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Two applications, not one. You need 24 months of general hospital experience, so you apply in PGY2 to start PGY3 1, and you need both a RANZCP Branch Training Committee selection and an accredited job 2. Research scores zero 3. Nationally it is not competitive — intake fell 455 to 429 4 — but your preferred metro service is.
The college rule that sets the timing. RANZCP requires a minimum of 24 months full-time general hospital experience after your degree, which makes PGY3 the earliest possible start and means you apply during PGY2 1. You also need general registration by commencement, and post-2023 Australian graduates need the NFPMT Certificate of Completion 1.
What the application is. A 300-word statement on why psychiatry, a CV, academic record, work-performance statements from your employers over the past 24 months, and three referees 2. Selection is run by state Branch Training Committees against a national rubric: interview 20%, CV 20%, referee reports 15%, with a further 45% of the criteria sourced from the interview 3. Publications are worth nothing 3. Victoria runs a one-way recorded video interview; NSW, SA and WA use live panels 3. Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, Māori and rural applicants who are eligible all progress to interview automatically 3.
College selection is not a job. You need an accredited post as well, and that comes from the state campaign — the Victorian PMCV psychiatry match, the NSW JMO campaign with February and August intakes, the QLD RMO campaign 25. Missing either half means no training.
Where the competition actually is. National intake fell from 455 in 2024 to 429 in 2025, and posts go unfilled 4. What is contested is specific metro services, and the sub's consistent report is that those services take their own PHOs first 6, while the older sub view — that anyone who wanted psychiatry got on within two attempts — still has defenders 7. A psychiatry HMO or PHO term at the service you want moves CV, referee and experience scoring together — roughly 55% of the rubric 3.
r/ausjdocs — community view, not policy; verbatim, cautionary beside positive where both exist, every quote linked to the comment.
Most services in psych HEAVILY favour their own PHOs when it comes to selection for registrar training position, especially because psych is somewhat competitive nowadays.
Everyone I've ever met who wanted to do it got on either first attempt or the second attempt and most had zero psych experience, not even a resident term in psych
In Victoria at least, I think competition is heating up.
Apply immediately for entry to Training. The rest is just bullshit you don't need. Apply everywhere. Be prepared to move.
Asked 90 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 the 19,145-post r/ausjdocs dump (2022-09-13 to 2026-09-12) whose title matches /(?=.*(psychiatr|RANZCP|\bpsych\b))(?=.*(get(ting)? (on|onto|into)|\bapply\b|applic|applying|selection|pathway|how (do|to)|training program|interview))/i. Quotes hold the 'everyone gets on' claim against the 'Victoria is heating up' and 'services take their own PHOs' claims, because that disagreement is the actual state of the evidence.