CV/ Resume Writing Tips

How Long Should A Resume Be? Resume Experts’ Advice

July 25, 2022

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How long should a resume be?

This question has troubled every document writer.

Is a single page sufficient for a resume? Will the second page be read by the recruiter? How many pages can a resume be maximum?

The confusion and queries never seem to cease.

Well, no more confusion regarding the length of your resume. Read on and discover how long should a resume be.

IDEAL Resume Length
How long should A Resume Be?

The best answer to how long should a resume be is to keep it as succinct as possible while you adequately outline your best skills and experience.

So, your years of experience determine the length of your document.

Often you may come across statements that having a one-page resume is critical. Though there are a number of advantages of a concise, single-page resume, determining how long should a resume be isn’t necessarily as simple as keeping it on one page.

Resume length is a secondary factor. It comes after readability and content quality in importance.

So, let us first discover how to determine the length of your resume.

How To Determine The Required Length Of A Document?

Your years of experience determine the length of your resume. The following chart will clear your doubts regarding the length of your resume.

High School Students, Freshers, College Students	Single-page resume
Entry-level candidates or career changers	Single-page resume
Experienced candidates with 1-10 years of experience	Single-page resume
Experienced candidates with 10+ years’ relevant experience and a number of accomplishments	2 or more pages

So, check out your experience. Most importantly, you must check out your relevant experience. Experience that is related to the job or organization you are applying for. A customized resume is a must.

How Long Should A Resume Be for a Professional?

As stated above, your experience will determine the number of pages.

Still, even if you have 10+ years of experience, it does not mean that you will write about each and everything you did in your 30-40 years of life.

Be concise. The more concise you are, the better.

Even for an experienced professional, it is crucial to communicate your most important and relevant information as briefly as possible.

Often the recruiters spend just 6 seconds scanning your resume. In this short span of time they whether or not your resume is a good fit for the role. Therefore, you must keep this in mind and be critical of every point you include on your resume.

Tips To Make Your Document Concise

Follow the tips below and get rid of the terribly wordy resumes.

Instead of including every job duty for each of your past positions, consider including two to three bullet points of quantified achievements.
Include the most relevant jobs.
If you are applying for a CEO position, do not add your part-time high school jobs.
Avoid using filler words such as “that,” “the,” “a,” “an,” or “like.”
Consider excluding the experiences or information that may not be relevant to the position you’re applying for.
Scan the job advertisement well to get a better idea of what the employer may be looking for in your resume. Add the potential keywords.

Often the resumes are too wordy but fail to pass the ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems) as they lack the proper resume keywords.

How Long Should A Resume Be for a College Student?

The pressure of not having much experience at the college level often pushes students to the extent that they include heaps and heaps of information and end up creating a 2-3 page resume.

Well, if you were not Newton in your school days, a single-page resume is just perfect for you.

Of course, you must consider adding all the relevant experiences, internships, and volunteer but in a concise manner. This way your resume grabs the attention of the reader.

So, the bottom line is that a college student must create a single-page resume.

Exceptions To Document Lengths

While we strongly encourage you to limit your resume length to a maximum of two pages, you may come across instances where this is nearly impossible. This is most common with professionals who have a never-ending list of technical skills and proficiencies. Experienced candidates may have a large number of consulting gigs to explain or may have to attach some details of various publications.

So, if you fall into one of these categories, you might need to move on to the first part of a third page. However, you must try to avoid this if possible.

Given below are three additional scenarios when your resume length is likely to exceed two standard A4 size pages:

When you are creating an international CV to apply for vacancies outside of the U.S.
You are applying for a position in academia or the sciences and are using an academic resume format.
You choose a federal CV to apply for positions within the U.S.

So, follow the above tips and create the most amazing resume for your job. Want to make things easier? Check out the following links to templates. You can download these for free and customize them before sending them to potential employers.