A Lengthy Debate

“Should my resume be 1 or 2 pages?”

There’s a very popular myth that a resume should never be more than one page.  This is not true.  A resume can be two pages. Three?  No.  Two?  Sometimes.

In order to quickly determine whether or not you’re qualified for a two-page resume, ask yourself the following questions:

•    Do I hold multiple post-graduate degrees?
•    Have I worked as an upper-level executive recently?
•    Was I in the military?
•    Is it absolutely imperative that I list my last 4+ positions, as well as my degree?

Unless you answer yes to any of these questions, your resume needs to stick to just one page.
  (Yes, there will be exceptions.  A good rule of thumb is that if you’re unsure, still keep to just a single page.)

Remember that people are inherently lazy: no one wants to spend their days reading through to the third page of your resume.  By that point it’s probably acquainted itself with the trash bin.  A resume doesn’t need to list your life story – it’s not a C.V., you don’t need every minute detail – skipping things is good.

What a resume is meant to do is highlight the accomplishments you made while gaining experience or educating yourself in a position that’s relevant to that which you’re applying for.  That’s it.  It doesn’t need to be fancy, it needs to be quick and dirty so it can get the job got.  Literally.

“But, but … that’s important!”

Everything listed on your resume may indeed be important to you, but that doesn’t mean that it’s going to be important to the person reading it.  Think of it this way: Your resume at 3 pages has a lot of good information … with some incredible material, some average, and some that’s probably less-than-necessary.

With all of your incredible accomplishments being mixed in with the average or even unnecessary, it devalues those high-level accomplishments.  If you stick to a briefer resume that focuses on only your A+ material, you can be positive that your A+ material is the stuff being read.