My old boss was not the only one that told me that my resume needed to be one page. So, after searching around the web and blogs I found a great blog Liz Handlin's Ultimate Resume Blog and found this post Tips For Writing the Ultimate Resume and posted the following question on how long should a resume be "I have a question about resumes, how long is to long for a resume for someone with a lengthy job history in a hi-tech profession? I was laid off from my one and only job that lasted almost 30 years. I worked in a hi-tech engineering field and have several areas to list; patents, designs, security clearance and technical skills. After several revisions, I finally have my resume down to two full pages. Is this to long? If so what do you leave out?" Very quickly Liz emailed me the following answer "Thanks for you post and kind words. A 2 page resume is fine but if you have a lot of experience a 3 page resume is appropriate. Resumes should never be more than 3 pages long. with that said, what I often do for clients is separate long lists (patents, board memberships) and create separate documents that you can hand to employers in addition to the resume. That way you can still submit all of the information but you can do it in a way that isn't intimidating....I think that candidates who had recruiters/hiring managers a huge resume are pretty much guaranteeing that it won't be read."
Liz's answer made a lot of senses to me. Say you have you Masters, PhD or Doctorate school alone would take up one full page. Then if you have published articles, patents, etc. that will take up a large portion of a page. So put in only what you need but, don't leave important information out either.
Thank you so much for mentioning my comments to you in your blog. Creating a resume is pretty common sense I think but there is so much conflicting advice on the internet. Think about how you would react to a resume if you were reading it. Would you expect a 1 page resume from a 25-year career professional? Would you want to try to wade through huge paragraphs of information or long lists of bullets? If you start asking yourself what you would want to read and think about how you read and synthesize information you will be well on your way to creating a solid resume.
ReplyDeleteGreat advice and tips! I, too, have worried about the long resume and struggled to get it into a one-page format. I really liked the idea of splitting out the longer lists of accomplishments and submitting as a separate document. Keep up the great work!
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