The preferred length of a resume is hotly debated.
Should a job candidate do their best to squeeze everything into a single page? Theoretically, a short resume is more likely to be read by a busy HR manager who is going through hundreds of resumes and probably wouldn’t even get to page two. Best to keep everything on page one, where it’s more likely to be seen.
Or should you put it all out there, long and loose: every single job, whether related or unrelated; all of your volunteer work, a picture of you, every skill you can think of, your references, your religion, your hobbies, and your life goals? In other words, the more the better, because it shows you put a lot of time into it.
How Many Pages? What One Resume Service Found
The answer might surprise you. You may have guessed that that the second route is not recommended: Unless you are asked for a CV (curriculum vitae), which is an expanded version of a resume commonly used in Europe, please don’t submit a 20-page paper.
But a one-page paper might be damaging too. A study by one of the largest national resume writing services involving a hiring simulation where “recruiters” rated resumes based on attractiveness found that between one-page and two-page resumes, two-page resumes were 2.3 times as likely to receive preference by recruiters! The resume service’s data clearly showed that two-page resumes were the go to.
Why is this? It’s obvious that recruiters don’t have time to go through excess material, so wouldn’t they be more attracted to single page resumes?
Not necessarily. At a glance, a single page resume is an anomaly that may say, “I don’t have much experience or education, so I just have one page.” You want your resume to stand out, but not this way!
Suppose you do have extensive experience and education. You can modify margins, font size, kerning, and formatting to get all the information to fit onto one page. But how readable is it? Will the recruiter, annoyed, have to find their glasses just to read it? Or will they just toss it in the recycle bin out of frustration?
Insisting on a single page can also sacrifice valuable content. In an effort to save space, you might find yourself listing a job and a position, but little to no description of your job duties. But the skills demonstrated at the job (which take up the most space on resumes) are the most important part of your resume. It’s called “experience” – that is, experience that makes you qualified. It’s not just a list of companies you’ve worked at, which is not a useful metric for recruiters when evaluating competence.
How Do I Shorten My Resume?
If your resume is longer than two pages, don’t worry: there are easy ways to cut fluff, reorganize content, and use formatting tricks to keep everything readable and relevant!
Check out these 8 valuable tips:
- No Objective
Your objective will be tailored to the specific position and will go in the cover letter. Boom, fixed.
- No Values
Everyone says they are punctual and honest team players. Instead of saying this, you will be demonstrating this by giving examples in your interview, and your references will be speaking for you. Don’t say you’re a wonderful human; it’s tacky.
- No Skills
A “Skills” section is highly overrated and completely redundant. You don’t need to say you’re good with Microsoft Word when your jobs list “Composing documents in Microsoft Word” as your experience. It’s worth more to a recruiter to see you using a skill than to hear you say you have a skill.
- No References
You can say “References available upon request.” Or, don’t say anything. When they call you back because your resume is the perfect 2-page length, they will ask for references, and you will send them a separate document.
- No Excuses
Don’t give excuses, explanations, or defenses for why you left a job. If a recruiter wants to know, they’ll ask at an interview. And that’s a whole different can of worms, but it certainly doesn’t belong here!
- No Irrelevant Experience
It can be hard to decide what to include on your resume.
- Should you include a job you were only at for three months? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. If the experience was relevant, it might be a good idea.
- What if you worked for a company 20 years ago? The company is out of business and your experience there is no longer relevant, but maybe it’s good to show that you had a job then. Should you include it? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on the rest of your resume; would it leave a gaping hole if you deleted it? Or would it simply give the impression that the purpose of your resume is not to be comprehensive, but to provide your most recent work history?
- How about volunteer work? That always makes you look good, right? It depends: Is it filling in a work gap? Did it provide skills relevant to the position? Or is it just taking up space? If it’s just filler, maybe you can talk about it in your interview if they ask about your interests, but it doesn’t go on your resume.
- Creative Formatting
Unless absolutely necessary, don’t cut margins or reduce font size. White space is beautiful.
If you find yourself cutting fluff but still have too much resume, try listing your job duties in two columns instead of a single list. If done correctly, it can look just as tidy but take up half the space.
- Customizing
Some people use one resume but customize a cover letter to the job they apply for. Other people customize both their resume and their cover letter.
Customizing your resume to a specific job can be time-consuming, but it’s a possible way to shorten it. You’ll re-evaluate which experience to include based on the job you’re applying for. You’ll consider whether it’s really necessary to list all your duties or only the relevant ones, and if you should re-word them.
Ready to Go
Yes, it takes a lot of work to make your resume concise – sometimes it takes even more work than it did to write it in the first place!
But when you’re done, you’ll have a clean product. Recruiters will easily be able to scan it for relevant information in about 30 seconds. They already have a feeling you’re the type of person that makes their job easier. You’re paving the way for an interview!