How Long Should Your Resume Be? | EmploymentDigest.net

It’s an eternal question and one there seems to be many different answers for. Here I aim to offer you some employment support advice that will go some way to giving you a recruitment professionals opinion.

On one hand, we want the recruiter to see how much experience we have for the job opportunities available. On the other hand, it is a well known fact that employers will only spend on average 7 seconds perusing each resume they receive. We however, spend hours making our resume perfect for the ideal job opportunities we would like to submit our resume to.

There is a fine line on how long our resume should be. After all it is a resume rather than a full Curriculum Vitae and by definition this is a brief profile of your qualities, skills and expertise. We need to remember this when formulating our own. If you are working with resume builders online, you should be very specific in your objectives especially in terms of length and the content of your profile.

The length does depend on a number of factors however, and this is probably why opinions differ so in making a resume. How long is your career to date? What industry are you in, your education and training credentials etc.

If you are applying for your first job, your resume needs to be no longer than a single page. Yes really ONE page! The employer will want to see your educational background, your contact details and a paragraph detailing any experience you have that is relevant to the particular job opportunities you are interested in.

Maybe you are at the other end of the career scale? If you have ten to twenty years experience in your field it seems like a daunting prospect to narrow it all down into a readable, employable, format. It shouldn’t be as hard to compact your career as you may imagine. With the benefit of hindsight, your career highs and achievements will leap straight from memory and onto the page. If you do have this much experience, it isn’t out of order to present your resume in three or four pages.

The important key to a successful resume is its concise nature and relevance to the job opportunities that the resume is being submitted to. You must orientate your resume for each and every one of the job opportunities you apply for. This is critical! Any careers support advice saying differently is very wrong!

If you have pages and pages of skills and attributes applicable to the role directly, then you need to apply them concisely within your resume. It should be obvious to the reader that you are a qualified candidate from the first paragraph, and they will want to know more. You must make sure your first paragraph draws them in, without flannelling them with irrelevant points.

My name is Craig Dean and I have been massively successful in the recruitment industry for over 15 years and am considered as a specialist in acquiring real job opportunities for “go getters”. I have successfully assisted thousands of people just like you in securing full time employment, part time employment, temporary employment and even working from home placements across all sectors. I invite you to read my articles and blogs for further advice at  http://www.employmentsupport.net.

Posted via web from AndyWergedal