How Long Should Your Resume Be?
Compiling your work history into a single document that showcases your skills and qualifications can be tedious and time consuming. One question that many ponder while completing this process is just how long should my resume be?
In the past, it was recommended that one’s resume should be no longer than one page. Today, this advice is only found to be true in certain cases such as a new grad with little to no experience in their specific industry.
What is the Length of a Good Resume?
A good resume should be able to convey information in a clear and concise manner and be a strong representation of your relevant professional history, skills and qualifications without taking up too much space on the paper and overcrowding your resume with words.
If you happen to have an extensive background as well as a lot of experience and skills that are unique, then it would probably be fairly easy for you to create a resume that is five pages or longer. If this is the case, then doing the following is advised.
Aim to keep your resume at a two page maximum without being redundant. This will force you to think through all of those great skills and qualifications you possess and how to best include them within the two page limit you have set for yourself.<
Seek out the advice of a close friend, or even better, seek out the sharp eye of a recruiter who can provide you with feedback and spot areas on your resume that may not be necessary.
Tailor your resume to the jobs you are applying for. Doing this will help you include only those skills and qualifications which are relevant to each specific job and help keep the length of your resume short and to the point.
There are often times where resumes that are submitted to a job include mounds of previous work experience that could have easily been omitted making for a cleaner resume. If you have held positions over the years which all have the same duties and responsibilities, then it might help to create a section within your resume where you list out the duties of the jobs and then have a separate section that lists out the company, titles and date you were employed. The key here is to make your resume easy to read and understand so that that recruiter or hiring manager can get a good idea of your skills and work experience. Your resume has a few seconds to grab the eye of a recruiter and make an impression. The more you can condense things and make them easy to read, the better.
Conclusion
Creating the perfect resume can seem like a time consuming task. Simply placing everything you have done throughout your work history into a document that ends up being pages of information is not the key to landing that interview for your dream job. When putting together your resume, remember that you are creating something that will best represent you as well as the applicable part of your background which best suits the job you are applying for and the company that is hiring.
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