As a general rule of thumb, a properly formatted one-page resume is ideal for most job seekers. However, the exact length will depend on your experience and career level.
If you're just starting your career and looking for your first job, aim for a concise one-page resume. This is enough space to highlight your relevant education, skills, and limited past experience.
Keep descriptions brief but compelling, focusing on quantifiable achievements and career highlights.
Use clear section headings and an uncluttered layout with simple bullet points to keep things scannable.
With a few years of experience under your belt, you'll need to be more selective about what to include on your resume when looking for a new job. However, you still want to keep it to one page if possible.
Emphasize the experience and skills that are most relevant to the position. You can also condense older or unrelated roles into a single line. Use parallel sentence structure and active verbs to keep longer descriptions concise.
If absolutely necessary, you can extend to a second page, but be very judicious about what makes the cut.
At this stage of your career, you'll have a wealth of work experience to draw from, so condensing your job history to one page can be challenging. However, it's still ideal if you can.
Focus on highlighting only the most recent and relevant roles, accomplishments, and quantified impacts. Use clear section headings for easy navigation and stick to concise bullet points. If two pages are needed, make sure the additional content warrants the extra length. The key is to be highly selective, keeping in mind that less is more.
In the job market, you want a resume that is clear, compelling, and emphasizes your strengths for the specific job. Keep it as concise as possible, even if that means leaving some things out. With the right approach, you can achieve an impactful resume at any career level or experience level. The most important thing is that your resume is tailored to your goals and helps you land that interview.