How Long Should a Resume Be? Here’s What the Research Says!

How Many Pages Should a Resume Be?

One of the worst parts of searching for a job is that everyone has a different opinion on everything:

  • “Do what you love!” vs. “Find a job with growth opportunities!”

  • “You have to write a cover letter!” vs. “No one reads cover letters!”

  • And of course, “Your resume needs to be one page!” vs. “Who cares!!!”

What’s a job-seeker to do? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

While some of these questions may be subjective (i.e., passion vs. practicality), as a former MBA career coach at the University of Michigan, I’m happy to say that the resume question has a 100% objective answer.

Here’s what the research says:


Should a Resume Be One Page?

To answer this question, researchers started by identifying the primary purpose of a resume: To help recruiters quickly decide whether a given applicant deserves an interview.

With this goal in mind, they set-up a clever experiment:

  • They gave a group of recruiters two versions of the same resume - 1-page vs. 2-page

  • They then asked recruiters to quickly decide whether a given version was worthy of an interview - just like they do in real life

And you know what they discovered: Recruiters actually prefer 2-page resumes!


Can a Resume Be 2 Pages?

While that initial finding was amazing (especially since many of the recruiters thought 1-page resumes would do better before the experiment began), what’s really mind-blowing is that the researchers even broke the results down by career stage:

  • Entry-Level

  • Mid-Career

  • Senior

And so even though you might assume that 2-page resumes were only preferred for more senior candidates, the findings held up across all career stages.

In other words: Recruiters always preferred 2-page resumes, even at earlier career stages.


How Long Should My Resume Be?

What’s behind these amazing findings, you ask?

Well, put yourself in a recruiter’s shoes. If you’re looking for specific evidence that a given applicant could be a rockstar candidate, would you rather:

  • Have more information to work with or less?

  • Have some nice white space to let the words breathe or have them crammed into tiny font and margins?

As you can see, two-page resumes just make recruiters’ jobs easier. And anything that makes recruiters’ jobs easier makes it easier for you to get the job!

So bottom-line: Don’t get caught up in all the different, unsubstantiated opinions out there. Instead, stick with what the research shows - and go out there and land a job you love!


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