How Many Pages A Resume Should Be
How long should your resume be? The answer is that the length of your resume depends on a number of factors. It depends on how much experience you have and what level candidate you are. If you’re an entry-level candidate, a page should be plenty.
For more experienced candidates, it’s fine to have a longer resume. Read below for more detailed information on how long your resume should be, and tips for making your resume the perfect length.
Showcase Your Work History
Concentrate on the last 10 years of your work history unless you think listing an earlier position will help you get this particular job. List most recent job first and include the employer name, location, job title and dates worked. Describe your primary job duties and list your main accomplishments during your time at the company. Try to use achievements that are measurable, such as increasing sales by 20 percent or reducing your department’s expenses by $100,000.
Can A Resume Be 2 Pages
A two page resume is OK if you can’t cut it shorter without hurting the message. Professionals with lots of experience in technical professions often need a two page resume.
Write a 2-page resume if:
Expert Hint: Can you guarantee that anywhere they look, youll blow their minds? Then write a two-page resume.
Heres how to write a 2-page resume that works:
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When You Have More Than 10 Years Of Experience
If you have 10 or more years of experience in your industry with multiple employers, or a history of promotion and professional achievement, you should definitely use a two-page resume. This will give you the room you need to describe the accomplishments and contributions that will set you apart from your competition.
Why Your Resume Should Be Three Pages
You could have more than two pages if youâre a high-level or senior-level executive or in a very complex, technical field. For example, a scientist may need more than two pages to showcase background, education, published work, and studies. An executive resume usually shows a clear progression of responsibility and job titles with many related experiences.
Your professional document can be three pages if you are actually writing a Curriculum Vitae . This is more common if youâre applying for jobs outside of the USAâread more about the difference between a resume and a CV here. In the US and Canada, there are some other industries that use CVs such as academia and medical.
Federal resumes also follow a different format and can easily be three pages or more.
Read our article on for more information.
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Whats Wrong With A Two
There might be some readers out there for whom two-page resumes are the norm who are wondering why this article exists at all. To those readers, we extend our congratulations so far, youve been lucky enough to avoid lazy or harried interviewers who consistently receive far too many applications for them to read.
While everyone who applies for a given job position deserves a fair shot, the truth of the matter is that at the end of the day, hiring managers and recruiters are just people. And people are flawed, stressed out, and above all usually in some kind of hurry.
Thats why two-page resumes have historically been viewed as bad for a hiring manager at a large company who might typically receive over a hundred applications for any given listing, reading every resume closely just isnt feasible.
But that doesnt mean that two-pagers are always a bad thing. In fact, there are a lot of situations in which a second page might be preferable, even with the added time this might take to read.
Two Page Resume Format
This two page resume example was written by a candidate whos applying to become the personal assistant for a local politician. Shes had plenty of personal assistant experience, but she hasnt worked in politics for eight years. So she uses a two-page resume format to showcase all her relevant experience:
Page 1
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Provide Key Information On Page One
Start your first page with a resume introduction. For experienced job seekers, a resume summary is the best option because you can highlight four or five of your biggest career-related achievements.
However, there are other ways to start a resume, and the best choice for you depends on your professional background.
After your introduction, list your work experience. On a chronological resume, list your most recent job first, and then work backward. You can use your second page to continue your work experience section if necessary, but make sure the listed experience is still relevant to the role youre applying for.
Your resumes skills section should also appear on your first page.
How To Format A Resume That Goes On To A Second Page
Related
It can be hard to fit all of your relevant experience on a one-page resume after you have been working for awhile. Two-page resumes are acceptable as long as they are formatted to be easy to read. Be sure you really do have enough information to require a second page, however. If you cannot fill at least half of the second page, it may be better to condense the details so your entire resume can fit on a single page.
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When You Have Extensive Career Accomplishments Certifications Or Technical Skills
If you are in certain industries, such as IT, engineering, academia, or scientific research, employers will want to review lists of your professional certifications, tech skills, key projects, and publications. These industries still privilege professional credentials as much as they do qualifications, and so a second or third page is necessary in order to provide a comprehensive account of ones training background and work history.
Keep Your Experience Clear And Concise
Another reason many job seekers go over the recommended resume length is because they include too much information for each position they held. Don’t use paragraphs when describing your work experience. Instead, use clear and concise bullet points on your resume.
Our team of 100+ career experts, professional resume writers, and former recruiters recommend that you use 4 to 6 bullet points for each position.
That keeps your work experience focused and relevant while remaining easy for hiring managers to scan.
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Objective Statement And Skills
Start the resume with an objective statement that summarizes your career goals. Use this statement to also highlight one or two of your most valuable abilities on your resume. Skills should be easy to find. Instead of listing all of your job responsibilities and expecting the reader to look through the entire resume to find the important details, add a summary section on the first page.
Pick out five or six of your most important skills and list them with bullet points. Include any computer software or specialized equipment with which you are proficient that would impress the hiring manager for this particular employer.
Remove Irrelevant Or Optional Information
You might have included some optional sections like hobbies and interests or volunteer experience. If this information doesnt make your resume more relevant or valuable to the employer, consider removing it. Here are a few additional pieces of information you might consider removing:
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Proficiency in skills the employer will likely expect you to have like Microsoft suite or soft skills like teamwork
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Phrases such as references available upon request
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Your physical address
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Out-of-date education information such as your high school if you have an associates or bachelors degree
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Cover Letter Quick Tips
Target your message. Describe how your skills, expertise, and accomplishments can benefit the employer. Highlight one or two of your accomplishments or abilities that show you are an above-average candidate for the position. Stressing one or two attributes will increase your chances of being remembered by the recruiter and securing an interview.
Be purposeful. Every cover letter is different, but many effective cover letters provide evidence of the following: company knowledge, technical knowledge, enthusiasm, communication skills, leadership, teamwork, comfort with deadlines, responsibility, ability to learn quickly, maturity and self-starting.
Show your interest. Gain an extra edge by showing that you have specific knowledge about the company or industry. This shows that you are genuinely interested in the job and not just blindly sending out hundreds of resumes. More importantly, the employer will view your interest as an indication that you are likely to stay within the company for a substantial period of time if you are hired.
DO NOT MASS PRODUCE. It is especially important to relate your skills and experience to a specific position in a specific organization. Spotlight your accomplishments and measurable results. Consider that each potential employer is looking for different skills and qualities in each candidate.
General Tips
Cover Letter Openers
Students
Alumni
General
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Why You Should Consider Creating A Two
If you are a mid-level professional, there are several good reasons for creating a two-page resume. Perhaps the most important of these is that many companies now use an automated applicant tracking system to carry out the initial screening of the resumes they receive .
Such systems are programmed to privilege resumes that use and repeat specific keyword phrasesthe bots assess both the placement and the frequency of industry-specific keywords in a resume. They also look for the length of experience one has in using particular job skills.
Expanding your resume to two pages will enable you to repeat these essential keywords throughout your professional experience section.
Although this may seem awkward and redundant stylistically, it is one of the best ways to ensure that your resume is one of the scanned resumes that actually make it to the stage where it will be considered by the human eye of a hiring manager.
Important Things To Remember Before Making A Two
The easiest way to think about it is that if everything can fit on just one page, then thats absolutely the resume size you should be working with. If its at all close to one page, you should see if you can cut it down. Because while its perfectly fine to use two pages when necessary, you want to be totally sure that it is, in fact, necessary.
Anything over two pages, though? If its not a CV, you might as well just throw it out.
Three pages or more is just an unreasonable length of resume to expect a hiring manager to read in most situations but even with a two-pager, there are certain things that you have to keep in mind.
Some of the biggest things to keep in mind when using a two-page resume:
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If youre taking up more space, youre asking for more of your readers time and attention. That means that you have to be absolutely sure that everything youre including past the first page is totally necessary.
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You have more room to experiment with formatting, so do so! Segment your resume into easily scannable, digestible pieces, and make sure the whole thing looks good at a glance.
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Organization is of utmost importance in this longer format, so make sure that the formatting is intuitive more likely than not, that means putting everything in reverse-chronological order .
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Can My Resume Be Three Pages Or Longer
ZipJob Team
5 min read
If you have an extensive work history, you might find yourself with a three-page, four-page, or even a five-page resume. Maybe you’ve held a lot of jobs, or perhaps you’ve been in the workforce for decades. You might also be adding a lot of detail to each job on your resume, trying to maximize your keywords for the ATS scan.
Simple Professional One Page Resume Template
This Simple Professional Resume Template and CV Template is straightforward and effective. It uses design to stand out in a good way. Like the Modern one-page resume template above, its divided for easy readings, with attention-getting headings. The big name and dark heading give it oomph.
Expert Hint: Not all Free Resume Builders are ATS friendly. To make sure your creative resume reaches a human reader, send it directly to the recruiter’s inbox.
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How Do I Shorten My Resume To Fit On One Page
As proud as you may be about your career, it still needs to be kept to the recommended length.
Remember, the hiring manager has plenty more resumes to go after yours.
After you have listed out your past work experience and history, you may find yourself needing to shorten it down to your desired length.
Below are a few key tips to help you condense your resume length.
Can You Use A Two
To summarize the above â yes, you can.
You just need to make sure that your most critical pieces of information are highlighted on the first page.
If you’re an entry-level job seeker, than you won’t need an additional page.
Continue reading our tips and suggestions below to see how you can condense your resume space to stand out on the first page.
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How Long Should A Resume Be
A resume should typically be only one page in length. However, there are certain circumstances under which a two-page resume is acceptable. As long as all the information that is included is important and relevant to the employer, resume length is secondary. Your top priorities when writing your resume is readability and relevance.
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When To Use Two Pages Or More
Summary:
You have probably heard the saying, “Keep your résumé to a page.” Although this is true for most cases, many employers are accepting longer résumés…in certain instances. Use this resource to gain more understanding about what constitutes the page length of a résumé.
The following online resources were consulted for information:
- Hansen, Katharine, “The Scoop on Résumé Length: How Many Pages Should Your Résumé Be?” Quintessential Careers, 25 Oct. 2005.
- Isaacs, Kim “How to Decide on Résumé Length,” Résumé Center. 2006.
- Monster.com. 25 Oct. 2005.
As the job market becomes ever more competitive, you may need to use multiple pages to persuade a potential employer to grant you an interview. For résumés, limiting your document to one page is a good approach for new college graduates and high school students. Some employers may specifically ask for a one-page résumé. However, do not shy away from adding that extra page of accomplishmentsas long as it is relevant and persuasive.
The following sections will give you more advice about when to use résumés of different lengths and will suggest some ways to create a memorable second or third page. Remember, though, that the length of your résumé depends on the rhetorical situation and your audiences’ needs.
When to use one-page résumés
1. New college graduates and other entry-level job seekers tend to need a one-page résumé for the following reasons.
When to use two-page résumés
When to use three- or more page résumés
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How Far Back Should A Resume Go
Generally, you should not go back further than 20 years on your resume. Sometimes, even 15 years.
Imagine that you are applying to a job as a VP of Finance. Your time working at McDonalds 25 years ago will not help your resume at all.
It is great that you did it, but it wont be relevant.
Consider also the existence of recency bias.
A hiring manager will favor your rival if you present virtually identical resumes if they list their achievements more recently.
If you list your big wins as 20 years ago, whereas they list the same in the last 2 years, the latter will be preferred.
Also, if you go back over 20 years, you are talking about your past self. Experience from further back than this will not be considered relevant.
It says little of you today.
So how far should a resume go back?
It often depends on your resume length. Need to cut back on space? Go with 15 years. Need to add space? Go with 20 years.
Your main concern here is making it appear that you are not leaning on your past selfs accolades, but just showing your track record as you continue to achieve great things.
Top Tip: For any additional relevant experience that is older than 15-20 yeas, you can add them in a section called Additional Experience. Include only one line per experience.