How Long Should a Resume Be? Here’s What the Research Says!
Jeremy Schifeling
► Author of the #1 Best-Selling ChatGPT for Job Searching Book 📕 ► LinkedIn + AI Trainer for 250+ of the World's Top Universities 🌏 ► Keynote Speaker for NACE, MBA CSEA, and NCDA ⚡️
How Many Pages Should a Resume Be?
One of the worst parts of searching for a job is that everyone has a different opinion on everything:
What’s a job-seeker to do? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
While some of these questions may be subjective (i.e., passion vs. practicality), as a former MBA career coach at the University of Michigan, I’m happy to say that the resume question has a 100% objective answer.
Here’s what the research says:
Should a Resume Be One Page?
To answer this question, researchers started by identifying the primary purpose of a resume: To help recruiters quickly decide whether a given applicant deserves an interview.
With this goal in mind, they set-up a clever experiment:
And you know what they discovered: Recruiters actually prefer 2-page resumes!
Can a Resume Be 2 Pages?
While that initial finding was amazing (especially since many of the recruiters thought 1-page resumes would do better before the experiment began), what’s really mind-blowing is that the researchers even broke the results down by career stage:
And so even though you might assume that 2-page resumes were only preferred for more senior candidates, the findings held up across all career stages.
Recommended by LinkedIn
In other words: Recruiters always preferred 2-page resumes, even at earlier career stages.
How Long Should My Resume Be?
What’s behind these amazing findings, you ask?
Well, put yourself in a recruiter’s shoes. If you’re looking for specific evidence that a given applicant could be a rockstar candidate, would you rather:
As you can see, two-page resumes just make recruiters’ jobs easier. And anything that makes recruiters’ jobs easier makes it easier for you to get the job!
So bottom-line: Don’t get caught up in all the different, unsubstantiated opinions out there. Instead, stick with what the research shows - and go out there and land a job you love!
Get All My Career Hacks for FREE!
Claim lifetime access now to lock-in access to all of the following:
-My LinkedIn Profile Grader
-CareerBot 3000 and ProfileBot 4K
-Every new tool that comes out next! 🤩
Career educator to liberal arts students | Event planner | Resume writer | Editor | "Helping the lost get found"
6moOh, that is fascinating! Thank you for the data-driven insights!
Oxford MBA Graduate | HR Professional with a Passion for HR Technology | Customer Success | Pre-Sales | Consulting
6moIt will be interesting to understand whether the research results vary based on regions/countries.
Marketing Director | Product Strategist
6moInteresting. I thought the bottomless LinkedIn profile gets read by the bots and 3 bullets on a 1 page resume by the human recruiter. I didn't think the recruiter had time to read the page two content to change the decision about choosing a candidate. (Also I noticed that leadership has very bare bone resumes like "Managed global sales team of 30,000". "Owned PnL of $43B". Enuf said.).
Certified Career Management Coach - Center for Career Engagement, WashU and Olin Business School | Compassionate | Service-oriented | Helping students hone skills to find their best possible job
6moPretty surprised. Would like to see a larger sample size for the study, yet results are compelling.
Career Transition Specialist, ICF Certified Leadership Coach (PCC), MBTI Master Team Facilitator, APAC region 🌟Helping you to connect WHO you are with WHAT you do ☀️
6moThis is interesting Jeremy Schifeling. I spent many years working in Thailand as a career coach with LHH and have always advocated for a two pager or a one-page bio for consultants. However, in Australia where I am based now it seems okay for resumes to run to three or even four pages. I stress that we are creating resumes not CVs and that a resume is a French word meaning summary :-)