13 — Eight Campaigns, No National Rules: Tailoring Your CV State by State

Part 13 of the AMC to Australia series. Previously: The Two Australian CVs, ALS, BLS and the $7,870 mistake, Failed the AMC MCQ, and PTE Exam Day

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Tasmania tells applicants for its statewide RMO campaign: "Applicants must use the CV template provided."

Queensland Health says its CV template is "our preferred template" — and that if you use your own, it only has to carry a signed, dated verification statement.

NSW Health publishes no junior doctor CV template at all, and adds: "There is no requirement to submit a cover letter with your application."

Western Australia asks for up to 500 words against each selection criterion. Tasmania says, in capitals, that a written statement addressing the selection criteria is "NOT required."

Same country. Same job. Same clinical year.

There is no Australian junior doctor application. There are eight of them, and the differences are not cosmetic — they change what you are allowed to send, how long it may be, whether a cover letter helps or is ignored, and in three states, whether you are eligible to apply at all.

The previous article covered the two documents every IMG needs: the signed compliance CV that satisfies Ahpra and credentialing, and the two-to-four page selection CV that a panel reads in ninety seconds. This one covers what happens when you take that selection CV and point it at more than one state — which almost every IMG does, because almost no IMG can afford to apply to one campaign and wait.

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There is no national campaign. Start by counting the systems

Before you edit a single line, work out which of four structures you are applying into. Everything else follows from this.

NSW is unusually blunt about this, because the misunderstanding is so common. From the NSW Health applicant guide, on whether you have to apply to each advertisement separately:

"Yes. As the positions are facility/network based you need to apply to each advertisement. Submitting a CV only will not get you a job regardless of what you have been told."

That sentence is written in the tone of an organisation that has answered the question too many times. NSW runs no central pool for general JMO roles. Preference matching exists, but only for a closed list of five specialty groups — Basic Physician Trainees, Surgical Skills Unaccredited Trainees, Surgical Skills SRMOs, Rural Preferential Recruitment, and Geriatric Medicine Advanced Trainees. If you are applying for an RMO job in NSW, you will not touch it.

The ACT is the same shape for a different reason: Canberra Health Services is a single employer, but it advertises role by role. "If you are interested in more than one position, you must submit a separate application for each role."

Queensland sits at the opposite pole. One application, five preferences, once a year: "You can only submit one application per year through the online system… If you submit multiple applications … your additional applications will be withdrawn." And a warning that costs people the whole campaign: "If you're not shortlisted by any of your 5 preferenced facilities, you won't be contacted at all." Five preferences is not a wish list. It is your entire Queensland year.

Victoria is the odd one, and the one most often described wrongly. The Postgraduate Medical Council of Victoria now runs the Allocation and Placement Service — the page title reads "Allocation and Placement Service (formerly the Computer Matching Service)". It is "a purely mathematical process", and PMCV is explicit that "the actual selection and ranking of Candidates is the sole responsibility of the employing Health Service concerned." The match allocates. It does not assess. Which means the document that decides your Victorian outcome is the one you send to the health service, not to PMCV.

One more Victorian trap, and it catches everybody: PMCV names a match by the year it runs, not the year it fills. The "2026 PGY2 Match" fills posts for the 2027 clinical year.

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The calendar is staggered, and you are probably reading this in the wrong month

Every 2027 campaign in the country opened and closed during 2026, on different dates, and not one of them waits for another.

Three things matter in that table more than the dates themselves.

The May–June block. Western Australia, Tasmania, Queensland and South Australia all opened within sixteen days of each other and all closed within nine. If your Ahpra paperwork lands in July, you did not miss one campaign. You missed four.

NSW starts earlier than its own headline. The main round opened 14 July 2026, but NSW says "Certain specialties begin advertising positions from early May 2026", and the published dates table shows Provisional Fellow roles advertising from 22 May 2026. An IMG who waits for "the July opening" has already missed a tranche.

Two doors are open as this is published. The ACT RMO advertisement closes 27 September 2026. The NSW second round opens 29 September 2026 — NSW confirms the opening date but has not published a closing date, so second-round advertisements carry their own. If you are reading this in September 2026 without a 2027 job, those are the two live options in the country, and they are the two jurisdictions that make you apply advertisement by advertisement. Which is a problem if you have spent three months building one polished application for a centralised campaign.

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Templates: mandatory, preferred, and non-existent

This is where the "just use a good CV template you found online" advice fails. Whether a template is compulsory varies by state, and the wording is doing precise legal work.

Read the modals. Tasmania says must. Queensland says preferred. South Australia says if you choose. NSW's ICRP says resumes should follow the template but the cover letter must not be longer than two pages — two different strengths in adjacent sentences on the same page.

South Australia adds a layer most applicants miss. The statewide CV template is optional, but individual programs are not: "Some programs have a REQUIRED template or format that must be used if you preference them. Refer to each program specific Information Pack for more information." SA runs over 35 programs for the 2027 clinical year, each with its own Information Pack. Preference four programs and you may be assembling four differently-formatted supplementary documents on top of one CV.

The ACT inverts the usual arrangement. No CV template, but the referee report is a fixed form that you collect and submit with your application — unlike WA, SA, QLD and Victoria, where the system emails your referees a secure link after you apply. That is a lead-time difference of weeks, and it is the single most common reason an ACT application goes in incomplete.

The reason templates exist is not quality. It is comparability. A panel reading 200 applications in a fixed format can compare candidates position by position. Your beautifully designed two-column CV with a skills bar chart does not read as professional in that room; it reads as the application that cannot be scored against the others. In Tasmania it is also non-compliant.

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The cover letter is required, banned, or the entire application — depending on the state

There is no document in Australian junior doctor recruitment more inconsistently treated than the cover letter.

NSW does not want one. "There is no requirement to submit a cover letter with your application." Instead you answer selection criteria inside the application form itself. An IMG arriving from UK or Irish habits will write a careful letter that has nowhere to go except an unrequested attachment.

Queensland does not want one either, but handles it differently: "There is no requirement to submit a cover letter with your application. If you wish to do so, make it part of your CV." That has a mechanical consequence people miss — your letter now counts against the same 2MB PDF as everything else.

The Northern Territory requires one, and caps it at a page: "Your cover letter should address your interest, skills and experience as relevant to the selection criteria… You are not required to address each of the selection criteria individually. However, your 1-page cover letter should provide detail on your ability to meet the selection criteria."

South Australia caps it tighter still for the centralised process: "Your letter should not be more than one side of an A4 sheet." Note that SA Health's general careers guidance for non-centralised roles allows up to two pages — a different process with a different rule, on the same website.

Western Australia contradicts itself, and you should assume required. The application guide says a cover letter "is optional unless specifically stated in the advertisement". The FAQ on the same page asks "Do I need a cover letter?" and answers "Yes." The RMO landing page lists "Cover letter addressing the Selection Criteria" among the application steps. When a health department disagrees with itself, send the letter.

WA is also the one jurisdiction where the cover letter does operational work rather than persuasive work. For country WA:

"If applying to WACHS, the information in the cover letter is essential to assist the selection panel to understand your ideal location within WACHS, whether you have specific requirements about full-time or part-time work, and whether you are applying with a partner… WACHS also need to know if you have any rural bonding commitments."

That is not a place for a paragraph about your passion for medicine. It is a form disguised as prose. Answer it like a form: location preference, FTE, partner, bonding status.

Victoria needs two applications, and the letter belongs to the second one. PMCV's own user guide warns: "IMPORTANT: Some Matches require you to also apply directly to the Health Services." Western Health's 2027 PGY2 advertisement states it plainly: "Western Health PGY2 positions are allocated through the PMCV Match (specific eligibility criteria apply). Applicants must apply to both PMCV and Western Health." The match takes your preferences. The health service takes your CV and cover letter and decides how to rank you. Applicants who complete the PMCV application and stop have submitted half an application.

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Selection criteria: 500 words, five criteria, or none at all

Two practical notes.

The ACT distinguishes between two response styles, and the advertisement tells you which one it wants. "Address the selection criteria" means a formal document with numbered headings in the same order as the position description. "Provide a pitch" means a conversational letter with no headings. Writing the wrong one is a visible mistake.

The ACT's fifth RMO criterion is worth quoting because IMG applicants routinely under-answer it: understanding of and adherence to safety and quality standards, work health and safety, positive patient experience, and behaviour consistent with the organisation's values — "reliable, progressive, respectful, and kind". That is a values criterion. It wants an incident you handled, an escalation you made, a complaint you took seriously — not an assertion that you are a good team player.

WA's 500-word cap is per criterion, not total. With a foundation criteria set plus additional criteria attached to preferenced positions, that is a substantial writing task, and it is the part of the WA application the panel actually scores. WA's own guidance recommends a STAR or SAO structure — situation, task, action, result.

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File mechanics differ enough to break an application

Queensland is the strictest and therefore the useful benchmark. Build every document as a certified PDF under 2MB and you clear every other jurisdiction in the country without a second export.

Queensland also imposes an order of operations that is easy to get backwards: "If a document is not in English, an English translation from a translator approved by the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters (NAATI) is required and once translated, it must be certified." And explicitly: "translation should occur prior to the certification." Certify first and you have certified the wrong document.

NSW has a silent failure mode that has nothing to do with your CV's contents. Its portal has two separate checkboxes:

"When submitting your application, ensure the resume you want attached to your job applications has both the Resume and Relevant Files boxes ticked… If you do not check this box the files may not be reviewed alongside your application."

One unticked box and a perfect application is assessed without a CV. NSW also allows multiple resumes in one candidate profile, which is genuinely useful when you are applying to several NSW advertisements with different emphases — and genuinely dangerous if you attach the wrong one.

One warning about NSW specifically. There are two applicant guides live on the NSW Health website: a retired PDF describing the old eRecruit system, and the current HTML applicant guide describing the JMO Career Portal. The PDF says 1MB, one file only, a 1,000-character limit on criteria responses, and a 12-month eligibility list. The current page says 5120 KB, 25 files, no stated character limit, and 18 months. Several widely-circulated IMG blog "facts" about NSW trace back to the retired PDF. Use the current page.

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The criterion that decides whether you may apply at all

Formatting is the smallest of the state-by-state differences. The largest is registration — and it determines which campaigns are open to you before any panel reads a word.

Read that table before you read anything else in this article again.

If you hold limited or provisional registration, Tasmania, the ACT and the Northern Territory accept you into their main junior doctor recruitment and South Australia, Western Australia and Victoria do not. Queensland and Western Australia offer a different door — Workplace Based Assessment, where you work while completing the assessment that gets you general registration, available in Queensland if you have passed the AMC MCQ.

The Northern Territory goes furthest. It publishes a dedicated Standard Pathway RMO advertisement for IMGs without general registration — a structural entry point no other jurisdiction in the country advertises separately — and maintains the Area of Need mechanism: "Once declared an Area of Need, a health service can temporarily employ an overseas-trained doctor… on the registration type 'limited registration for area of need'."

NSW is worth reading closely at advertisement level rather than state level. A current Northern NSW advertisement states: "We actively encourage applications from candidates eligible for the competent authority pathway… United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, and Canada", followed by "Please note: We are not accepting applications from standard pathway applicants for this recruitment round." Same state, same portal, and standard pathway applicants are excluded from that specific role. This is decided per requisition. Read every advertisement.

What this means for the document: your registration status line is not a footnote in your CV. It is the first thing a panel needs and it is the criterion that most often disqualifies. Put it in the header block with the pathway named, the status, and the date — AMC CAT MCQ passed Mar 2026 · Standard pathway · Ahpra application lodged Jul 2026 · Limited registration eligible — and change the emphasis by state. In Tasmania and the ACT, limited registration is a qualification. In South Australia, it needs a sentence explaining when general registration will arrive.

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Recency of practice is also a state rule

The gap rule from the previous article — account for every month, name gaps plainly, always state whether you were in clinical practice — is national. What is not national is how long a gap is allowed to be.

• South Australia: "SA Health requires applicants to have practiced as a medical officer with paid employment (not an observership) within two years at the time of submitting your Expression of Interest." The parenthesis is doing deliberate work. An observership does not restart the clock.
• NSW IMG Clinical Readiness Program: worked as a medical practitioner performing clinical duties "within the last 3 years/36 months".
• ACT: the RMO position description requires a degree "completed within the previous five years" and an accredited internship "within the previous four years". This is a qualification-recency bar rather than a practice-recency bar, and it will exclude a large number of experienced IMGs from ACT RMO roles. It is the most important ACT caveat in this article.
• Victoria, at health service level: a current Northeast Health Wangaratta 2027 advertisement says "If you are an International Medical Graduate, we would require you to have recency of practice (ideally within the last 2 years)."

This is the clearest argument in the whole series for not resigning to study. A two-year AMC preparation gap is survivable in Tasmania and the Northern Territory. In South Australia it is disqualifying, and no amount of CV craft fixes it. If you are still working, keep working — even part-time, even nights, even in a role you have outgrown. The line on your CV that says you were practising last year is worth more than anything you can add to the achievements section.

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Rural is a criterion, not a fallback

Every state has a rural workforce problem and every state asks about it differently. IMGs tend to treat rural willingness as something to mention if asked. In four jurisdictions it is scored.

South Australia tells you exactly what evidence it wants — and it is not enthusiasm:

"If you are applying to a rural training program, why you are interested in working in a rural area and whether you have ever worked, studied or lived in a rural area. This should include information about the length of time, activity and location."

Length of time, activity, location. That is three data points, and most IMG CVs contain none of them despite the applicant having trained in a district hospital four hours from a capital city. If you have rural background, give it place names and dates.

Western Australia runs rural preference through the cover letter, as above — location within WACHS, FTE, partner, bonding.

The Northern Territory makes it the organising theme rather than a preference. Central Australia's pitch is "you can shape your career while making a real impact in Aboriginal and remote health", orientation covers "cultural competencies", and one advertised RMO term involves community visits "range from day trips to 4 nights". Another notes RMOs are "first call and receive supervision from Consultant staff in person or by phone and require some ability to work independently." If you have practised where the nearest specialist was a phone call away, that is not a limitation in your history — in the NT it is the qualification. Name it: resource-limited settings, interpreter-mediated consultations, phone-supervised decision-making, retrieval and transfer decisions.

The NT also operates a special measures plan: "priority consideration is given to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander applicants to be assessed first in the selection process."

Victoria runs the Victorian Rural Generalist Program, and its IMG position is unusually explicit: "International Medical Graduates (IMG) wanting to undertake Rural Generalist training must first gain general registration. They can then apply for flexible entry into any available RG2 or RG Advanced positions." Also worth knowing, because it is a common fear: "There is no return of service requirements for trainees that enter the VRGP."

Tasmania signals it plainly: doctors with rural generalist qualifications are "highly sought after" across the state.

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The background checks have eight different names

None of these are uploaded at application time in any jurisdiction — you consent at application and produce evidence after an offer. But three of them take months, and IMGs consistently start them too late.

Two of these deserve to be pulled out.

The Northern Territory's police requirement is the most onerous in the country for a mobile IMG. A clearance from every country you have lived in for more than a year in the past decade means a doctor who trained in one country, worked in a second and sat exams in a third is chasing three separate national police agencies from Darwin. Start on the day you accept.

Victoria's influenza deadline is a date, not a condition. Vaccination by 15 August each year is required for specified healthcare workers under Ministerial Directions. If you start in February, the deadline arrives in your first six months and it is your responsibility.

And one correction, because it is still repeated widely: Queensland's Workforce Attraction Incentive Scheme is finished. Queensland Health states it "has been discontinued and is no longer being offered", with health professionals commencing after 30 June 2025 ineligible. Do not build a relocation budget around it.

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Applying into more than one campaign at once

This is the part nobody plans for, and it is where multi-state applications actually go wrong. Not the CV. The clock.

Then overlay the offer dates. Queensland's Registrar and PHO offers run from 3 August; its SHO and JHO offers run 28 September to 21 October. Western Australia's pool closes 18 September. South Australia's rounds run 17 September to 8 October. Victoria publishes PGY2 results on 23 September. NSW RMO offers land 24 September, with other specialties spread from 29 June to 2 October.

The overlap is not accidental and it is not your friend. A NSW conditional offer arriving on 24 September, binding, with 48 hours to answer, sits squarely inside the week Victoria publishes its match results and South Australia runs its first offer round. You will be asked to commit to one state before you know the answer from two others.

South Australia has written a rule specifically about this: "It is not acceptable to hold two or more training position offers from various states for a period of more than 72 hours", and SA MET reserves the right to rescind. Western Australia adds a different penalty: "If your first-preference hospital assesses your application as unsuitable, this assessment applies across the entire recruitment pool" — your first preference is not a soft ranking, it is a filter on everything behind it.

And the start dates do not line up either. Tasmania's RMO year commences 11 January 2027. South Australia's Term 1 begins 1 February 2027. The ACT's clinical year runs 1 February 2027 to 6 February 2028. A Tasmanian offer accepted alongside a mainland application is three weeks of overlap you cannot serve.

The practical answer is to rank the states before you apply, not when the offer arrives. Write the ranking down. Decide in advance which offer you will accept on the spot and which you will accept only if nothing better has landed by a named date. When the 48-hour email arrives — and it will arrive while you are asleep in a different timezone, which NSW explicitly warns about — you are executing a decision, not making one.

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What changes between versions, and what never does

You do not need eight CVs. You need one master compliance CV, one master selection CV cut from it, and six variables.

1. The registration line. Named pathway, current status, date, and what changes by when. Emphasis shifts by state.

2. The criteria responses. WA needs up to 500 words per criterion. The ACT needs five numbered responses matching the position description. NSW needs answers inside the form. Tasmania needs none. These are separate files, not CV edits.

3. The cover letter. One page for the NT and SA. Two pages for the NSW ICRP. Functional for WACHS. Absent for NSW JMO and Queensland.

4. The template wrapper. Tasmania's supplied template. Queensland's preferred template plus verification statement. Everyone else, your own layout.

5. The rural and cultural paragraph. Place names and dates for SA. Location, FTE, partner and bonding for WACHS. Remote and cross-cultural practice for the NT.

6. File mechanics. Certified PDF under 2MB for Queensland. Both boxes ticked for NSW. Referee reports collected by you, on the CHS form, for the ACT.

Everything else — the employment history, the dates, the procedural log, the teaching, the audits, the professional development, the English score — is written once and never touched again except to add to it.

Name the files so the version is obvious at a glance: Surname_Firstname_CV_QLD_2027.pdf, Surname_Firstname_KSC_WA_2027.pdf. Two campaigns in, you will be grateful. And re-date the verification statement every time you edit the compliance CV — a signed declaration carrying a date three months older than the document it certifies is a discrepancy you will be asked about.

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Where this sits in the timeline

Here is the uncomfortable arithmetic. Seven of the eight jurisdictions gate their main junior doctor campaign on general registration or on pathway eligibility. Six of them close their 2027 applications between 22 June and 21 August 2026. South Australia will not send referee reports for applicants who will not be eligible for general registration by February. Victoria's PGY2 Match excludes IMGs without it outright.

Which means that for most IMGs reading this, the state-by-state differences are not yet the binding constraint. The AMC MCQ is. Miss a sitting and you do not miss a study month — you miss the registration date that makes you eligible for a campaign that only opens once a year, and the next window is twelve months later.

So if you have not sat the exam yet, the right amount of time to spend on this article today is however long it took to read it. Note which states accept limited registration, note that the May–June block exists, and go back to studying.

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Then the state-by-state work becomes what it should be: six variables on a document you already built.

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The checklist

Before you choose states

• Confirm which registration type you will hold at the start date, not today
• Rule out jurisdictions that will not accept it — SA, WA and VIC gate on general registration
• Check your recency: SA requires paid clinical practice within 2 years, not an observership
• If applying to the ACT, check the 5-year degree and 4-year internship recency bars in the position description
• Read the individual advertisement, not the state page — pathway exclusions are set per requisition

Before each campaign opens

• Master compliance CV complete, signed, and dated
• Selection CV cut from it, 2–4 pages
• Statements of service requested from every previous employer
• Two to three referees briefed — three for SA and TAS, consultant-level for TAS
• ACT only: referee reports collected by you on the CHS JMO template
• Every document exported as a certified PDF under 2MB

Per application

• Registration line rewritten for that jurisdiction
• Template checked: mandatory (TAS), preferred (QLD), optional (SA), none (NSW, WA, NT)
• Cover letter written to that state's page limit — or omitted where it is not wanted
• Criteria responses written to the stated word limit
• Rural and cultural paragraph tailored with place names and dates
• NSW only: Resume and Relevant Files both ticked
• File named with the state and the year

Before offers start landing

• States ranked in writing, with a named decision date
• Response windows noted: 48 hours NSW and VIC, ~4 days WA, 7 working days TAS
• SA's 72-hour multiple-offer rule understood
• Start dates compared — TAS commences 11 January 2027, most others 1 February

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The point

An Australian graduate applies into one system. They grew up with the state's vocabulary, they did placements in its hospitals, and the version of their CV that works in Brisbane is the version they already had.

You are applying into four or five systems at once, against a clock you did not set, in a country where the word "must" appears on one state's page and "preferred" on another's for the same document. The instinct is to build one excellent CV and send it everywhere, because that is what excellence looks like from the outside.

It is not what excellence looks like from inside a selection panel. Inside the panel, the excellent application is the one that arrives in the expected format, answers the criteria that were asked in the number of words that were allowed, and puts the registration status where the shortlister is already looking.

The CV is the part you can control completely. Which is precisely why it should not be the part that costs you a campaign.

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Next in this series: How IMGs actually find Australian junior doctor jobs — the campaign portals versus the hidden market, which health districts advertise outside the annual rounds, and why the job you get is usually not the one you first applied for.

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Sources

1. NSW Health. "Junior Medical Officer — Applying for a role." — https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/jmo-apply (second round opening 29 September 2026; required documents including evidence of working rights, Ahpra registration details, updated resume, responses to selection criteria and MBBS as mandatory; conditional offers sent from 12pm on the email offer date and binding; 48-hour acceptance window; eligibility lists accessible for up to 18 months; consent to pre-employment screening including National Police Check, Working with Children Check, Service Check Register and immunisation status) — current as at 16 July 2026

2. NSW Health. "Junior Medical Officer Applicant Guide." — https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/jmo/Pages/applicant-guide.aspx (no requirement to submit a cover letter; 5120 kilobyte file limit; maximum of 25 files; accepted formats; the Resume and Relevant Files checkbox requirement; multiple resumes permitted in one profile; separate application required for every advertisement; the five preference-matched specialty groups; two referees including a current supervisor with referee reports used for all positions in the campaign) — current as at 21 August 2024

3. NSW Health. "JMO campaign dates." — https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/jmo/Pages/dates.aspx (2027 main round advertising 14 July 2026 and closing 4 August 2026; early round advertising from 22 May 2026; per-specialty and per-level email offer dates spanning 29 June to 2 October 2026) — current as at 5 August 2026

4. NSW Health. "JMO frequently asked questions." — https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/jmo/Pages/faqs.aspx (IMGs not eligible for the HETI-managed intern allocation process; all campaign offers made electronically; visa nomination managed by the Medical Administration Unit at the facility after contract) — current as at 20 May 2026

5. NSW Health. "IMG Clinical Readiness Program — How to apply." — https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/workforce/medical/Pages/icrp-how-to-apply.aspx (resumes should follow the resume template format and be a maximum of 3 pages; cover letter must not be longer than 2 pages addressing the selection criteria; recency requirement of clinical practice within the last 3 years/36 months) — current as at 2 October 2025

6. Queensland Health. "RMO and Registrar campaign — Application documents." — https://www.careers.health.qld.gov.au/medical-careers/resident-medical-officer-rmo-and-registrar-campaign/application-documents (the Queensland Health medical practitioner CV template as the preferred template; verification statement requirement with electronic or wet signature; no requirement to submit a cover letter and instruction to attach it to the CV if used; PDF format and 2MB file limit; certification by justice of the peace, commissioner of declarations, barrister, solicitor or notary public; NAATI translation required before certification) — last updated August 2026

7. Queensland Health. "RMO and Registrar campaign — Campaign dates and How to apply." — https://www.careers.health.qld.gov.au/medical-careers/resident-medical-officer-rmo-and-registrar-campaign/campaign-dates and .../how-to-apply (2027 campaign opening 1 June 2026 and closing 29 June 2026; Round 1 Registrar and PHO offers from 3 August 2026; Round 2 SHO and JHO offers 28 September to 21 October 2026; re-preference rounds; up to 5 facility or position preferences; one application per year; applicants not shortlisted by any preferenced facility are not contacted) — last updated May 2026

8. Queensland Health. "International medical graduates — support in Queensland" and "Workplace Based Assessment." — https://www.careers.health.qld.gov.au/medical-careers/medi-nav/international-medical-graduates/img-support-qld (observership opportunities facilitated by some Hospital and Health Services; IMG Working Group established July 2024; general registration obtainable while working after passing the AMC Part 1 Examination) — last updated March 2026

9. Queensland Health. "Mandatory vaccines — condition of employment" and "Workforce Attraction Incentive Scheme." — https://www.careers.health.qld.gov.au/apply-for-a-job/mandatory-vaccines/condition-of-employment and .../workforce-attraction-incentive-scheme (hepatitis B, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella and pertussis evidence, with pertussis-containing vaccine required within the past 10 years; the Workforce Attraction Incentive Scheme discontinued and no longer offered) — last updated February 2026

10. Postgraduate Medical Council of Victoria. "Allocation and Placement Service (formerly the Computer Matching Service)" and "2026 PGY2 Match." — https://www.pmcv.com.au/computer-matching-service and https://www.pmcv.com.au/2026-pgy2-match/ (a purely mathematical process with selection and ranking the sole responsibility of the employing health service; applications open 27 July 2026 and close 21 August 2026; results published 23 September 2026; 48 hours to accept or decline with no further offers after a decline; up to 10 health service preferences with a minimum of 1; two referees required with an option for a third; IMGs without general registration with Ahpra ineligible)

11. Postgraduate Medical Council of Victoria. "APS User Guide for Candidates, 2026." — https://www.pmcv.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/APS-User-Guide-for-Candidates.pdf (no submit button and automatic saving; the warning that some matches require applicants to also apply directly to the health services; preferences cannot be added after the match closes)

12. Victorian Rural Generalist Program. "Frequently asked questions." — https://www.vicruralgeneralist.com.au/faq (IMGs must first gain general registration and may then apply for flexible entry into available RG2 or RG Advanced positions; no return of service requirement)

13. Department of Health Victoria. "Vaccination for healthcare workers." — https://www.health.vic.gov.au/immunisation/vaccination-for-healthcare-workers (annual influenza vaccination required by 15 August for specified healthcare workers; Secretary Directions mandating COVID-19 vaccination for healthcare workers revoked on 4 October 2024; other vaccination requirements set by each health service's own policy) — policy guidance updated 4 October 2024

14. WA Department of Health, MedCareersWA. "RMO & SMR Centralised Recruitment", "Application guide and FAQs" and "Online application." — https://medcareerswa.health.wa.gov.au/rmo-smr-centralised-recruitment (2027 applications open 25 May 2026 and close 22 June 2026; first round offers 17–28 August 2026; pool closes 18 September 2026; mid-year round opening January 2027; three ranked preferences; statement addressing the selection criteria mandatory with up to 500 words per criterion; accepted formats .doc, .docx, .pdf and .jpeg with .pages and .png not accepted; files recommended not to exceed 5MB; instruction to follow the Ahpra standard format for curriculum vitae; WACHS cover letter requirements covering location, full-time or part-time preference, applying with a partner and rural bonding commitments; first-preference unsuitability applying across the entire pool; notarised documents not required)

15. SA MET Unit. "Centralised PGY2+ EOI Process Guideline, Version 2.3.2" and "PGY2 key dates." — https://samet.org.au/app/uploads/2026/02/SAMET-Centralised-PGY2-EOI-Process-Guideline-V2.pdf and https://samet.org.au/postgraduate-year-2-and-beyond-recruitment/pgy2-key-dates/ (EOIs open 10 June 2026 and close 1 July 2026; offer rounds 17 September to 8 October 2026 with late vacancy management from 22 October 2026; four program preferences and over 35 programs for the 2027 clinical year; program Information Packs may include required templates; the CV template optional; cover letter not more than one side of A4; 10MB file limit and accepted formats; supporting documentation need not be certified; general registration required on or before the February start date with limited, provisional and Competent Authority applicants appointable to some programs without guarantee; paid clinical employment within two years and not an observership; rural evidence requiring length of time, activity and location; three referees; one provisional offer only; the 72-hour rule on holding multiple interstate offers) — version dated 6 July 2026

16. SA Health. "Medical recruitment with SA Health" and "International applicant guidelines." — https://www.sahealth.sa.gov.au (SA Health an approved sponsor for subclass 482 and subclass 494 visas; priority for appointment given to Australian citizens and permanent residents in the first instance with sponsorship anticipated primarily for specialty and hard-to-fill positions; DHS Working with Children Check and SAPOL National Police Certificate; category A and B immunisation requirements) — current as at 11 May 2026 and 9 September 2026

17. Tasmanian Department of Health. "2027 Statewide Resident Medical Officer applications." — https://www.health.tas.gov.au/careers/career-options/medical-careers/2027-statewide-resident-medical-officer-applications (one application with Hobart, Launceston and North West ranked in order of preference; applications open 25 May 2026 and close 22 June 2026; applicants must use the CV template provided; a written statement addressing the selection criteria is NOT required; three referees at consultant level or senior registrar with more than four years' experience post general registration; General, Provisional or Limited Registration accepted; seven working days to accept or decline; RMO year commencing 11 January 2027; conviction, identification and previous-employment disciplinary checks) — last updated 12 May 2026

18. Canberra Health Services. "Junior Medical Officer careers — Key dates, Eligibility and requirements, How to apply." — https://www.canberrahealthservices.act.gov.au/careers/junior-medical-officer-careers (2027 campaign running May 2026 to February 2027; RMO applications open 31 August 2026 and close 27 September 2026; separate application required for each role; required documents of CV, written response to the selection criteria and two referee reports using the CHS Referee Report Template for JMOs; Limited, Provisional and General registration accepted from IMGs; a dedicated IMG Coordination Team and IMG Director of Education and Training; rotations including Goulburn, Cooma, Moruya and Bega and the Alexander Maconochie Centre) — 4 June 2026

19. ACT Government. "Resident Medical Officer position description and gazette advertisement 12770-02R3X." — https://www.jobs.act.gov.au/jobs/canberra-health-services/temporary/12770-02r3x (five key selection criteria including behaviour consistent with the values reliable, progressive, respectful and kind; essential qualifications requiring a degree completed within the previous five years and an accredited internship within the previous four years; visa sponsorship for eligible candidates; pre-employment National Police Check and compliance with the Occupational Assessment, Screening and Vaccination policy) — gazetted 1 September 2026

20. NT Health. "Resident medical officer / hospital medical officer", "Job opportunities" and "International." — https://healthjobs.nt.gov.au/explore-health-sectors/medical/rmohmo (separate applications required for Top End and Central Australia; separate advertisements for General Registration and Competent Authority Pathway and for Standard Pathway; 1-page cover letter addressing the selection criteria collectively rather than individually; referees to include at least one direct line manager or supervising consultant; police clearances required for all countries lived in for more than one year during the last 10 years; the Ochre Card mandatory for all NT Health employees and applied for after arrival; category A and B immunisation; special measures priority consideration for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander applicants; 2027 term dates with Term 1 from 1 February 2027) — last updated 5 June 2026

21. NT Health. "Area of need declarations." — https://health.nt.gov.au/professionals/area-of-need-declarations (a declared Area of Need permitting temporary employment of an overseas-trained doctor on limited registration for area of need) — 3 March 2025

22. Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency. "Standard format for curriculum vitae." — https://www.ahpra.gov.au/Registration/Applying-for-registration/Standard-Format-for-Curriculum-Vitae (the national CV format referenced by Western Australia's application guidance)

23. AMC Prep Pro. — https://amcexampreparation.com/

Campaign dates, page limits, file size caps, templates and eligibility criteria change between recruitment rounds and between jurisdictions, and several of the pages cited here are updated only once a year. Every date in this article is for the 2027 clinical year, drawn from campaigns that ran during 2026 — treat them as a guide to when the 2028 cycle will run, not as the 2028 dates. Verify every requirement against the current job advertisement and the employer's own application page before you submit, because the advertisement overrides any general guidance including this article. Several points here are explicitly flagged where they appear because they could not be confirmed from a primary source: the closing date for the NSW second round is not published; no word or character limit for NSW selection criteria responses is published for the current portal, and the widely-quoted 1,000-character figure comes from a retired applicant guide that is superseded on every other checkable figure; whether the PMCV Standardised CV Template is compulsory is not stated on the match page; the Tasmanian CV template file is hosted on a page that is no longer retrievable between campaigns, so request it from the regional medical recruitment contacts; Victoria, Tasmania, the ACT and the Northern Territory publish no file format or file size limits; Northern Territory application open and close dates for 2027 are not published; and no jurisdiction except South Australia names subclass 482 specifically when it refers to visa sponsorship. This is general information, not legal, immigration or employment advice. AMC Prep Pro is not affiliated with the Australian Medical Council, Ahpra, the Medical Board of Australia, or with NSW Health, Queensland Health, the Postgraduate Medical Council of Victoria, WA Health, SA Health, the Tasmanian Department of Health, Canberra Health Services or NT Health.