When an applicant sends you their resume, do you prefer it to be one or two pages? Why?
Ask HN: 2 page or 1 page resume?
1–10 of 18 posts
Re: Ask HN: 2 page or 1 page resume?
#21 page because recruiters didn't have time for you to turn to next page. Make use of appropriate font size and font style to cover as much as content as you can
Re: Ask HN: 2 page or 1 page resume?
#3General rule seems to be one page unless you have a decade+ of experience.
Re: Ask HN: 2 page or 1 page resume?
#4Usually two is the optimum for me, with one for entry level positions. I like a clean, tasteful design that stresses focus and brevity with a small dose of creativity (pointed eye candy, unusual hobbies, etc.), but not overdone. CTO at a small to medium startup here.
Re: Ask HN: 2 page or 1 page resume?
#5One page. Regardless of experience.
The point isn't to list everything you've done (it's not an academic CV). The point is to convince me that you're worth interviewing, and give me a bit of context for the interview. You can do that in a page no matter who you are.
Re: Ask HN: 2 page or 1 page resume?
#6It depends. Some locations or cultures will favour one page, while others will prefer more information on why they should care about you. But in my experience, the cover letter will have way more impact than 1 vs 2 CV pages.
Re: Ask HN: 2 page or 1 page resume?
#7Two, I want to read between the lines.
A CV has to be perfect, with a longer CV there is more chance for it to have a mistake and weed that person out.
So many CVs are similar, picking people to interview is about removing those with flaws up front.
Re: Ask HN: 2 page or 1 page resume?
#8From my point of view, it doesn't really matters a resume should be a single page or couple. But the thing that matters is how you market yourself.
A resume is a very similar to a marketing brochure. Imagine the scenario when you get a brochure from second's car dealer and from BMW dealer. The purpose of both are same, sell the car. Take the second's car dealers brochure, It contains a lot of offer banner, a list of cars based on price range and more. But when you get a BMW brochure, even you can't afford the vehicle but still you admire, re-re-read the brochure, keep it in a good place etc. Why because of its presentation. The presentation creates a storytelling mode which increase the interest of the viewer as he turns each page.
Coming back to the resume, you can apply the same rule. Remove the constraint of pages and start thinking from a different perspective of how to sell yourself?. Give more focus to you strengths and the thinks you have done which make you stand apart from the other candidates. A lot of people use different ways to achieve this like improving the layout, visuals, Typography.
A resume filtering is the first process. There your resume should come in a different category. By looking into the resume, the interviewer should feel promising, trustworthy and creativity. A couple of years before I experimented this same technique of shifting my typical resume to another marketing brochure. And it worked. When I appeared for the interviews, the first thing the interviewer said was my resume looks different from all other resumes that we got, It's interesting and nice. now I am more eager to know about you. Same scenario happens to me three times after that.
This experience taught me a lot of lesson's regarding marketing, psychology and design. Now happy to shared it.
Peace
Re: Ask HN: 2 page or 1 page resume?
#9I would try to stick to one if at all possible. If you have to go to two it wouldn't be a deal breaker for me. The biggest problem is now days staffing firms and recruiters pad and keyword stuff resumes so much that most of the ones I see are basically meaningless (and most of theirs are two pages).
When I do get a one page resume it tends to be direct from the candidate and generally more honest which sticks with me.
Re: Ask HN: 2 page or 1 page resume?
#10I've looked over hundreds of resumes and it's never hurt the candidate for submitting 1 or 2 pages.
If it takes the applicant 2 pages to convince me they're worth the time to talk to, then that's fine.