Licences, Certifications and Right to Work: What Belongs on Your CV

Candidates tend to spend their editing time on the summary and the achievement bullets, and almost none on the practical credentials at the bottom of the page. That is backwards for a large class of roles. In field engineering, healthcare, logistics, sales, skilled trades and regulated professions, a missing licence or an unclear work-authorisation status is a hard filter — the application ends there, regardless of how strong the rest of it is.

Why Recruiters Screen on Practical Credentials First

Screening on a credential is cheap and unambiguous. A recruiter filling a role that requires site visits knows whether a candidate can drive; a hospital knows whether a nurse is registered with the relevant regulator; a firm knows whether it can employ someone without sponsoring a visa. Because these questions are binary, they get asked first, and candidates who leave them unanswered are treated as unknowns rather than as maybes.

The cost of obtaining a credential after hiring is also real. Professional registration in a new jurisdiction can take months, and a driving licence obtained from scratch takes time and money. If a role needs someone operating from day one, the recruiter will filter for people who already are.

What to List

Include anything that is a prerequisite for doing the job, or that removes friction from hiring you:

• Professional registration and licences: The regulator, the registration number if it is public, and the expiry date. Name the jurisdiction, since registration rarely transfers automatically across borders.
• Industry certifications: Project management, safety, quality, cloud, security and language certifications, with the awarding body and the year. Mark any that have lapsed as lapsed rather than omitting the date.
• Driving licence: Where the role involves travel between sites or clients, state the class and issuing country, and note whether you have your own vehicle if that is relevant.
• Work authorisation: A single factual line — for example "Right to work: permanent resident, no sponsorship required" or "Requires visa sponsorship". Recruiters read this as helpful, not presumptuous.
• Availability: Your notice period or earliest start date. This is one of the most frequently missing pieces of information in an application, and one of the easiest to supply.

Where to Put It

Do not bury these details on the last line of page two. For roles where the credential is a prerequisite, put it near the top: in the contact block, in a short sidebar, or in a clearly headed "Certifications & Licences" section immediately after your summary. If the licence is effectively the qualification for the job, name it in your headline.

How to Word It

Be specific and verifiable rather than vague. Compare:

• Weak: "Certified project manager" → Strong: "Project Management Professional (PMP), PMI, 2022 — valid to 2028"
• Weak: "Registered nurse" → Strong: "Registered Nurse — [Regulator], reg. no. 1234567, current"
• Weak: "Have driving licence" → Strong: "Full clean driving licence (Category B), issued [country], own vehicle"
• Weak: "Available soon" → Strong: "Available from 1 September — 30 days notice"

Summary Verdict

These lines take five minutes to write and they answer the exact questions a recruiter has to resolve before they can move you forward. Stating them plainly does not weaken your application — it removes the reasons someone might have to set it aside.