Shattering the One Page Resume Myth
Posted on March 27, 2013 by Mike Rosario, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.
Before adhering to the one-size-fits-all wisdom of your resume length, consider these factors before deciding on the best resume length for YOU.
Last week during an initial consultation my prospective client was concerned that her resume was two pages. She wanted to hire me to condense it down to one page. This is relatively common in my business. (Disclaimer: It’s important to mention that most of my clients are submitting directly to hiring authorities. If you are submitting your resume to an executive recruiter keep in mind they tend to have the attention span of a crack monkey with ADHD and a one page or summary statement might serve you best with that kind of audience.)
During most of my professional life I was indoctrinated to believe that the one page resume was the only acceptable standard. I constantly heard one page no matter what, regardless of your experience, career length, or how technical your industry.
Anytime I hear one-size-fits-all, “don’t deviate from convention” type of mantras, my contrarian and rebellious alter ego gets fueled!
That kind of wisdom is akin to the logic we should all drive a Toyota Prius regardless of our needs, purpose, or family size simply because it will help the environment. I’m all for sustainability and reducing our carbon footprint. But…
Tell that to the commercial painter. Trade in your F-150 for a Prius. You’ll save on gas. Except for the fact you will make five times as many trips to each job and have to hook up a U-Haul trailer to transport your equipment. Makes sense to me. Not.
Your resume needs to be however long it needs to be to convey relevant information to help position you as the best potential candidate. In an effort to adhere to this standard, so many people leave off important and pertinent information that could have actually strengthened their case. Or worse, people tune down the font size so low you need a microscope to read the document. That’s real helpful to readers; helpful for them to quickly eliminate you from making the coveted “short list”. I love conventional wisdom because it gives me something to blow holes through.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself to help guide you on resume length:
How many years of work history do you have? How technical or complicated is your position, background, education, or training? How complicated are your accomplishments—do they need foundational information to provide context? Do you have an extensive amount of education, degrees, papers, journals, certifications, affiliations, memberships, or volunteer work that will help strengthen your candidacy? Are you submitting your resume to companies or hiring authorities (versus recruiters)?If you’re 25 years old it is highly unlikely you have ample experience, background, education, skills, and accomplishments to necessitate more than one page.
If you’re a 45 year old manager with a history of increasing responsibility (hopefully that’s the case) and work in a technical field, it is improbable you can fit it all on one page.
If you’ve been working at Subway for 20 years as a sandwich maker you probably don’t have enough information to cover more than one page.
If you want to have what everyone else has, just do what everyone else does and stay unemployed, under-employed or professionally unfulfilled. It’s your choice. Avoid the temptation to comply with the one page resume myth UNLESS it serves you.
