BEFORE YOU START
What to have ready
Eight things that hold an application up when they are missing. Not a score, and not a judgement about how prepared you are, most people start without half of them.
The eight
You already know you need a CV. What is worth knowing is what counts as ready, and what it costs when it is not.
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A current CV
Current means it covers what you are doing now, not that it was rewritten this week. One version that is honest and complete beats several tailored ones you cannot keep straight.
The gap between deciding to apply and being able to apply is usually the CV, and that gap is where deadlines are missed.
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Your professional profile checked
Read as a stranger would: what it says you do now, whether the dates agree with your CV, and whether anything is still describing a job you left.
Employers look, and a profile that contradicts the CV raises a question you then have to answer instead of talking about the work.
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The occupations you are aiming at
A short list you could name out loud, not a category. "Data analyst" and "data engineer" are different searches, different requirements and different pay.
Every later decision depends on this one. Without it, applications drift toward whatever appeared first.
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A salary floor you have actually worked out
A number below which you would say no, worked out from what you need rather than from what you last earned.
It gets asked early, often before an interview, and the answer given on the spot tends to become the ceiling.
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Your notice period
The figure in your contract, and whether anything in your handover would realistically make it longer.
It is one of the first questions asked once an offer is close, and guessing at it can commit you to a date you cannot keep.
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Reference details you can send today
Names, current employers, and permission asked. A referee who is surprised to be contacted is a slow reference.
References are usually the last step, and the delay lands after you have already resigned somewhere else.
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Your qualification records
The certificates or registration numbers themselves, found and stored somewhere you can reach in a hurry, not the memory of having them.
Replacing a lost certificate takes weeks, and it is asked for at the point where everything else is agreed.
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Real examples of your own work
Two or three things you actually did, with what the situation was and what changed because of you. Written down, because they will not come to mind under pressure.
Interviews ask for specifics. Preparing them once is the difference between recalling your own work and improvising it.
What this page does not do
Nothing here is counted or scored. You can mark an item done and it will be here when you come back, but there is no total and no progress bar: a readiness score would be a judgement about you made from things this site does not know, and there is no version of it worth having.
Six of the eight are about your own history, which this site holds nothing about. It reports published statistics on occupations, so it links to its own evidence only on the two where that evidence genuinely helps.