A résumé is a short summary of your most relevant credentials. The résumé itself won’t get you the job. It shall get you a chance to a first interview. Résumés are one of the most crucial aspects of the whole recruitment process. This is why it is important that you pick exclusively the most relevant work experience, education, skills & other accomplishments for each specific job position you intend to apply for and create a well-made résumé.
In our previous blog posts, we have shown you how our app can help you to choose and readapt several powerful phrases so that you can fill in your highlights in an accurate, smart, easy way. Below we will try to briefly explain to you what is the most recommended length for a résumé, at least for the European standards.
As a matter of fact, both beginners and job seekers, who have accumulated several work experiences, will have asked themselves this question at least once in their professional life: how long should my résumé be?
The straight answer
If possible, keep it to one (full) page. This is especially if you are or would like to step into a senior career (with 10+ years PQE). Two pages are generally accepted if you are more in a junior (e.g., from 0 to 4 years) or in a middle career stage (e.g., from 4 to 9 years).
Bear in mind that from the third page onwards, your résumé shall be considered too long or academic. For example, you should add extra pages only if you want to apply for a position at a university or a learning institution for which a list of publications or experiments is required, or if you have a considerable portfolio to attach to your résumé.
Anyway, this depends also on which template you selected, and what’s its font style and size!
Remember that the number of pages is directly proportional to
1) the strategic way you select your own credentials, and
2) the number of words/phrases you use to describe each of your credentials. Our app will embed a word counter soon. Hopefully, this will give you an extra hint while creating your résumé.
Typically it takes only a few seconds (not even minutes!) for a recruiter to form their first impression over a candidate’s résumé — and we know in these cases how first impressions say it all.
So, think about your résumé as your first step into the company you would like to work for. If you really want it to be successful, it is key that you keep your résumé ‘short & sweet’. And don’t worry: eventually, in the interview, you shall be able to provide any further information, secondary details, and collateral experiences that you have not included in your résumé.
If you are using techmeout.io click on the Résumé Score (the number next to the “Preview” button). The first statistic is the Reading Time. Our recommendation is to stay within 3 minutes.
Pay Attention to the Length of Your Sentences
How many words should a sentence contain? There is nothing written in stone, but a sentence of a maximum of 25 words is really “short & sweet” & easy-to-read. In fact, long sentences in fact force users to slow down and put in additional effort to understand what they are reading. Even if they are familiar with the subject. This is not something hiring managers love to do, especially when they are dealing with hundreds of résumés.
In other words, your résumé will be much sexier if written with short sentences.
In case your sentence exceeds 25 words, try to simplify it, or break it into different sentences, often punctuations, and the words “that”, “and”, “or” (for example) represent points in which the sentence can be split.
Techmeout.io has a handy tool to help you with that: it detects sentences that are longer than 25 words and highlights them for you! Click on the Résumé Score (the number next to the “Preview” button). The second statistic is the Select Lenght status:
Scrolling down to the suggestions section, the sentences we suggest to fix will be highlighted:
What’s been your experience so far? Just drop off a comment here or e-mail us at [email protected]. We would love to hear more from you!
