A while back I had a recent
college graduate relate a story to me about a professor he had while taking a
writing class. It came time for the assignment of writing a resume, and the
professor was insistent that the length of each student’s resume be no longer
than one page, and absolutely no longer. Anyone who exceeded this length would
fail the assignment. He went on further to state in no uncertain terms that the
typing was to be nicely centered on Strathmore pure cotton watermark paper, and
the watermark was to be face-up and readable in accordance with the print of
the resume. Doing otherwise would also be grounds for receiving a zero on the
assignment.
Using watermark paper and a
typewriter was the norm in 1980, but this candidate wasn’t even born yet in
1980, and the incident took place in 2010. Obviously this professor had not
kept up very well with changes in technology, or in hiring processes as a
whole. Now while I have no way of actually verifying the facts of the story,
the points illustrated are valid. From time to time I still hear from
candidates that they kept their resumes to one page because someone told them
that was the way it should be. 9 times out of 10 that someone is not in a
position to be in the know. The simple truth is that times have changed.
Professionals are changing careers or industries more often, and the
competition among job applicants is heightened. Limiting yourself to a one-page
resume based on the norm decades ago is just plain stupid.
The most important elements
that constitute an effective resume are in displaying your relevant skills,
personality and background……period. If you have conveyed everything that you
need to, and it ends up at a single page, so be it. There is no reason to add
unrelated filler just to make it two pages. But if you are leaving off
important information merely to adhere to an arbitrary rule someone told you 20
years ago, you are doing yourself a disservice. The best of the best among the
applicants in your job pool will have done a wonderful job on paper of
demonstrating the significant skills and background to correlate directly with
the position. I can tell you from experience that 98% of these resumes also
exceed one page.
It is true that in certain
industries such as IT and engineering, resumes can run as long as five or six
pages. But keep in mind the reason is because often there are a plethora of
projects to show as well, and there is a valid reason to do so. There are also a
handful of industries, including creative fields where a one-page resume is
still the standard. But across the board the norm today is two to three pages;
optimally I would try to keep it to two, but for higher-level professionals it
often goes to three. The reality is if I or anyone else in a hiring position
were to eliminate resumes that exceeded one page, then we would be left with a
very minute applicant pool. Ask yourself this question: do you really think
that any HR professional is going to rule out top talent simply because their
resumes are longer than a page when the goal is to find and attract the top
talent?
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