When it comes to resumes, and the question “One page or two?”, there is no one best answer. Even with some conflicting opinions among today’s experts”, most will agree that briefer is better. One page is preferable. However, professional and managerial level candidates will usually need more than one page to be effective. 

What situations will warrant a one-page resume?

Graduating student: A new graduate, with little work experience should not need to exceed one page. If there have been several summer jobs along the way and/or school year work experience, they can be referenced briefly. It is a common mistake for new grads to “pad” their resume, even to the extent of exceeding one page, to appear to be more experienced.

One student had a two-page resume and insisted that she could not get it down to one page. She had gone into great depth of detail about her summer jobs, all of which are fairly self-explanatory (i.e. waitress, retail clerk, etc.). A hiring manager will find it most amusing for a novice candidate to elaborate on all the functions and requirements of these typical student jobs. A key question is whether school year or summer employment had any skill relevancy to the kind of position one was seeking. For instance, if one were pursuing an entry-level position as a financial analyst, it would be inappropriate to go into detail about summer work as a bartender. Hopefully, the student would have gained some related work experience prior to graduation – from an internship, perhaps – which would bear some discussion in the resume.

Hourly workers or those with many years of experience in the same type of job: Is it possible to represent a person with twenty plus years of experience on one page? Certainly, if the person has essentially done comparable jobs in multiple employment settings.

Job seekers who are developing their resume feel compelled to repeat all duties of their jobs even though they were almost the same with every employer. Take, for example, a nurse’s aide who served in that capacity for five health care employers over a twenty three-year period. If he chose a chronological format, he would be obliged to pretty much repeat similar information. To the recipient of the resume, it reads as repetitive and boring.

In this type of circumstance, it might be better to list acquired core skill competencies of this job at the top of the resume, after the objective or summary. This allows the employer to see the scope of skills offered from several work experiences in one place. Then, when you list your employment history, select one or two key accomplishments from each job which were unique to that job. The result is a concise, easy to read one page resume.

Career changers: One of the greatest challenges of the career changer is getting the reader to see what you offer in terms of transferable skills. This means identifying and listing aspects of your previous job or career which can be easily utilized (or transferred) to another type of job or industry.

A retail store manager who wishes to leave the retail industry, for instance, should not go into great depth about job responsibilities that could not be applied in an alternative setting. This will necessitate omitting accomplishments that would have no bearing or interest to your new target employer.

Career changers seem to have difficulty with this. Remember, focus on transferable skills and state your accomplishments in a way that will allow the employer to easily visualize you being successful in their job or environment. If you’re struggling with this, consult one of the many excellent books that are now available to assist you in developing a functional resume. Remember, for a career changer, less is more. A one-page resume, effectively done, will invite more interviews.

SPACE SAVERS: If you are attempting to limit yourself to one page, here are some hints which will help you to conserve on space:

• The traditional centered block for your name, address and phone number takes up a lot of your one page. Consider an alternative heading format such as along the top of the page.
• Omit hobbies and personal information- there is no reason to include them anyway.
• Watch for single words sitting by themselves on one line as a continuation of the line above. See if you can re-word the line or use an acceptable abbreviation to shorten.
• Reset your margins to 3/4 of an inch. (No less)
• If the rest of your relevant information comfortably fills up the page, it is all right not to include the words “References available on request” if they won’t fit.