. You do need to be clear.
Most employees think the notice period is just the awkward bit after resigning. Employers see it differently.
During notice, employers often assess:
Whether you remain professional
Whether your handover is useful
Whether you protect confidential information
Whether you influence other staff negatively
Whether you try to take clients, candidates or business contacts
Whether you complete critical work
Whether your resignation creates operational risk
Whether they would rehire you
Whether they would give a positive reference
This matters because your final weeks can shape the story people tell about you.
I have seen strong employees damage years of goodwill in the final ten days because they mentally checked out, became careless or decided honesty meant suddenly airing every grievance in dramatic detail.
There is a difference between leaving honestly and leaving messily.
If you want to raise serious concerns, do it properly. If you just want to unload because you are annoyed, write the email, do not send it, drink water, and remember that future you still needs references.
A professional resignation does not need to be long. It needs to be clear.
Your resignation should include:
A clear statement that you are resigning
The date you are giving notice
Your proposed final day of employment
A short line about handover
A calm and professional tone
You do not need to explain every reason. You do not need to write a tribute to the organisation. You do not need to pretend the culture was inspiring if it was actually held together by Outlook invites and denial.
Keep it simple.
Good Example
“Please accept this email as formal notice of my resignation from my position as Marketing Coordinator. Based on my required four week notice period, my final day of employment will be Friday, 19 July. I will work with the team to complete a clear handover of current projects before my departure.”
That is enough.
A resignation email is not the place to negotiate your entire emotional history with the company. Save that for an exit interview if you choose to attend one, and even then, be strategic.
Before resigning, do these checks:
Read your employment contract
Check whether an award or enterprise agreement applies
Confirm your required notice period
Check bonus, commission or incentive conditions
Check restraint clauses if you are joining a competitor
Confirm your new offer in writing
Clarify your new start date
Save personal documents from work systems where allowed
Remove personal files from company devices where appropriate
Prepare a basic handover list
Think about who you want as a future reference
The offer in writing point matters. Do not resign because someone verbally said, “The offer is basically approved.” Basically approved is not employed. It is vibes with a recruitment process attached.
Wait until you have the formal offer, salary, title, start date and conditions confirmed.
Your notice period can affect your future references more than people realise.
A formal reference may only confirm your title and dates. But informal reputation still matters. Hiring managers talk. Recruiters remember. Former colleagues move companies. Industries overlap.
This does not mean you should tolerate poor treatment just to keep everyone happy. It means you should leave in a way that protects your own future.
The best exits usually have three qualities:
The final date is clear
The handover is practical
The tone stays professional
If the employer behaves badly, document everything. Stay calm. Get advice if needed. Do not match their chaos just to prove a point. It rarely helps.
You should consider getting advice if:
Your employer is withholding final pay
You are being terminated without notice
You are dismissed for serious misconduct and disagree
You are being made redundant but the role may not be genuinely redundant
Your employer pressures you to resign
You are unsure whether a deduction is lawful
Your notice period conflicts across contract, award or agreement
You are on workers compensation, parental leave or sick leave
You are asked to sign a deed of release
You are a senior employee with restraints or gardening leave terms
Some notice period issues are simple. Others are legal issues pretending to be admin.
If money, reputation, legal rights or future employment are at stake, do not rely on workplace opinions. Check Fair Work, your award, your agreement, your contract, and where needed, speak with an employment lawyer or union.
Use this checklist before resigning or responding to termination.
Confirm whether you are permanent, casual, fixed term or maximum term
Check your contract for notice wording
Check the relevant award or enterprise agreement
Confirm your exact notice period
Write your resignation date and final employment date clearly
Do not promise a new employer a start date until you check your notice
Ask whether notice will be worked, paid out or treated as gardening leave
Confirm any early finish arrangement in writing
Request a final pay breakdown
Check annual leave, leave loading and long service leave where relevant
Keep copies of resignation, termination and final pay documents
Stay professional during handover
Get advice if something does not look right
The goal is not to become difficult. The goal is to avoid being casual with something that affects your money, reputation and next job.
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