When is is acceptable to have a two-page resume?

In My Humble Opinion
21

[QUOTE=wolfman]
I always post this in these threads, but anyone who has a one page resume and works in IT is really hurting their chances. IT is so specialized that recruiters and hirers really want to know the details of what you have done since “Worked with Solaris, Oracle, Tomcat,SUN1, ANT Hibernate, Java, J2EE, on production systems” covers an infinite number of possibilities. You need details of what you have done, for how long, and for each job, so the Manager can see how relevanat what you have done really is. The previous quote will get you about 9000 calls from sleezy recruiters, and thrown in the trash by any Hiring manager or good recruiter.

A resume custom tailored to the job you are seeking should still be about 3 pages, if you have 10 years experience. And if you were a consultant with a bunch of 3 month contracts, it can get ugly.
[/QUOTE]

I disagree. Then again, I work for a small company that doesn’t deal with sleazy recruiters. We keeps our job postings short, sweet, and to the point, and it would be nice if our candidates did the same.

Allow me to quote myself from a previous thread:

[QUOTE=black rabbit]

…
Then a one sentence objective that relates specifically to the position at hand, avoiding phrases like “to provide excellent customer service.”

Then a (concise!) bulleted list of post-secondary positions with the following info: Employer, final title, dates, top three accomplishments.

Then a (concise!) list of post-secondary educational accomplishments and/or certifications, with the following info: Institution, degree/cert received, major, and date received.

Pimply-faced youth may substitute a (concise!) list of functional accomplishments if their relevant work experience isn’t extensive, and flush out the educational side a bit with interesting (but relevant) projects, etc.

…

It’s the format I’ve always used, and I’ve never been turned down for an interview in my professional life.
[/QUOTE]

I care less about whatever particular alphabet soup you’ve touched during any given five minutes of your career then I do about the broad outlines of the projects you’ve worked on, your role in them, and what you learned from the experience. If there are any vitally important acronyms that I feel you should know something about, rest assured that I’ll ask you about them in the interview.

There’s no way that ten years of experience should take up two pages of that, unless you’re hopping jobs every twelve months, which would indicate a bigger problem.

22

[QUOTE=black rabbit]
I disagree. Then again, I work for a small company that doesn’t deal with sleazy recruiters. We keeps our job postings short, sweet, and to the point, and it would be nice if our candidates did the same.

Allow me to quote myself from a previous thread:

I care less about whatever particular alphabet soup you’ve touched during any given five minutes of your career then I do about the broad outlines of the projects you’ve worked on, your role in them, and what you learned from the experience. If there are any vitally important acronyms that I feel you should know something about, rest assured that I’ll ask you about them in the interview.

There’s no way that ten years of experience should take up two pages of that, unless you’re hopping jobs every twelve months, which would indicate a bigger problem.
[/QUOTE]

That is not true in IT. The details are important, and the Alphabet soup is nessecary to let people know exactly what experience you have. Do you really want to call 100 applicants to ask if they have ever done a migration of Oracle Forms 6i from a 9i application server to 10g? Or would you just call the 5 that have put that very specific thing in the resume? And that is one of a thousand specific things that an IT job might require. You need to put every specific thing, or you are going to get overlooked.

23

I have never had a resume less than 2 pages. Even my first one out of school was over one and a half but I already had several relevant work experiences to include. My c.v. is about 15 pages but I keep the resumes at 2. That said I have seen some resumes for entry-level folks that were 2 pages of padding and could have been written in half a page.

24

[QUOTE=pulykamell]
You guys use c.v.'s, though don’t you? Those are typically longer than resumes.
[/QUOTE]
I consider the two terms interchangeable.

25

[QUOTE=atomicbadgerrace]
Well, like I said, if the information you need to put on there requires two pages, then do it. 8 pages is excessive, but I think 2 has become widely accepted. If I put everything I’d ever done on my resume, yeah, it might be 8 pages. But it’s 2, and I really don’t know what else I could sacrifice without starting to trim away the meat.
[/QUOTE]

Two pages is perfectly fine. I use two myself. I’ve had a lot of jobs over the past 10 years though. But it’s arranged strategically. First there is the summary info. Then the work history. The section for my last job of 3 1/2 years is the longest because it shows 1) some longevity and 2) advancement to a management position. Then a relatively short entry for a job I only stayed at for 9 months. And then a longer section indicating 2 years at a prestigeous Big-4 firm.

The second page is other assorted jobs and such I worked at (3) filling up space until you get to the education and random skills section.

26

[QUOTE=ultrafilter]
I’ve been going through and updating my resume, and I’m finding it a little tough to keep it to one page these days. What’s the generally accepted rule of thumb for when going over one page is acceptable?
[/QUOTE]

I doubt I would take a one page resume seriously. Most of the resumes I see are 4-6 pages. Now, I don’t usually get through all the pages-the first page is by far the most important, but if the first page is good, the next few are important to fill out the details.
I look for: education level (I only look at the school to make sure it isn’t a diploma-mill), work experience for up to the last ten years (more if necessary, but most experience that old is not relevant). Skills claimed. That should be on the first page. The rest go into detail about work experience, references, school projects (not a great substitute for work experience but better than nothing), more details on skills.

But don’t limit yourself to one page. Two to three are fine. As I said, I am used to 4-6 pages.

27

[QUOTE=ultrafilter]
I’ve been going through and updating my resume, and I’m finding it a little tough to keep it to one page these days. What’s the generally accepted rule of thumb for when going over one page is acceptable?
[/QUOTE]

If you are well established in a field (I’d arbitrarily say 10 years or more) then a 2-page resume can be justified.

I think the “1-page” rule is better suited for recent graduates.

I’ve been in the workforce just about 4 years now. I just updated my resume and pared it down (with 4 years of additions) to 1 page because I think that’s more appropriate for someone in my current level of experience.

But if you really have a lot of good experience, by all means go with two pages if that’s what you need. But tailor your resume to each job you apply for; cut all stuff that will not have much impact.

28

I think Omni is right in that the ‘one page’ thing is prevalent because it’s advice college kids get on their way out the door.

But I don’t hold to it when you’re out in the world for some time. My own at this point is five pages. My mom’s is 16. It’s all about what you’ve done and accomplished.