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The Case for a One Page Resume

If you learn one thing about resumes from this blog, I hope that it’s that they don’t need to be 12 pages long.  Seriously.  I cringe every time I pick up a resume that’s more than 2 pages.  I just don’t even want to read it.  I'm sure that the time you spent 2 hours learning about the differences between ECMAScript and Javascript eight years ago was really important to your career growth, but I'm just too busy to get to the tenth page.

There are two schools of thought on resume length.  One school is to keep it simple and digestible.  The other school is to keep a resume long with as many possible buzzwords and information about every single day you’ve ever worked on every single job in your career and include lots of minute details about things that somebody, somewhere might actually notice and care about.

I’m a big subscriber to the first school of thought here.  When I’m looking at 50 resumes to fill one position, I am looking at them FAST, because I've got lots of responsibilities that don't involve looking at resumes.  I don’t want to read your resume if it’s 5 pages long, even if it does contain the most compelling material since Hemingway.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m not going to read it, but I’m probably going to spend the same amount of time on your 5 pages that I spend on somebody else’s one page.  Think about that for a second.  When you’re writing a resume, do you want somebody to really take some time and look at the strongest pieces of your career and skill set?  Or, are you OK with that person just barely seeing a short glimpse of every minute detail?

If you’re going to write a very long resume, consider your lead.  Think of it like a news story.  If I’m going to read a long, long resume, I’m going to look at the top and rapidly lose interest as I proceed through it.  So make sure you have the most important (and probably most current) information at the top.  That way, even if I do lose interest around page 7, I'll be more likely to read the compelling stuff.

Personally, I always try to keep my resume within one page, no matter how much experience I add.  When I was younger and less experienced, I had a longer resume, but I found more success when I started reducing its length to a single page.  There is a reason that most resumes coming from business school students are only a single page – business schools typically go through extensive efforts to train the students in effective resume writing techniques.

When I read a one page resume, I can see plainly and easily what that person is all about.  Unless you've got so many grand accomplishments that you can't possibly fit it all on a single page in 11 point Arial, keep it short and simple.

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