Australian employers want a short, plain-spoken cover letter: one page, evidence over adjectives, work rights stated clearly. This guide covers conventions, paragraph order, an annotated template, common mistakes and FAQs.
A cover letter is standard for professional, government and graduate roles in Australia, and useful even when a posting does not explicitly ask for one. Send it as a separate PDF alongside your resume, never merged into one file. Half a page suits early-career applicants; one page is the limit for experienced candidates. Address the named contact when the ad gives one — government and university ads often name a contact officer — and otherwise open with 'Dear Hiring Manager', closing with 'Yours sincerely'.
Register matters as much as content. Australian workplace culture is informal and wary of self-promotion, so the letter should read as evidence rather than adjective: what you did, what happened, what you can repeat here. Keep photographs, dates of birth and marital status out of the application entirely. Where the posting asks you to address selection criteria — routine in public-service hiring — answer each criterion in turn, often in STAR form (situation, task, action, result), and stay within any stated page or word limit.
Whoever screens your application usually reads the letter first, so the opening paragraph has to establish the role, the source and your fit in a few lines. The rest should follow one straight line of argument:
What an Australian screener looks for first: the exact role title, the source it came from, and — for sponsored roles — your work-rights status.
The template below is a working Australian letter in placeholder form — every bracket is yours to fill, and each block does one specific job.
Re: [Job Title] — [Reference Number]
[Opening: introduce yourself, state the role, explain your interest.]
[Second paragraph: highlight relevant experience and skills. Connect your background to the job requirements.]
[Third paragraph: explain why this company specifically. Reference their work, values, or recent projects.]
[Closing: summarise interest, mention attached Resume / CV, express enthusiasm for an interview.]
Not always — many private-sector ads let the resume speak. But when the posting asks for one, or asks you to address selection criteria, it is effectively mandatory, and regulated and public-sector roles routinely make the letter part of the application pack.
Only when the ad asks — which covers much of public-service, education and health hiring. Answer each criterion in order, within any word limit, with concrete examples rather than restated resume entries.
State your work-rights status when sponsorship is involved, because employers need to know early. Salary stays out of the letter unless the ad explicitly asks applicants to quote one; pay is discussed later in the process.
Two separate PDFs, each named with your name and the role. Avoid a combined document — most employer systems expect two files, and a named file survives being forwarded around an office.