A CV written for a regulator, not an employer
Regulators read your training against a standard. How to write a CV that supports the registration file instead of selling the applicant.
The CV you send to a hospital is written to persuade. It leads with strengths, rounds dates to the year, calls a short course “advanced training” and leaves out the gap when you were preparing for an exam. That is what job CVs do.
Send the same CV to a regulator and every one of those habits works against you. A regulator is not choosing between applicants. It is checking one file against a standard, and it reads your CV as an index to the evidence: every line should point to a document that proves it.
What a regulator uses a CV for
A CV gives the assessor the whole of your career on one or two pages: where you trained, where you practised, in what role, for how long. It is the map they hold while reading everything else. When a date on the CV disagrees with an experience letter, or a job on the CV has no letter at all, that is the first place a question comes from.
It is also worth being clear what a CV does not do. It does not replace education. The Canadian Association of Social Workers, which evaluates international social work degrees for Ontario, says so in a sentence:
Note that the evaluation is purely academic in nature and does not consider work or volunteer experience.
Source: casw-acts.ca · Assessment of International Credentials · 2026-10-04
Experience strengthens a file. It does not stand in for a subject your degree did not cover.
Who asks for one
The CV is most often named on New Zealand and Canadian checklists:
- The Physiotherapy Board of New Zealand asks for a CV on its own template for the General Pathway.
- The Occupational Therapy Board of New Zealand asks you to upload a CV on its standard route, alongside a competence self-assessment, and does not process the application until both arrive.
- The Podiatrists Board of New Zealand asks for a signed professional CV. The Dietitians Board, the Medical Sciences Council and the Medical Radiation Technologists Board each list one too.
- In Canada, CAMLPR lists a curriculum vitae for its Prior Learning Assessment, and the College of Chiropodists of Ontario a resume or CV.
Source: physioboard.org.nz · otboard.org.nz · podiatristsboard.org.nz · dietitiansboard.org.nz · mscouncil.org.nz · mrtboard.org.nz · camlpr.org · cocoo.on.ca · each regulator's international applicant checklist, as recorded in our guidance notes · 2026-10-04
The HCPC does not list a CV, but its online application has a section for your professional experience, and the same rules apply to what you type there.
Source: hcpc-uk.org · How to apply via the international application route · 2026-10-04
Template first
If a regulator gives you a template, use it, exactly. The Physiotherapy Board of New Zealand’s is the clearest example. A beautifully designed CV in your own format, sent where a template was asked for, is an incomplete application. Fill every field, keep its headings and order, and do not attach a second CV “for more detail”.
What a regulator CV looks like
Where there is no template, this is the structure we use. It is our practice, built around how an assessor reads.
- Your name exactly as on your passport, with any former names you have used
- Qualifications, newest first: the award, the institution, the exact start and end dates, and the internship with its dates and departments
- Registrations: every body, with its registration number and the dates you held it
- Employment, newest first: employer, title, full dates, full-time or part-time, the setting and your clinical duties in a few plain lines
- Gaps: a line for each, saying what you were doing, such as study, exam preparation or family care
- Continuing professional development: courses with provider and date, where your regulator values them
- Signature and date, where the checklist asks for a signed CV
No photograph, no career objective, no list of soft skills, no references “on request”. None of it helps an assessor.
The rules that keep it consistent
Every date matches its document. If your experience letter says you joined on a given day, the CV says the same day. Round nothing.
Every role has a letter. A job on the CV with no evidence behind it invites a request for one.
Titles as your employer used them. If the title you held at home differs from the regulator’s, keep your employer’s title and let the duties show the match. Do not rename a role to look like the destination’s.
Gaps explained, not hidden. An unexplained gap is a question. A one-line explanation usually is not.
Nothing you cannot prove. Overstating responsibility in a CV that sits next to a modest experience letter makes both look less reliable.
How it works in our portal
Your CV sits in its own slot, and it is the document we read last, not first. We go through your degree, registrations and experience letters page by page, then read the CV against them line by line. Any date, title or role that does not match a document comes back to you with the document it disagrees with, so you can correct whichever one is wrong before the regulator compares them.
Your next steps
- Check whether your regulator has a CV template, and use it if so
- Build a list of every date from your documents before you write a line
- Explain every gap in one sentence
- Read the finished CV against each letter and certificate
Sources
The requirements above were read on each regulator’s own pages on 4 October 2026; the dated list is on our sources page. The New Zealand boards page explains who decides there.
Your regulator’s checklist comes with your route. Choose your profession and country in the Route Finder below.
What we do
How Credentis Global helps
You trained. We file. The regulator decides. Here is what that means for your file.
Your fit, read before anything is filed
we read your degree, transcripts and experience against the regulator’s published standard first, so you know where the file is strong and where it needs evidence.
Every document, in the order the regulator reads it
Each item is checked against the regulator’s own list: names matched to your passport, hours in writing, copies certified by the person the list names.
One portal, and a person who answers
Upload your documents, see every stage of the file and message us in one place. The person who replies is the specialist preparing your file.
We prepare and file. The regulator decides.
Your application goes in from your own regulator account with every page prepared, and every query is drafted against the regulator’s exact question.
One specialist owns your file
The specialist who reads your documents builds the file and answers the regulator’s queries. You always know who has it, and you pay the regulator directly.
