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Stop fixing the CV. Orthopaedics scores it at 0% and ranks on interview 60% plus referees 40% 1; paediatric surgery at 0% with interview at 75% 2; SA adult BPT at 10% against a 60% interview 3. Fix the interview, the references, and where you apply.
The CV is being dismantled as a ranking instrument. Orthopaedics reduced its structured CV to a hurdle — a minimum of 6 out of 16 to progress — and ranks purely on interview 60% and verbal referee report 40% 1. Paediatric surgery does the same with a gate of 33 out of 56 and an interview worth 75% 2. Plastics makes the CV eligibility-only from the 2027 selection round, and says why: too many applicants were achieving maximum scores in multiple CV sections 4. SA adult BPT scores CV and cover letter at 10% against a 60% interview and 30% references 3. Queensland adult BPT is a six-station MMI at 60% 5. If your CV is average, in several programs that now matters less than it did three years ago.
Some programs have no CV at all. The RACGP does not require referees or employment history and runs a situational judgement test as a pass/fail gate 6. ACRRM scores a written suitability assessment at 40% and a six-station MMI at 60%, with references explicitly contributing nothing 7. Emergency medicine assesses against a standard rather than ranking applicants 8.
Where you apply is the strongest lever. If a competent applicant repeatedly fails to get interviews, the sub's read is that the filter is reputation or references rather than the document, and the fix is to apply somewhere the panel does not know you 9. Being a known quantity cuts both ways.
The counter-argument. Meeting the director of prevocational education in person, so they hire a person rather than a page, is the most repeated practical advice 9 — and it directly contradicts the "apply away from people who know you" answer. Which one applies depends on whether your problem is obscurity or a reputation.
r/ausjdocs — community view, not policy; verbatim, cautionary beside positive where both exist, every quote linked to the comment.
There's nothing wrong with your CV. If you're not getting interviews, someone is filtering you out based on reputation or references.
You are plenty qualified for BPT. Wherever you are applying, someone on the selection panel really does not like you (fairly or unfairly). You need to apply away from people who know you.
you need to introduce yourself to the dpe at the current hospital you're working at,so they can put a name to a face, and can hear your story. You'll have a much better chance if they know the person, not the cv.
It's very easy to hire someone you have physically met and found to be of the nature that would fit into your department.
Asked 3 times on r/ausjdocs (title-regex count) · encoded by hand from the numbered sources, retrieved 12 Sept 2026; no AI wrote any of it. how the count was made
asked_count = posts in r_ausjdocs_posts.jsonl (19,145 posts, 2022-09-13 to 2026-09-12) whose title matches /(iffy|weak|bad|poor|thin|average|mediocre).{0,25}\bCV\b|compensat.{0,30}\bCV\b|improve.{0,25}(my )?\bCV\b/i. Quotes are the four substantive answers in the one on-point thread, kept as a live disagreement between 'apply away from people who know you' and 'go and meet the DPE'.