How Long Should a Resume Be in 2025

How long should a resume be?

Your resume should be one or two pages long, depending on a couple of factors:

Does a resume have to be one page?

No! The most common misconception about resume length is that it must be one page long. The reality is more complicated — one page is great for some job seekers, but others may need more space.

Is making it longer than two pages ever OK?

No, resumes should never go longer than two pages.

If you work in a field like law, medicine, or academia, you may need more space to list your conferences, publications, and teaching experiences, in which case a CV may be a better option.

What if I have a lot I want to include on my resume?

If you are struggling with resume length, prioritize your qualifications based on the job description of the position you are applying for.

Write a targeted resume that is tailored to the qualifications sought by the employer. In general, these job descriptions list their requirements in order of importance, so do your best to match your resume with their needs. 

You can also write a cover letter if you feel you have more to say that you can’t fit in your resume. A cover letter gives you the chance to explore in more detail certain qualifications you want to bring to attention, but don’t go overboard! A cover letter should only be one page long and between 250 and 400 words long.

Why does resume length matter anyway?

Resume length is important for two reasons:

Whether you’re writing your professional summary, skills, or work experience bullet points, keeping your resume to one or two pages will help you make a shorter, tighter document.

How far back in time should a resume go?

The rule of thumb on how far back to go on a resume is that experience going back longer than 15 years can be cut without a problem.

The main point is that a perfect resume will focus on relevant and timely experience. The further you go back, the less relevant the experience becomes. However, you can always make an exception for impressive honors and awards.

How long should my resume be as a student?

If you’re writing a student resume, you probably don’t have much professional experience. In that case, a one-page resume would be the better option. Students may find that even at one page, it can be tough to fill out a resume when you don’t have a work history.

We recommend adding optional resume sections to showcase your non-work experience. These sections include:

Anything you did during your schooling that used your specific talents might be a good addition to your resume.

What’s the best resume length with no work experience?

Students and candidates who don’t have work experience often face a similar problem — without a professional history, what do you include on your resume?

As mentioned above, special sections are your friend. That time you volunteered at a summer camp? Put it on there. That school project you helped usher to the finish line? Add it to your resume.

The important part is — employers want to see relevant experience. You won’t always learn things inside the workplace, and that’s OK. Other settings are perfectly fine.

Consider creating a resume outline before you start. An outline can help you build out your resume sections.

How long should a CV be?

A CV is much longer than a resume. CVs are frequently used for academic, legal, medical, or scientific roles. Job seekers in these fields must include many sections you wouldn’t necessarily find on a resume, like professional associations, publications, and conference attendance. Before you know it, the document is running four or five pages long.

In comparison, resumes should be no more than two pages.

How to get your resume length down to one page

Whether you decide to keep it down to one page or expand it to two, getting your resume length right is an important step in your job search.

Here are a handful of ways to change the length of your resume to meet your needs.

1. Play with your formatting — margins, line spacing, font size

Your resume length will be affected by the margins, line spacing, and resume font. You can gain or cut some space by adjusting these elements — as long as you follow resume formatting rules.

For example, your font size should be no smaller than 10 points and no larger than 12 points. If your resume is slightly too long, dropping the point size from 11 to 10 will help you reach your goal.

But be careful. You don’t want to appear like you’re trying to hide a lack of experience by super-sizing the margins or font. Always stick with the guidelines.

Choosing a well-designed resume template can also help. Templates come with preloaded fonts and spacing, and they are professionally designed, so you don’t have to fuss with the formatting. Simply find a style that works for you. Designs are also available for Microsoft Word and Google Docs.

2. When it comes to work experience, achievements beat job duties

Never simply recite your job duties. While you can easily rack up work experience bullet points by citing tasks, that’s not meaningful.

What matters most are the results. How much money did you bring in? How many customers did you serve? How were you rated in your performance evaluations?

By focusing on metrics, you can cut the bullet points that don’t matter. Review our resume examples to see how successful candidates use their work histories effectively, and consider creating a personal website or a portfolio site to showcase your achievements in more detail.

3. Cut out early, less relevant experience

Every time you refresh your resume, ask yourself whether you need to keep your earliest roles. When you were only five years into your career, it made sense to keep your first job out of college, but when you’re 10 or 15 years deep, maybe it’s time to drop that internship.

You should also take a critical look at your skills. Do you have any out-of-date software programs listed? Some resumes have qualifications that no longer matter — or could even undermine their case to an employer.

Cutting irrelevant info can save space and make you look better.

4. Limit the descriptions of each role

Work experience is crucial, but don’t go overboard. Consider limiting your most recent jobs to three-to-four bullet points per role.

What’s the best way to do this? After you choose a resume layout, review your professional history and prioritize the bullet points that show you made an impact. Results are always more impressive than routine tasks.

After you make your cuts, consider moving some of the skills and qualifications into your resume profile, objective statement or skills section. Don’t forget to show love to every part of your resume.

5. Write a concise summary or objective

Although your resume summary or objective is a great place to first grab the recruiter’s attention, make sure to be brief. Use this section as an opportunity to focus on your most relevant qualifications and save the others for the rest of the resume. Ideally, this section should be two to four sentences long, but if you are short on space, aim to keep it around two.