Resume length preference?

[Cheetah8799]

What is your preference on resume length? One page? more?

Personally I have always preferred one page. Make it short, to the point, and have the key things listed for the job you are applying for.

Lately though, I find myself having trouble fitting everything into one page. I have now had four different jobs in my field, and all pertain to what I am seeking for a new job. I don't like the idea of going to a two page format, but feel that I may need to in order to properly show the experience I would be bringing to the companies I am applying to.


If anyone here has experience hiring Senior or Lead IT people in application development and support roles, I'd love to hear your opinions.

thanks.

 

[LuckyTaxi]

Well if you work for many different companies then how can you fit it all on one page?

 

[Taggart]

I believe the general rule of thumb is unless you are an academic or have a long job history keep it to one page.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

It really depends on your age and experience level. 1 or 2 is acceptable. Nothing longer, though. If you use a second page, you'll need to fill both, but if anything most resumes contain too much language, not too little - there should always be plenty of blank space regardless of the length.

 

[Mo0o]

Anything longer than two is overly wordy

 

[SoulAssassin]

2 pages....no more, no less.

 

[NuclearNed]

1 page.

When I first graduated college, I had one of those 5 page resumes that detailed everything I had ever done since birth. I had a mentor who ripped it apart and condensed it down to the relevant things - 1 page. At first I got a little defensive about it, but now that I've been out in the world and actually had the opportunity to hire people, I can say for sure that I give short resumes more consideration.

Your resume is your foot in the door. It isn't the interview.

 

[Injury]

Originally posted by: lilcam
Well if you work for many different companies then how can you fit it all on one page?

If you have the experience you deserve a second page, but for the first 5-10 years of your career your resume probably isn't impressive enough to need more than 1 page.

And I say that because one of the first things people look for is experience. If a person has a stack of resumes and they are looking for someone with experience, unless they see something on a first page that hints that the second might be worth reading, they aren't going to bother.

Also, if you are only 5-10 years into it and need a second page for your resume, it's probably because you change jobs often and that is a BAD SIGN for a company unless they are looking for temporary help.

 

[Scarpozzi]

I say 2 pages, but some people prefer a 1 page resume. If the company itself scans the resumes into their system a 1 page is also superior as long as you use the proper buzz words the system is looking for. They have a lot of high-tech resume scanning software these days to reduce the stacks of resumes received. Do your research before you submit.

 

[Looney]

1 page... if you MUST have it longer than 1 page, NO MORE than 2 pages. The person who's looking at resumes, is looking at dozens if not hundreds of them. If yours is too big, or is crowded with junk, they'll just skip it.

 

[Injury]

Originally posted by: NuclearNed
Your resume is your foot in the door. It isn't the interview.

Exactly!

If a person can know all about you by reading a piece of paper, then why do they need to interview you? You WANT the interview. You want to show them your personality, and you can't show that on paper.

Leave some to the imagination. Leave something to talk about.

 

[Stuxnet]

For IT, 2 pages is acceptable provided you have the experience to justify it. Don't leave out crucial information just for the sake of keeping it to one page.

 

[Strk]

One page unless they ask for a curriculum vitae (look it up if you don't know what it is). You will rarely find a person, especially someone young, who has enough relevant experience that it can't fit on one page. That's not to say it never happens, but mostly it can be concise enough to fit on one page.

 

[Willoughbyva]

One page most of the time.

 

[Descartes]

Last year I looked at probably 1,000 resumes and interviewed 500 people. I don't remember a single one that was only 1 page long. If your resume is so short that it doesn't tell me enough about your experience then I'm simply going to ignore it as I don't have the time to push forward unless there's a viable opportunity.

I say 2 pages. Anything less and I think you don't have enough experience. Technical resumes are different in that you should often include a summary of technical abilities to give the reviewer an idea of breadth. Also, given how varied your experience can be it's simply too difficult to distill any worthwhile experience into a few single bullet points.

FWIW, my resume is 2 pages. I also include a summary of technical qualifications, awards, publications, notable projects, etc. I've never had anything but positive comments on my resume.

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: jbourne77
For IT, 2 pages is acceptable provided you have the experience to justify it. Don't leave out crucial information just for the sake of keeping it to one page.

Nice concise way of expressing everything I wanted to say as well. I agree.

 

[Strk]

Originally posted by: Descartes
Last year I looked at probably 1,000 resumes and interviewed 500 people. I don't remember a single one that was only 1 page long. If your resume is so short that it doesn't tell me enough about your experience then I'm simply going to ignore it as I don't have the time to push forward unless there's a viable opportunity.

I say 2 pages. Anything less and I think you don't have enough experience. Technical resumes are different in that you should often include a summary of technical abilities to give the reviewer an idea of breadth. Also, given how varied your experience can be it's simply too difficult to distill any worthwhile experience into a few single bullet points.

FWIW, my resume is 2 pages. I also include a summary of technical qualifications, awards, publications, notable projects, etc. I've never had anything but positive comments on my resume.

I find your resume shallow and pedantic!