How long is your resume now? One page? Two? Three? Is it hard to read because there is too much information on each page? Or does it seem to be too long, unnecessarily stretching your work experience across multiple pages?
In my time as a recruiter, I looked through thousands of resumes. When I switched over and started to write them, I realized that the most strategic decision you can make is how long your resume should be.
The length of your resume depends on two things:
- How much content you need to properly convey your value
- The tightness of the writing
If you check out this video clip, I will walk you through my decision-making process by using my own resume.
- One page: There is a myth that resumes always need to be one page. That actually is not true. What usually happens is that all of the content is squished to a single page, understating your qualifications while also being hard to read.
- Two pages: Most of the resumes I write are two pages. This gives enough space to fully convey why you should be hired. It’s not easy, however. Often, getting to two pages often requires me to edit down, edit down, and edit down again.
- Three pages: I rarely write 3-page resumes, so if you want that extra page, there must be a good reason. Maybe you need an addendum. Perhaps you are in marketing and have numerous campaigns to be included. Or you could do technical work which requires a lot of detail. But keep in mind that the writing needs to be very tight so the third page doesn’t just flow over the two pages.
Determining the length of your resume is one thing that we can talk about in a free consult call. Once we’ve determined the appropriate length for your resume, I can start writing it!
I have been writing resumes professionally for 16 years. If you would like to discuss yours, please feel free to schedule a FREE call here. One of the things we will discuss will be the length of your current resume and how we can make better use of each page!