One-Page Resumes, the Gold Standard?

Are one-page resumes the golden standard of resume writing? It is the ideal length that many bloggers, resume writers and recruiters attest to. But is it THAT important? Should you be cramming your 25-year career, education, and professional development into one densely packed page? The answer is… wait for it… IT DEPENDS.

Bit of a letdown? The real answer is there is no fixed resume length or standard only guidelines.

THE LENGTH OF YOUR RESUME DEPENDS ON A FEW THINGS:

• Your Employment Situation • Work History • Accomplishments • Education • Special Projects • Professional Associations • Volunteer Work / Community Involvement

As a general rule, new graduates, graduate students, entry-level professionals, and professionals with ten years or less of experience should be writing one-page resumes. 10 years + of relevant experience can exceed one-page. Executives can have even longer resumes depending on the nature of their work.

These are guidelines, you should tailor your resume to reflect your unique career journey and the roles you are applying to. Omitting information to condense your resume can harm your professional brand and reduce your resumes susceptibility to ATS scoring metrics. On the other hand, pages of irrelevant information can undermine the focus of your resume and can make you look unorganized and unprepared. As a caveat, having full pages is ideal, but if you need the extra page but can’t fill it, try to aim to fill at least 1/3 of the page if not 1/2.

This is not only my professional opinion, as both a resume writer and a Human Resources professional, but also a universal industry understanding.

It has been outlined in:

Knock Em Dead Resumes by Martin Yate The Google Resume by Gayle McDowell Top Secret Executive Resumes by Steven Provenzano

If you google “how long should a resume be” I think the entire front page of links attests to what I have said. When you sit down to edit or write your resume remember it is about you and your professional journey. Don’t feel the need to trim half of your professional career to appease to a standard that is no longer relevant.