Good you to mention variances from one country to another. As an example,
in North America you would NEVER mention age, personal details about your
family, or include information about references in the body of the resume
itself. The resumes I've seen from Oz always have included those things.
In many countries it is expected to include a life-long detailed work
history. In North America, OTOH, anything more than 10 years old, unless
it's something really big like being awarded a Nobel prize, is considered
completely irrelevant and including more about it other than perhaps a brief
mention can be a negative. The ideal resume for any except the most senior
people is one or two pages only with lots of white space and if you have to
leave off ancient history to get it to fit, so be it.
In an extreme example of the difference, some countries it is the norm to
include the name of supervisors in your work history. In many large
companies in the US it is a termination offense for a supervisor or manager
to give out any information or recommendation whatsoever about a previous
subordinate. They're specifically prohibited from even speaking with anyone
calling for references and all queries are referred to human resources. HR,
in turn, is prohibited from saying anything at all beyond verifying "Joe
Blow was employed by us between xx/xx/xx and yy/yy/yy and is/isnot eligible
for re-hire." Even if they were terminated for massive theft or going
berserk and shooting up the head office with a machine gun, you can't say
anything about it to their prospective employer.
