Should a resume be one page?
In most cases, your resume should be one page. If you’re writing a recent graduate resume or have a limited work history, a one page resume is long enough to summarize your relevant skills, achievements, and work experience.
Hiring managers at large companies go through hundreds of resumes each day looking for qualified candidates. If your resume is too long, there’s a high chance they’ll skim it to save time and miss important information.
Using a one page resume makes it easier for busy hiring managers to see your qualifications and skills at a glance, giving you a better chance of receiving an interview offer.
However, while a 1 page resume is best for most candidates, the ideal resume length still depends on your level of experience and the industry you’re applying to work in.
Does a resume have to be one page?
No, a resume doesn’t have to be one page. If you have over 10 years of relevant experience and need extra space to showcase the depth of your qualifications, then a two page resume is acceptable.
Specifically, if you’re applying for senior-level positions, it might be necessary to extend your resume to a second page in order to give employers a full picture of your qualifications.
How to fit your resume on one page
Condensing your entire career into a single page may seem difficult, but don’t worry. No matter how much experience you have, it’s always possible to trim your information down into one page (even Elon Musk’s resume can be kept to a single page).
These five tips will help you learn how to make your resume one page without sacrificing any important details.
1. Focus on your key accomplishments
If you have an extensive amount of work experience, it can be tempting to include a variety of accomplishments on your resume.
However, to keep your resume to one page, hone in on two to three of your most impressive and directly relevant achievements. In particular, be sure to cut any redundant information.
For example, if you want to demonstrate your customer service skills, including two different anecdotes about how you improved your customer satisfaction ratings is unnecessary. Instead, just include the one that best reflects your strengths.
2. Tailor your resume
Many job seekers make the mistake of listing every job they’ve ever held on their resume. Listing every job uses up valuable space and doesn’t provide additional value to an application.
If you’ve had more than four previous jobs, include only the two or three most relevant to the job you want.
Depending on the position you want to fill, customize your resume with the experience that best fits the requirements of the job to quickly show hiring managers that you’re qualified.
3. Cut unnecessary sections
Job-seekers often use up important space on their resume with sections that don’t provide valuable information, or even belong on their resume at all.
For example, while volunteer work on your resume and interests on your resume can be helpful when you have little to no work experience, these sections are ultimately unnecessary, and you’re better off cutting them to free up space on the page.
Additionally, you shouldn’t include references on your resume. Most employers don’t require references at all, and others will simply ask to see your references later on in the hiring process.
4. Tweak your resume formatting
If you find yourself running out of space, try tweaking your resume’s formatting to help it fit on one page.
Try making the following adjustments to maximize space on the page:
- Bullet points instead of paragraphs
- Reduced resume margins
- Smaller resume font (however, your resume may be hard to read below 10pt font)
- Skills listed on a single line, or in a sidebar
- Reduced paragraph or bullet point indentation
- Narrower space between sections
Used together, small changes like these can help you pack in significantly more information onto a single page.
5. Write concise bullet points
Each bullet point in your experience section should be kept to one or two lines (at most). Short, achievement-oriented bullet points backed up with hard numbers are the best way to quickly communicate your abilities to hiring managers without sacrificing space.
6 Examples of One-Page Resume Templates
One of the easiest ways to keep your resume short is using a one page resume template to help you format your information.
These six resume templates are free to download and designed to best fit your resume onto one page. Simply fill in your information and your resume should be ready to go.
1. Corporate
Sleek and formal, this one page resume template features a space-saving sidebar for all your shorter sections. Additionally, a slim header gives you room for a more detailed experience section.
2. 2020
This cutting-edge 1-page resume template is packed with content and still manages to look spacious. The sidebar allows you to easily organize your information, while a vertical line splits up the page and makes your resume easy to read.
3. Clean
This one page resume template has a side-aligned header that frees up the entire top of the page. This additional space gives you room to elaborate on your greatest career accomplishments.
4. Hybrid
Featuring a colorful skills section and information-heavy header, this professional one page resume template is ideal for candidates in graphic design or tech. By putting the contact information in the header, this template makes plenty of space for an eye-catching skills section.
5. Stylish
With a unique icon set and colorful header, this 1-page resume template screams “fashionable.” Like many of the above templates, it features a space-saving sidebar, giving you room to write a resume that lives up to its stylish appearance.
6. Executive
Written by a CEO with decades of work experience, this one page resume example demonstrates that no career is too long to condense into a single page. In fact, many manager resume examples fit perfectly on one page.
By using space-efficient formatting and packing each sentence with valuable information, this candidate manages to provide a highly convincing overview of their core achievements, skills, and work history.
Write a strong one page resume
Figuring out how to write a resume that covers all your important qualifications without exceeding one page seems difficult. However, by sticking to a handful of formatting and writing practices, there’s almost no amount of experience that’s impossible to trim down. Just remember to:
- Write concise bullet points
- Use a compact resume format
- Tailor your information to each job
- Cut unnecessary information
And to make the job-seeking process easier, try using a one page resume template. By employing these strategies, you’ll be able to write a convincing 1-page resume.
