Know what is the ideal number of pages for your resume. Get the best tips to write a short, complete and professional Curriculum Vitae on a single page.
When making your resume, a big question may arise: how many pages should my CV have? And the answer will depend on the type of offer, company and position for which you are competing.
Without a doubt, the correct answer is: be as brief as possible. What recruiters need is that you give as much information in as little space as possible and with the use of few words.
Of course, it is important to take into account the number of years you have worked. There is no point of comparison between a person who has been in the workforce for 20 years and wants to change jobs, and someone who has just graduated and will barely compete for their first job.
How long should a resume be?
A resume should be between 1 and 2 pages.
However, take into account that, if you occupy two pages to give your employment information, it may be that the other candidates achieve it in a single page and in a more consistent way than you and, for that reason alone, win the position that you you are looking for.
So that your resume does not take up much space, it is important that you structure short sentences, reduce the use of unnecessary articles and adjectives. Check that you have clarity and precision in everything you write.
Try to be as brief as possible. What should not happen is that you exceed the second page, a resume of more than three pages will only take time for the recruiter and they will not want to read it. It is important to create a short resume.
Why Resume Size Matters
The reason the length of a resume matters is because recruiters need to know what you’re really good at. How about you have been in the working world for 10 years, but you have not really achieved anything transcendent in the companies where you have been. Therefore, a two-page CV already seems suspicious, has the candidate really achieved that much?
The key when choosing the length of your CV is not to be repetitive, point out just what is important and summarize.
On the other hand, you may be an outstanding person, who has had many jobs and in each one of them you have achieved important goals. If this is your case, your resume will certainly look good on two pages.
How to choose the number of pages of the resume
Keep the job offer information close to you. In all the offers the recruiters indicate how many years of experience they require. For example, there are offers where they tell you “required experience of 2 years” or “from 3 to 5”.
If your job offer asks for 4 years of experience and you have 12, do not put all your experience on the CV because you could seem like an overqualified person. Candidates who have more experience than desired may be rejected solely on the basis of the extensive length of their resume.
6 Tips to summarize your CV
If you are one of those people who use many words when writing and your resume exceeds 2 pages, here we give you these tips so that your writing is as short as possible.
1- Be fluid
Start your resume with your profile description in a short three-line paragraph, use action verbs, and reduce the number of articles and adjectives as much as possible.
2- Look for the relevant
If what you are going to write will not surprise the recruiter, don’t write it. Put only the relevant information on your resume and help you stand out from the rest of the competitors.
3- Condense the information
Do not repeat the same. Imagine that you are a designer, instead of saying that you have illustrated the XXX article for the XXX magazine of the XX edition, just like the other XXX magazine and the other XX… write illustrations of more than 30 articles of printed magazines with international distribution.
4- Do not abuse the font size or line spacing
It is about your information being legible and that a certain order is seen, in addition, that the line spacing correctly separates the lines so that the reading flows, however, do not abuse the resource.
Do not use a font size greater than 12 points or a line spacing of more than 1.5, if you do, it is very likely that your resume will be more than three pages.
5- Trade responsibilities for accomplishments
In your job descriptions, instead of listing all the tasks you had to do in that position, talk about the accomplishments you had.
6- Use 3-5 bullet points per job
Descriptions of what you did on each job are listed in bullet points. Do not use more than 5, as it will be too long and will take up space unnecessarily.