I’ve taken the knife to my resume so that it now fits on one page - bad idea?
Nope. Sounds like a good idea to me. You can make it double sided if you like, but sticking to one sheet of paper is a smart move, especially in an environment where recruiters are going to be receiving huge numbers of applications. If you go on to a 3rd page with a resume then you are almost certainly adding needless details. Referees should be cut as should date of birth, high school qualifications (unless you have no work experience) etc. No one needs to know that you were in the boy scouts.
Most investment banks prefer the one page.
One page is the way to go unless you are also the author of a lot of meaningful articles/books/studies.
I haven’t seen too many resumes with a second page. I would definitely stick to a 1 pager.
I’ve seen a lot of resumes in Europe with up to three pages. They invariably suck. People go into long winded descriptions of every project they’ve ever worked on or every seminar they ever participated in. It comes off looking very self-obsessed. One page is the way to go.
i’ve been told two pages if you can fill it with useful stuff. maybe its a canadian preference? makes sense, we are 50% america and 50% europe.
A CV in Europe is often two or three pages but contains much more information that a resume. A resume should be 1 page only and have enough whitespace that it is still easily readable. If I can’t read the resume it goes in the trash and if there is more than one page the second page is usually ignored unless the person has a minimum of 10-15 years of experience all of which is relevant.
If you are in Australia, they prefer a CV (I have seen very few job ads on seek asking for one page), which ideally is 2-3 pages. One page resumes are mostly in the USA.
1-9 years of experience – one page 10-20 – two pages 20+ – three pages