There's an old but fairly popular idea that a resume should only be one page long, at least when applying for a job. This is a limitation that I disagree with pretty strongly; I do believe that the first page is the most important by far, but I see no reason to limit yourself. Take a look at my resume. Yeah, I can collapse that to a page -- but the impact of a one page version is pretty weak. I actually just put together a one page version for a class assignment, which is more or less the trigger for the rant (and was actually what led me to request the creation of this forum). That said, I've never been in the position of someone hiring. If I were, I can't see why I would not want as much information as is relevant. As long as the initial page convinces me to pay attention to the applicant, why not keep going? Quick googling found me this article which seems to more or less support my position. So I'd like to hear from both sides of the table. How do you feel about resume page counts?

I used to be in favour of one-page CVs, but after talking to a friend recently who had to look through CVs at work (non-games) most were two or three pages (with the occasional four page one) and that was both accepted and normal practice. Now my target is two pages. Although they indicated that three pages was fine, I don't personally think you should go to three pages unless you've got, say, 20+ years experience and have a lot of previous jobs you need to list.

The majority of raw college graduates who don't yet have much work experience are better served by a one-pager. Once there's stuff that can't or shouldn't be omitted from the resume to make it fit on one, then go to a second.
I've learned that if you have a three-pager, some impatient hirers will never notice that there are more than two. They're not expecting more than two.

[Edited by - Tom Sloper on October 22, 2009 11:31:59 AM]

I'll agree with Mr. Sloper a little bit on this one. I have been in the position of hiring people before and it's a pain to wade through resumes that are 8-9 pages long. Personally, I think 1-2 pages is a decent length, depending on the experience you have. As you stated, the first page should be enough to convince me to pay attention to you, and anything extra should add to making me want to interview you. Normally when I get a resume that is longer than 2 pages, the candidate is simply trying to pad the resume with as many keywords and good-looking things as possible in order to stand out from the rest of the crowd, though it doesn't make me want to interview them any more than the guy who's got an awesome 1-2 resume (actually, it often makes me want to interview them less...).

Recruiters stop reading your resume on the third page not because they're lazy but because it shows you either don't know what skills are required/relevant for the job, or you don't care.

You can summarize the skills you have that are required/relevant for almost every job in a single page, any other unnecessary skills mentioned are just there showing you don't know what the job is about.

It also shows you can't decrease the size of the fonts on a word processor, which is always a bad sign.

There are lots of little things on your resume that I wouldn't put on a resume but you are the more successful, so perhaps I should learn rather than criticize.

Things I would have left off:
Development environments.

Everything on the second page except for college. No offense but no one cares where you went to high school. Under personal projects I don't see any personal projects just course work, and frankly course work stopped mattering after the work experience section. I would have had a link to personal projects and publications. Unless you were applying for a technical writing position then I would swap Published software and publications.

I view the one-page-requirement for resumes in the same line as the always-use-the-C++STL advice. There are situations in which you will want to use more than one page, but when you reach that point you will be experienced enough to be able to know when you need to and what experience to put where.

People new to the hiring process tend to bloat up their resume with a lot of unneeded crap that hiring managers don't care about. Also, a multi-page resume is only going to have that second, or third, page read after its been screened several times. That means if you do not organize the information so that the most important stuff comes early on the first page, you are likely to get your resume thrown out prematurely.

A person with many years of experience may need to have two or three pages, but he or she is also more likely to know how to organize that experience to get through resume screening, and not bloat up their resume with unneeded entries.

Quote: Original post by stonemetal
Everything on the second page except for college. No offense but no one cares where you went to high school.

The non college stuff was filtered out after this particular version was done.

Quote: Under personal projects I don't see any personal projects just course work, and frankly course work stopped mattering after the work experience section.

Actually, based on my experiences and informal conversations with other industry friends, this is really a good section, especially leading into the interview. It frames me as someone who is highly motivated when it comes so software, has team experience, can talk about projects retrospectively, and so on. Game developers in particular tend to value that independent drive heavily.

Quote: I would have had a link to personal projects and publications.

Nobody will bother to look at that. Nobody ever wants to see my demos, either. They're more interested in what I have to say about them.

Quote: Unless you were applying for a technical writing position then I would swap Published software and publications.

Eh? Published software is first. Why would it be the other way around?

Quote: Original post by Rycross
I view the one-page-requirement for resumes in the same line as the always-use-the-C++STL advice.

A person with many years of experience may need to have two or three pages, but he or she is also more likely to know how to organize that experience to get through resume screening, and not bloat up their resume with unneeded entries.

A person with many years of experience has many years of experience that are no longer relevant and probably shouldn't be on a resume. Your first job out of college isn't relevant 20 years latter even if it is in a relevant field job responsibilities, type of work performed, etc. are vastly different between entry level positions and upper level positions. Promit's resume is probably the right length for what he has listed, but I doubt any one reads below the tech skills section.

Quote: Actually, based on my experiences and informal conversations with other industry friends, this is really a good section, especially leading into the interview. It frames me as someone who is highly motivated when it comes so software, has team experience, can talk about projects retrospectively, and so on. Game developers in particular tend to value that independent drive heavily.

Yes if they were personal projects. All I see listed is course work.

Quote: Original post by stonemetal

Quote: Actually, based on my experiences and informal conversations with other industry friends, this is really a good section, especially leading into the interview. It frames me as someone who is highly motivated when it comes so software, has team experience, can talk about projects retrospectively, and so on. Game developers in particular tend to value that independent drive heavily.

Yes if they were personal projects. All I see listed is course work.

Recent stuff is course work because I've been in school. The last entry isn't coursework and older stuff got filtered out. More to the point, my "personal" projects are published open source projects with users. I can see an argument for retitling the last section -- but coursework vs personal projects is a fairly trivial distinction.

Oh, also my two pages is kind of a stretch, but one and a half looks pretty awful so I end up with a bit of padding here and there. "Development Environments" actually makes the page and section breaks line up.

[Edited by - Promit on October 22, 2009 1:41:39 PM]