How long should a resume be? New research suggests two pages, not one

The ideal résumé length is
actually two pages, new research suggests.
AP Photo/Paul Sancya

• Most résumé coaches will tell you your résumé should not
  exceed one page — especially if you’re an entry-level worker.
• But new research from ResumeGo seems to contradict that
  notion.
• The résumé-writing service found that job recruiters were
  more likely to prefer two-page résumés than one-page résumés —
  even for entry-level workers — and they spent more time reading
  two-page résumés, too.

Conventional wisdom holds that your résumé should be no longer
than one page.

At least that’s what
most résumé coaches will tell you.

But new research suggests that job recruiters were more than
twice
as likely to prefer two-page resumes to one-page résumés — a
conclusion that surprised even the researchers.

As part of an experiment, résumé-writing service ResumeGo
presented almost 20,000 one- and two-page résumés to a pool of
482 job recruiters, hiring managers, HR professionals, and
C-suite executives. The participants were put through a
three-week “hiring simulation” in which they were asked to screen
the résumés for a variety of job positions comprising different
levels of work experience.

Across the board, the participants were more likely to prefer the
two-page résumés. Out of the 7,712 résumés they approved, 5,375
of them were two pages long, while just 2,337 were one page long.

The results were especially pronounced when it came to
higher-level job positions. The participants were 2.9 times more
likely to prefer two-page résumés for managerial-level positions
and 2.6 times as likely for mid-level positions.

But the results held up even when it came to entry-level workers
— traditionally the group that is most cautioned against
exceeding one page. Participants were 1.4 times more likely to
prefer two-page résumés even for those positions, the researchers
found.

“While the overwhelming majority of career experts argue that a
two-page résumé should never be used unless a job seeker has many
years of full-time work experience at multiple companies, our
results contradict this piece of conventional wisdom,” ResumeGo
CEO Peter Yang said
in a statement.

Read more:

10 ways to fix your résumé when you’re not entry-level
anymore

Not only did the two-page résumés perform better than the
one-pages ones, the participants in the experiment also spent
significantly more time reading them, bucking the notion that job
recruiters will gloss over lengthier résumés. They spent an
average of four minutes and five seconds going over the two-page
résumés, compared to just two minutes and 24 seconds on the
one-page examples.

It’s worth noting that the experiment only accounted for the
preferences of human résumé screeners, and not the
software programs companies are using with increasing
frequency.

For Yang, the results prove how little we actually know about the
art of résumé-writing, and how much of the advice you hear isn’t
necessarily based in fact. As he noted, there has been barely any
scientific research looking into the ideal résumé length.

“It’s one of the frustrating things in the industry. I would go
online to see what experts had to say about this or that, and
people were kind of just giving out tips from their own opinions,
not grounded in any real evidence,” Yang told Business Insider.

“Furthermore, recruitment methods and the hiring landscape are
constantly evolving,” he said in the ResumeGo announcement. “So
what may have been true in the past may no longer be the case
today.”