Job Resume Length: How Long is Too Long?

  • There’s one age old question that every job searcher seeks an answer to: How long is too long for a job resume length? Is there a required number of pages for a job resume? And if there is, how many pages is the acceptable for a job resume to be considered a good length for a job resume? Newly College graduates and experienced executives alike who are in a job search mission are plagued by these questions about a job resume’s length. After all, a well written job resume with a job resume cover letter holds the key to a job searcher’s chance to get a job search interview with a prospective employer.

    Whether you just have so much to write in your job resume or not so much at all, you’ll be able to decide the length of your job resume with the help of our job resume guidelines.
    There are several rules out there about job resume writing, some of them you definitely must not break, such as lying on your job resume because your prospective employer will do background checks and if ever you get hired for the position out of all the other job searchers out there, the lie you put on your job resume will catch up to you soon and your employer will find out, having typographical errors or misspellings and providing negative information in your job resume. But other rules of job resume writing can be broken. One of these rules is the length of job resumes. As a job searcher, you probably have read a lot of guides telling you that your job resume length should be just one page. This is generally not true for most job search applications.
    There are accepted ideal job resume lengths for different kinds of job search applications which may help you decide on how long your job resume should be. Let’s enumerate them:

    Ideal Length of a Job Resume for Entry level applicants or New Graduates – The length of a job resume for new graduates would ideally be one page long. Majority of new graduates conform to this one page rule of job resumes. This is so because not much experience or accomplishment are available to be placed on their job resumes, so focusing more on skills would be much more advantageous for new graduates. Two page job resumes are also okay for those newly graduate job searchers who had a lot of relevant internships, extracurricular activities, summer-jobs or other experiences that can justify a two page job resume.

    Ideal Length of Job Resume for Above Entry Level but Below Executive – Majority of job searchers would mostly belong to this category, those who have had previous experience but did not hold executive positions. People writing job resumes that are at this level often have difficulty limiting themselves to one or two pages job resume length. A good average job resume length for the above entry level job searcher would be two to three pages long, but again if you choose to write more than two pages in your job resume, make sure that the content justifies the extra pages.
    Ideal Length of Job Resume for Executives, CEOs, COOs and other “C” level positions – For the elite people holding these positions, the length of a job resume becomes irrelevant. Basically the rule of job resume lengths does not apply. Major companies would want to know everything about an executive job searcher before they hire them. Their job resumes could be as long as five pages or more and might also include separate portfolios and other documents. Hiring a job searcher for an executive position is a pretty big risk and making the wrong decision would spell doom for any company.
    The most important thing to consider when deciding the length of a resume is to make sure that the content is relevant and compelling. Don’t ever sacrifice content of your job resume for length, if you think an item needs to be in your job resume then go ahead and place it there. As long as what you are typing in justifies the length of your job resume then don’t let length job resume restrictions stop you. It also recommended that you place the most relevant items on the top part of the first page on your job resume. Just remember to be accurate when you summarize, and only include key, relevant contents in your job resume.