How Long Should a Resume Be?

You need to invest some time into writing a resume that impresses recruiters enough to help you land your next interview. And as you start brainstorming all the cool projects you’ve done, big accomplishments you’ve achieved, and more, you start to wonder, ”how long should a resume be?” Should you fit everything into one page or include a ton of experience and extend it into multiple pages? This post will help you determine the right resume length based on your experience.

How many pages should a resume be?

A resume should be between one and two pages in length. If you’re a new grad, student, or new to an industry, your resume should be one page. If you’ve been working for a few years your resume should be between one and two pages. Some who have decades worth of experience still lean on only including their most recent experiences and fitting them into one page for easy reading. The longer the resume is, the less edited it is making it less read by recruiters as pages go on. The ideal length of a resume is one page. Two is recommended only if you’ve got so much great experience you need to include it or if you’ve had really impressive accomplishments at many companies.

How to make your resume more concise

1. Use bullet points

Bullet points are common practice in resumes, still they help make your resume more concise. Wherever possible try to keep your resume content in list format with bullet points or keywords organized together in a skills section. Not only do bullet points help with readability because they’re so easy to scan, it also helps resume writers get to the point a lot faster. Writing in bullet points helps you share what your biggest accomplishments are without overexplaining yourself. If you want to explain your work, write a cover letter to add context. But on a resume, those bullet points help make your resume more concise. Your resume shouldn’t be a long document, so where possible aim to have bullet points to explain your work history.

2. Remove filler words

To make your resume more concise, try removing filler words. Filler words include words such as, in order to, as needed, I, successfully, a large number of, diligently, quickly, a, the, and so on. For example, instead of in order to simply say to. Try finding simpler ways of writing your experiences. You can use AI tools like Huntr to have ChatGPT re-write your accomplishments for you so you can create a more standard accomplishment for your resume without the use of filler words. When you’re trying to shorten the length of your resume to fit to a page, always look for ways to keep your content brief and to the point.

3. Remove irrelevant details

Since the resume length needs to be under two pages, removing irrelevant details is crucial to keep the length short without taking away key information. For example, if you have a university degree, you don’t need to mention your high school graduation dates as it’s likely that you have a high school diploma if you’ve graduated from university. Alternatively, you also want to remove your full address. You should only include your city and state/province. References also don’t have a place on resumes anymore so make sure not to include those. Design elements that take up space and cause issues include things like a photo of yourself, which also can introduce bias.

4. Focus only on achievements rather than tasks

When considering how long a resume should be, aim to focus on achievements rather than tasks. If you list all the tasks you did at a company, you’ll have a long list of things, which take up space. However, if you focus on things you’ve achieved during your time at that company, such as your biggest accomplishments, you’ll come up with fewer items but they’ll also be more impactful and convincing for a hiring manager. A hiring manager doesn’t know what tasks you’ve done. They want to know what sort of results you can drive for them based on what you’ve done in the past.

5. Remove outdated experiences

To make your resume shorter, remove outdated experiences. You should aim to have between 3-5 of your past jobs on your resume. Beyond this, you should probably delete those experiences. If something is outdated, temporary, or irrelevant remove them from your resume. Aim to only include your most relevant experiences with the biggest accomplishments. Since a resume is a document used to sell you as the ideal candidate, try to include only your best professional experiences. Tailoring your resume for a job can also make it easier to keep your resume brief as you’re not trying to be everything to everyone.

Should you cram everything into one page?

No, you shouldn’t cram everything into one page. If your resume is extending into two pages, look for opportunities to cut out information, simplify statements, and remove unnecessary details. If you have a ton of relevant and crucial information to add, instead of trying to fit it into one page, extend it into two pages. Be honest with yourself about how necessary it is to include these details though. After all, if the experiences aren’t completely relevant to the role you’re applying for, there’s no point in having them there. Avoid making changes to font sizes and margins to fit everything into one page. If there’s a tiny spill over, you can make changes to font sizes. But if your font is tiny and unreadable, you might not have a resume that’s doing its job of selling you. The look of your resume should still be scannable and easy to read.

How to determine the right resume length for you

To determine the right resume length for you, consider the following as a guide:

Students: one page

New graduates: one page

Entry-level employee: one page

Career changer: one page

Employee with 10 years of experience: between one to two pages

Employee with 15 years of experience or more: between one to two pages

Executive: between one to two pages

Resume length guidelines

1. 3-5 bullet points per section

How long should a resume section be? In your work experience section, you should add between 3-5 bullet points per job. Having your three to five best accomplishments is all you really need to sell yourself. Focus on the biggest wins you’ve had at your last job that helped you achieve your numbers. Write them in a STAR format (situation, task, action, result). If you find yourself spilling over to the next page without wanting to, choose to remove the least important accomplishments. You can land interviews with only three bullet points per section. The focus is on the quality of the accomplishment rather than the number of them. Really impressive results will be more beneficial than the number of bullet points you have. Remember, it’s about accomplishments and not duties done.

2. Keep each bullet to one to two lines at most

To keep your resume scannable and easy to read, aim to make each bullet point one line. It’s okay if it extends into two lines. But the ideal length is to keep it one line per accomplishment. You don’t need more than a line to share the metrics you hit and how you did it. The goal when writing each bullet point is to get to the point, without filler words, or over explaining yourself. It’s mostly meant to be a teaser to hook in a hiring manager to want to learn more in an interview. In an interview, you’ll be asked questions about your process. But your resume isn’t the place to share context beyond a couple of words. You can name the strategy or tactic you did to achieve the goal but you shouldn’t describe your process until an interview.

3. Only include 3-5 jobs

On your resume, don’t include every job you’ve ever held, especially if you’ve been working for over a decade. Instead, choose the most relevant roles to the position you’re applying to. Also, only include your most recent positions. A person with over 10 years of experience who includes only their three best jobs isn’t going to be looked down upon. Remember, everything on your resume is about your accomplishments. If they’re impressive, they’ll carry you into the next round of interviews. Include three to five jobs that best highlight your work ethic, accomplishments, and results. What are the things you’ve done that are extraordinary? Which accomplishments would be most impressive to someone looking to hire you? What are the main needs the hiring manager is looking to have filled in this hire? Most businesses think about things like revenue. If you can tie your accomplishments to a revenue target or goal or increase, you’ll be seen more favorably than other candidates applying for the same role.

4. Keep margins at about 1 inch

When we’re trying to fit all of our best work experiences and accomplishments into one page, it’s a natural tendency to want to play with margin sizes. However, it’s important to mention that hiring managers do judge resumes by their appearance. If your resume is wall-to-wall text, it’s going to overwhelm the person who has to read it, so they might not scan it as thoroughly as they would other candidates. Make sure you have 1 inch margins or if your resume design doesn’t call for it, enough visible white space on your resume. You don’t want to pack your resume with too much text that overwhelms someone. Make sure you can see gaps between headers and content. Don’t condense bullet points closely together either. The goal is to make your resume as easy to scan as possible to make it easier for recruiters and hiring managers.

5. Choose a compact font

When considering how long your resume should be, you might want to use a compact font. This doesn’t mean a font called narrow or lite as that’s a bit too compact. Instead, aim to choose a standard compact font like Arial, Georgia, EB Garamond, Lexend, or Times New Roman. Avoid fonts like Comfortaa or Verdana which take up more space due to their thickness. You can control the font size to make it a bit smaller or bigger, but get a second set of eyes on it if you shrink the font. Ask someone, “does this look easy to read to you?” And if they say yes, then great. The font size and font you’ve chosen are perfect. However, if they say it’s hard to read, you’ll need to increase the font size. Remember, it’s possible to have a hiring manager that’s older than you or that even has a visual disability. So, always think about making your resume as readable as possible with a readable font and an appropriate font size.

6. Condense sections if needed

You don’t need to include all sections of a resume. For example, you can remove education if you’ve been working for over ten years. Or you can combine skills and hobbies together. There are ways to combine relevant sections or remove them altogether to make room on your resume for the key stuff. For example, maybe instead of adding links to your portfolio in a project section, you add it to your header to make space. Think about all the ways of reorganizing your resume to make it more scannable, practical, and easier to fit in one page without it being an information overload experience for the reader of your resume.

When are two page resumes ok?

Two page resumes are ok when you have a ton of work experience in a relevant industry. If you’ve been a CEO for seven great companies and helped all of them achieve great results. You might share all of your experiences to help you land your next role. Alternatively, if you have a lot of varied experiences that are all necessary for a job you’re applying for, you might make your resume longer to showcase all those experiences. Two page resumes are okay for more senior or experienced employees with a long and positive track record at working at companies. If you’ve just started your first job, it just wouldn’t make sense to have two pages. Two pages could also work well if you’re a very accomplished person. For example, you might include additional sections that aren’t mandatory, such as awards, projects, languages, or certifications.

Conclusion

Now that you know the answer to how long should a resume be, it’s time to use a resume builder like Huntr and start working on your resume. Using Huntr, you’ll be able to make easy adjustments to make your resume fit one page, while ensuring it’s scannable enough for recruiters and hiring managers to read. You can add or remove sections as you’d like to make your resume look professional while using it to help sell you as the ideal candidate for a job. If you’d like to start building your resume, you can sign up for Huntr today!