FollowType “how long should a resume be?” into Google and you’ll see 179,000,000 answers. You have to really wonder if anyone knows what they are talking about. The only rule is, that there are few rules. If you think about length, a bit of common sense will take you a long way.
The only rules I have on length are these:
Think about the audience and what you’ll need to present on your resume to have any credibility. Think about who’s going to be reading it and the time they’ll have to spend on it. As a general rule, a more senior position means a longer resume.
Here are some random examples to show you what I mean:
A one page resume for a senior academic position will not work. In the world of academia being published and referenced counts. So you need to list all your publications to have credibility. That list can be a page in itself.
For a marketing role you may only need just a one page list of achievements and a snappy career objective type statement that sells you.
If you’re applying to an airline role as a flight attendant, you can bet your bottom trolley tray that hundreds of people will apply, so you’ll need to have a huge impact on the first page.
Keep in mind that the purpose of a resume is simply to secure you an interview.
Karalyn is the Founder of InterviewIQ and chief champion for all her clients. Get personal coaching to make 2023 your most successful year yet. Check out our job search booster services here>>Give me smarter ways to find a job .
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi, I was wondering at what point you should be dropping achievements and experiences from your resume. If I have an achievement that I think looks really impressive but it was from a part time job that was more than 20 years ago, does that just look sad? Or should I keep it as a highlight?
Good question Jo. If it’s related to the job and really impressive, keep it. If it makes you look 150 years old, and I say this because there were some alarming statistics out there on ageism in the recruitment world the other day, I would leave off any reference to when. Or you could be cheeky and make the statement imply that even from early in your career in a “fill in job,” you were contributing, or punching above your weight, so to speak.
How specific should one be listing achievements on a resume? Should they be generic, or one line case studies?
Thanks for the question Chris. With your achievements, you need to give some detail so people can actually understand why you are listing them, and why you think they are achievements. So if you can state the impact of what you have done, that’s pretty powerful. An admin example could be: “designed an innovative document search system which reduced search time by 12 minutes per document.”
If you make generic claims, you sound generic and as if you haven’t put any real thought into your resume.
{ 2 trackbacks }