Eligibility
To be eligible for the graduate program, you must:
- hold Australian citizenship, Australian permanent residency, New Zealand citizenship (with a subclass 444 Special Category Visa or right to be granted), or a visa with non-employer sponsored work right
- be eligible for registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA), including all necessary documentation and identity checks
- have graduated within the past 2 years (domestically or internationally) from your first undergraduate nursing degree, midwifery degree, or graduate-entry Master of Nursing or Master of Midwifery
- have not worked as a registered nurse (if applying for a nursing position) or a midwife (if applying for a midwifery position) for more than 960 hours (equivalent to 6 months full time) since qualifying in the relevant qualification.
If you're working as a registered nurse in a non-government residential aged care facility, general practice, disability service or other community health organisation, you can work up to 1,976 hours (equivalent to 1 year full-time).
Application period | Course completion period |
January to February 2026 | Between January 2024 to December 2025, or be due to complete by June 2026 |
If you applied in the previous recruitment campaign and meet the above criteria, you're still eligible.
The application process
The application process includes several stages.
Stage 1 – Submit an expression of interest
You can submit an expression of interest (EOI) before applications open.
Once you’ve submitted your EOI, you’ll get an email with a link for you to fill in the details of your 2 referees. These may be clinical facilitators, educators or registered nurses who have supervised you through your placement period.
The referee details you need to provide are:
- Full Name
- Daytime phone number
- Email address
- Physical address (this should be their work or business address)
When your referees have completed their reports, and the application period is open, you’ll receive an email inviting you to fill in the application form.
Stage 2 – Application form
We’ll email you a link to the application form for you to fill in and submit. This is not an automated process and may take a few days from the completion of the last referee report.
Stage 3 – Shortlisting
We will assess your application for eligibility and if your application is eligible, provide your application to the highest possible Hospital and Health Service (HHS) preference you have selected. If your application is not initially distributed to a HHS, or you’re not shortlisted by a HHS, your application will be retained in the central application pool.
Stage 4 – Offer and acceptance
If your application is successful, you’ll be offered a role.
Central applicant pool
If you’re not distributed to a HHS, or shortlisted by a HHS, we’ll keep your application in our central applicant pool. If HHSs have additional vacancies later, your application will be reassessed. While the campaign remains active, HHSs continue to examine availability and, in many cases, request additional applicants from the central applicant pool. When we receive a request from a HHS, we examine HHS preferences and supply additional applicants to the HHS as requested.
Referee reports
We use online referee reports. PDF template referee reports will not be accepted.
Your referees
- Referee 1 – must be a clinical supervisor
- Referee 2 – can be a line manager, a volunteer supervisor or a second clinical supervisor
A clinical supervisor is a qualified and registered health professional. They’ll have direct knowledge of your clinical practice and can speak about your clinical practice from experience, and may include:
- clinical facilitators
- nurse educators
- nurse unit managers
- registered nurses who have supervised you through placement.
We prefer you to use clinical supervisors with recent knowledge of your clinical practice.
Information you’ll need to apply
You’ll need the following to complete your application:
- if you already work for us, your Queensland Health ID (payroll) number
- your visa type if you’re not an Australian Citizen or New Zealand Citizen, and your Passport Document Number
- your Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) registration ID number as a registered nurse or midwife if you have registration with them (not other registrations)
- your education, clinical placement, and employment history
- your Unique Student Identifier (USI) as provided by the Australian Government (if you studied in Australia)
- your education provider identifier, the ID issued by your Australian education provider.
Email address
You’ll also need an email address that you can access for at least the next year. We recommend you use your personal email instead of your student email as you may lose access when you graduate. Remember to check your junk folder in case our emails go there.
Completing the application
Completing the application form will take about 1 hour, if you've prepared beforehand. Our application guide [PDF 1589.01 KB] steps you through each part of the online application process.
To apply, you must upload:
- a cover letter
- an academic transcript, official or unofficial
If you don’t upload these 2 documents, we can’t process your application.
It's a good idea to prepare early so you can submit your application on time. You can choose 'save and continue later' in the application portal if you need to pause your application.
Cover Letter
Keep your cover letter to one A4 page and outline your motivations for applying, your passion for the profession and what you'll bring to the team. Several HHSs may view your application, but the focus and context should be on the one you selected as a first preference.
Resume
You won’t need to upload your resume or CV. The application form has a resume section that you’ll fill in instead.
Education, clinical placement and employment history
The application form includes an online resume section which captures your history in a standard format.
To complete this section, you’ll need to include information about:
- your education, clinical placements and employment
- your principal midwifery or nursing qualification – add any related nursing or midwifery qualifications and any other relevant or non clinical qualifications
- the name of the University or institute issuing the qualification and your grade point average (GPA) or weighted average mark (WAM), the clinical placements you did for each year of your study, including how many weeks you were placed and the clinical area where you did the placement – for example unit, ward or service
- your current or most recent work or volunteer history, including the name of the organisation, the nature of work and your commencement and end dates.
Other things to consider
Preferred start date
Consider when you can commence work, taking into account the time you need to get AHPRA registration and any personal commitments.
Role Descriptions
If you're accepted into the graduate program, you'll be employed by Queensland Health and are required to fulfil functions as outlined in the Graduate Registered Nurse [PDF 794.14 KB] or Graduate Midwife Generic [PDF 853.28 KB] role descriptions. Read the role description as it will help you decide if the program is suitable.
Choosing your preferences
We’ll ask you to choose your preferred work location and clinical specialty. We try to offer all applicants their preferences, but we’re not always able to.
Choosing a Hospital and Health Service (HHS)
Group A has HHSs that are in remote, rural or regional locations. If you live in these areas or want to work for one of these HHSs, you only need to provide one preference. You can provide up to 6 HHS preferences if you want.
Group B HHSs receive a higher number of applications than Group A. These HHSs are typically in metropolitan or large regional centres. HHSs in Groups A and B are listed below.
Group A
- Central Queensland HHS
- Central West HHS
- Mackay HHS
- North West HHS
- South West HHS
Group B
- Cairns and Hinterland HHS
- Children’s Health Queensland HHS
- Darling Downs HHS
- Gold Coast HHS
- Metro North HHS
- Metro South HHS
- Sunshine Coast HHS
- Torres and Cape HHS
- Townsville HHS
- West Moreton HHS
- Wide Bay HHS
You have 3 options for your application:
- If your first preference is a HHS in Group A, you aren’t required to provide any other preferences. You can provide up to 6 work location preferences if you want.
- If your first preference is a work location in Group B, you must provide a second preference. If your second preference is a HHS in Group A, you aren’t required to provide any other preferences. You can provide up to 6 work location preferences if you want.
- If your first 2 preferences are from Group B, you must provide a third preference. You can provide up to 6 work location preferences.
For each HHS selected, you must select at least one facility. You may be able to select up to 3 facilities at some HHSs.
Note: While you will select workplace preferences, you application will initially be assessed by your first preference HHS. Following that, if you are not shortlisted by your first preference HHS, you application will only move to other HHS preferences if the HHS is open to receive additional applications. Where a selected HHS is closed to additional applications, due to high supply of first preferences, this selection will be skipped and the next HHS preference will be considered in the same manner.
Choosing clinical preferences
You must select at least 2 clinical speciality areas, however, you can select up to 6. Selecting more clinical specialities provides HHSs with greater flexibility when considering your application.
Clinical Specialities
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health
- Ambulatory Care (i.e. outpatients)
- Cardiac
- Care of the older person (gerontic)
- Ear nose and throat (ENT)
- Emergency (ED)
- Gastroenterological care
- Intensive/critical care
- Medical
- Mental health
- Neonatal
- Neurological
- Offender health care
- Oncology/haematology
- Oral Health
- Orthopaedic
- Paediatric care
- Palliative care
- Peri operative care
- Primary and community health care
- Procedural areas/interventional suites
- Rehabilitation
- Renal care
- Residential Aged Care
- Rural and remote area nursing
- Surgical care
Preferencing midwifery
Midwifery isn’t considered a clinical preference because it’s a separate profession to nursing. If you have dual qualifications, you'll need to make a choice between midwifery or nursing. If you want to work in a rural and remote location and work across both professions, you can discuss this with the HHS at interview.
You'll be asked to select, in order of preference, the midwifery model of care you would prefer to work in. Queensland Health options include;
- Midwifery Group Practice or Continuity of Midwifery Care Model
- Rotational shifts across all areas of midwifery practice, or
- Work in one specific area of midwifery practice, for example, a postnatal ward.
Vaccine Preventable Diseases
To help protect our patients, staff, and the wider community, QLD Health has specified 6 vaccine preventable diseases.
As a registered nurse or a midwife, you'll be required to demonstrate you are vaccinated, and to be offered employment, your vaccination status must be at the required level for an employment offer.
In this year’s application, you'll be required to provide a self-assessed status for vaccine preventable diseases.
Some vaccine preventable disease requirements only apply in certain areas of Queensland.
Changing your application
You can save your application and return to it later to make changes, unless you’ve submitted it
If you want to change an application that has been submitted, you’ll need to withdraw it and submit a new one.
- log in to your SmartJobs account and select your application
- withdraw your application
- click into your withdrawn application and scroll to the bottom of the first page
- click on ‘delete’ to remove your application
- use the link we've emailed to access the application portal again
- resubmit your application with the correct information.
More information
If you have any questions about the program or applying, email the Office of the Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer at nursingmidwifery-graduateenquiries@health.qld.gov.au. If there are a high number of enquiries, it may take some time for us to get back to you.
You can also contact a HHS if you have specific questions about their services or facilities.
Interviews
Interview time frames vary and are planned by HHSs. Once you are shortlisted, you will be able to ask when the interviews are planned to be held. As a general rule, interviews can commence from late August and end in late October.
We use interviews to understand your motivation to become a registered nurse or midwife, your passion for the profession and your current knowledge and interests.
To learn more about the interview process, register to join our webinars.
Other nursing and midwifery career opportunities
If you’re not eligible or don’t gain entry to the graduate program, there are still many opportunities to work in Queensland Health. We regularly advertise these opportunities on Smart Jobs, and we recommend you set up an account and activate an alert for roles that interest you.