When It Comes to Your Resume, Size Doesnt Matter Or Does It

When It Comes to Your Resume, Size Doesnt Matter Or Does It When It Comes to Your Resume, Size Doesnt Matter - Or Does It How long?Of all the questions I get about resumes, that is the one I get most often. HRmanagers, school career counselors, and even professional resume writers cant seem to agree onthe appropriate length for a resume today.The internet - particularly in the guise of LinkedIn and other professionally oriented social media sites - has changed how we look at resumes. Instead of flipping through hard copies, we now scroll seamlessly throughPDF resumes without looking at page counts. LinkedIn, meanwhile, breaks the average job seekers professional profile into a series of interconnected sections on an unbroken webpage. Video resumes dont even have page numbers - just runtimes.Some pros say the proper length of your resume dependson the length of your work history to date. A recent college graduate has less experience and needs only one page, whereas someone with 30+ years of work experience should have two pages.Id like to propose a different approach. For me, the answer to How long should my resume be? is It depends on how good of a story you have to tell.You may be young, but you may have lots of internships, travel experience, and work experience that would easily justify two pages. You may be older, but you may have spent your career only working for a couple of companies, which could easily fit on a taut one-pager. If youre in an academic or scientific field, your extensive credentials and publishing historycould easily pour over into three or mora pages.Content CountsWhat really determines your resume lengthis how your resume is written. Dont offer endless bullet points describing your job duties. We know what a bank teller does. What employers want to know is what youachieved as a bank teller. How did you make the position better while you had it? How did you improve efficiency and increase revenue for the company?Avoid passive sent ence starters like handled, assisted, attended, or responsible for. Resume readers have short attention spans, so get straight to the point by starting your sentences with strong action wordslike managed, created, grew, organized, and designed, and then follow up by quantifyingeach accomplishment when possible.If you dont start strong and keepyour readersattention, they will bail on your resume regardless of its length. Weak would be starting with an objectivestatement. Itsa waste of space - we all know your objective is to get the job for which youre applying. A stronger start would be tobegin with asummary paragraph that names the companies youve worked for and your major achievements. Sell the reader on what you can do for them, not what you want to do for yourself.Edit your work and have others review it to ensure you are using the fewest - and strongest - words possible. You want to get your resume as tight as possible, like Superman squeezing coal into a diamond. If its one page, great. If you can flesh it out with more relevant statistics, go to two pages.Ive seen strong, concise two-pagers, and cluttered, boring one-pagers. Size doesnt matter unless you abuse itand, ultimately, abuse the reader. Tell your story, quantify your accomplishments, and sell yourself as the best candidate for an interview.Instead of asking what the proper length of your resume should be, try asking, What will it take to convince the reader?Ferris Kaplan is founder of Best Of You Resumes.Master the art of closing deals and making placements. Take our Recruiter Certification Program today. Were SHRM certified. Learn at your own pace during this 12-week program. Access over 20 courses. Great for those who want to break into recruiting, or recruiters who want to further their career. Like this article? We also offer tons of free eBooks on career and recruit ing topics - check out Get a Better Job the Right Way and Why It Matters Who Does Your Recruiting. document.write(Read more ) in Resume Writing