[debatem1]

One page. One page. One page. Only one page. No more pages. Don't do it. Only. One.

Remember that when I'm reading your resume I'm reading. Write it to tell the story of who you are and who you want to be as well as you are able. Cut out things that don't fit that story-- you can always pleasantly surprise them later with the extra skills.

Unless you've worked on something that got put on a billboard near my house, I don't know what your project's codename was. "Developed key metrics for Project Hazel" translates to "measured brown thing" in my mind.

Many engineers find it distasteful to describe their contributions in glowing terms. But that's the game and because I can't tell you're being demure I'm going to turn the brightness down two notches on your resume same as everyone else's. So amp it up until it feels gross (and not much further).

[andrewstuart]

I have read literally hundreds of thousands of resumes and I implore to ignore this terrible advice.

Your entire career jammed into a single page - not a good idea.

How many really good stories have you read that are one single page? Your resume is a story about you that follows a well known general form.

Presumably you have worked hard and put in the work - it will take a few pages to explain it in a clearly set out manner. Explain your education, what you have done, where you have worked, your interests where you feel it relevant. Space it nicely, choose an attractive font. Your resume should not be full of technical keywords, and there is little point in describing every technology you have ever touched (see this http://supercoders.com.au/blog/theskillsmatrix.shtml). Illustrate the most interesting aspects of your work over the years with a short yet clear description of things you found particularly interesting.

Don't submit a 20 page thesis but as for "one page or nothing" - from someone who does the reading and assessing of resumes - this is bad advice. Don't sell yourself short - years and years of work does not boil down to one page unless you wish to belittle yourself and your career.

[tempestn]

Agreed. I certainly don't mind getting two page resumes. I'd prefer something where a modicum of effort went into presenting the information in a clear, attractive manner than something that's crammed into a single page.

That said, in my opinion the most important page isn't even one of those - it's the cover letter. Perhaps the reason I don't mind slightly longer resumes is that I don't bother to read them carefully if it's clear no effort was put into the cover letter.

[debatem1]

> Your entire career jammed into a single page - what a load of garbage.

Good luck with that. As I said to the other commenter with the same view, I'm happy to see a resume with two pages of irreducible complexity if you have examples. I haven't yet.

[eschutte2]

Why can't a long career be boiled down to a single page?

It seems to me the shorter the better. The best resume is just your name.

http://www.landsnail.com/apple/local/steve-jobs-resume/Resum...

PS - hundreds of thousands of resumes - wow! How'd that happen? Forty resumes every single work day for twenty years?

[andrewstuart]

I am a recruiter - I have been doing it for more than 12 years. Forty resumes in a day is a very slow day. I personally wrote my own recruitment resume review system to enable me to read resumes extremely fast if I choose.

[newbear]

I'm a self taught dev with a ba in math and 2yrs job experience but have for the past two years worked in restaurant while chasing my music dreams. How do I best go about putting this in my resume? I have thought about a projects section but it doesn't really cover two years. I feel job ready but am not getting through to people. Thanks

[paulcole]

>Your entire career jammed into a single page - not a good idea.

Why should your resume show your entire career? Isn't the point of the resume to tell a story that gets you an interview?

Anything else is overkill.

[__derek__]

> Your entire career jammed into a single page - not a good idea.

Yeah, you're right. Don't include everything in your resume.

NB: This advice varies between countries. In the US, one page is standard.

[lucb1e]

I typed a proper comment but my mobile browser messed up and deleted it, so here's the short of it: more than one page is fine, but I get that it's an opinion, just please don't give bad advice without mentioning it's a preference. Recruiters asked me why I am squeezing it into two when I mention I'm having trouble keeping it at two. Three is common as well. Might be personal, regional, but if I took your advice my résumé would be worse off.

[debatem1]

I'll be frank: I've never seen a three page resume that I thought conveyed more than a page of useful information. And more often than not, it sends me signals like "cannot communicate effectively" and "does not understand industry norms". I'm sure there are exceptions, but now the writer has to prove that they are one-- not an ideal starting place.

I'm also sure I'm not alone in this, and I'd suggest that annoying a considerable percentage of hiring managers for little gain represents an unforced error.

I am curious, though. Could I convince you to send me a copy of your resume? Redacted, if you like. I'd just like to know what a career that really needs 2+ pages looks like.

Regarding cultural differences, the only one I know of that causes problems is sending pictures or other indicators of protected class status. I try pretty hard to judge all resumes fairly, and it makes it more difficult to be sure unconscious bias isn't kicking in when I have age, race, and marital status right there on the page. But of course, write to your audience-- if that's expected in their culture and you're comfortable with that, go with it.

[lucb1e]

> I'd just like to know what a career that really needs 2+ pages looks like.

It's not my student's career that takes up two pages; that's just the first page. It's what I can actually do that takes up a second page (skills, major software products I'm familiar with and projects). Education, work experience, internships and info like phone number and email address are on the first page.

[thecolorblue]

The point is, you should be able to remove the parts that are not relevant to the job you are applying for. I keep a long resume that is verbose and then edit it down to a page before applying for a job. Focus on what the hiring manager is looking for.

[nunez]

Agreed. The best resumes I've seen were one or two pages. The worst were three or more. Many of the bullets in those resumes are useless filler ("I ran some commands", "I wrote reports", ...)

[morgante]

It's not "just an opinion." It's an established best practice which you will hear from anyone involved in hiring at American companies.

Lots of people think they're special snowflakes. They're not.

If you're incapable of fitting your experience into 1 page (when that's the prevailing standard), it makes me seriously question your critical thinking skills. It got to the point where I would automatically toss out any resume longer than 1 page.

[solipsism]

It's an established best practice which you will hear from anyone involved in hiring at American companies

No, it's really not. I've been involved in hiring at multiple American companies. One page is not important. No more pages than you need to highlight your highly impactful experiences is much better advice.

If you're incapable of fitting your experience into 1 page (when that's the prevailing standard), it makes me seriously question your critical thinking skills

You are a special snowflake.

[morgante]

> You are a special snowflake.

I'm not even the only person saying it in this thread.

In very rare cases, you can get away with 2 pages. A self-taught developer just getting into the field is definitely not one of those cases.

I've almost never seen a resume which should be been longer and I've seen hundreds which should have been shorter.

[lucb1e]

> which you will hear from anyone involved in hiring at American companies.

It does seem to come up a lot on HN whenever the topic comes up, yeah. Though the odds are high, OP might not be American -- and besides that, others will read this thread as well. Perhaps it would be better if we mentioned where on the planet we are when discussing things like this.

[morgante]

That's why I deliberately included "American" in my response. This varies substantially between countries.

[davewasthere]

In the UK, recruiting for various organisations, the defacto standard seemed around two pages. one seemed a little too concise/sparse, three a little too verbose.

That said, 1-3 is sort of acceptable depending on how relevant the information is. But 4+ pages would definitely get thrown in the circular file.

[morgante]

I'm talking from a US perspective. This varies substantially across countries.

[ionised]

CVs and resumes tend to take a different format.

[gorbachev]

It hasn't been established best practice in any company I've ever worked with. I am interviewing candidates at my company. I see maybe 1 resume out of 20 that fits on a single page. Nobody gives a shit.

What we DO give a shit about is what's actually in it.

[imron]

> more than one page is fine

Have you ever vetted resumes? Once you've seen enough of them, you really start to appreciate the one page resumes that tell you everything you need to know, and leave off all the stuff that is not relevant to the job.

A 2 or 3 page resume isn't an instant no, but it's got an uphill battle for the reviewer's time compared to the one page resumes also under consideration.

[lucb1e]

I don't expect anyone to read it A through Z the first time they see it. Like, who ever reads a scientific paper A through Z without first reading the conclusion, perhaps scanning through it a bit and looking at a chart or two? The details are for when they're interested.

But it's not just my resume anyway, I've heard of others with three pages and seen others with two. I've also seen a friend's (he's French, I'm Dutch) which was one page, and I thought it didn't say anything about him, just the standard "I did compsci like everyone else, oh and look here is one toy project <end of page>". He said his school told him to keep it to one page. Looked like terrible advice when I saw the result of that.

[imron]

> I don't expect anyone to read it A through Z the first time they see it

The problem is that it might not get a second look, and you should be optimising your resume for the person reading it.

Granted, as you said a one-page resume is useless if it doesn't highlight your skills and experience related to the job you're applying for, and it seems your friend only picked up the first part of the advice and missed the second part that normally goes with it, which is to make that one page relevant to the job you're applying for.

A 2 page resume can work if the front page lets me know all the details I'm interested in knowing. The reality is though that the person reviewing your resume likely has a pile of 20-30 others to get through, and if they have to dig through your resume for the details, then you might find yourself losing out if there were sufficient other easier to read resumes to fill up the number of interview slots.

[lucb1e]

Sorry I was unclear, I didn't mean that it would get a "second look", rather, when someone first gets it, they'd skim through it and see if it's interesting to begin with. After that (while still in the same sitting) they might actually read it more or less from beginning to end.

And secondly I think there might be a difference in our experience and approach. Usually I do open applications, not for one very specific function. Like with security you can do penetration testing, forensics, crypto, etc. and while I have more experience in some areas than in others, I like all of it. If they can use someone in forensics, I have a basis to start with (I had a forensics course) and I'd love to do it. Or if they need another person for the pen test team, that's my main trade and I'm all ears as well.

Usually the companies don't actually have a pile of resumes and they want to hire anyone with skills. Typically I meet someone on Twitter, or heard of the company when talking to colleagues/classmates/teachers/conference-goers and I email the company as a result.

[debatem1]

I'm a hiring security manager. I will point out that even for people with very broad security experience the norm is still one page.

Also, if I like a resume when I read it the second step isn't "read it more". It's "schedule a phone screen". So if you filter yourself out in step one for no advantage in step two it's probably a bad move.

Having said that, that's how it works in the companies I've worked at, which are all American. I have no idea about how the Dutch do it and wouldn't be surprised to find out that it's different.

[geocar]

> my résumé

Parle Français?

Non?

Then leave the accents off: The English word is resume.

This one bugs a lot of people and the people it doesn't bother are fine with "resume"

> more than one page is fine, but I get that it's an opinion

The reason why I don't usually hire people with three page resumes is because it usually means they have trouble getting to the point.

And yet: If you really can't tell the story of you and the value you can bring to a potential customer in two pages, then by all means use another page, just understand that most people can give that kind of summary of themselves so it might be worth thinking about exactly why you think you can't.

A resume for a developer just needs to get you into the hiring process and provide others with some things to talk about. It doesn't need to tell your entire story, so you might try to have multiple resumes for different kinds of companies instead of a long resume with something for everyone.

[astrodust]

Loanwords like résumé are accented. English may be allergic to accents, but it's not without them, especially if the word's been stolen wholesale from another language. "Noël", "señor",

Some styles of written English use things like coördinate instead of co-ordinate. This is, by some definitions, technically valid. There's a whole section in Wikipedia on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_terms_with_diacritical...

[geocar]

I understand what you're saying, but I don't think you understand what I'm saying.

Hiring managers are supposed to be professional, but they might see "r?sum?" because of a tech issue, or they might think you're foreign (and have an accent yourself). Much rarer is the hiring manager who is going to see those accent marks on a developer resume and prioritise it over someone without the accent marks.

If you're french-speaking, and for a french-speaking role, you may want to demonstrate this (and these issues should be moot), and I suppose if you're a graphic designer trying to demonstrate your aesthetics and typography, then we're talking about something else, but if you're a developer, you are potentially missing out on an audience by adding these things.

Also: Noel[1] is not typically accented and and Senor[2] wasn't originally accented. If you need to write coordinate[3] in your resume, I'd leave out the accents there as well.

[1]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/noel

[2]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/senor

[3]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coordinate

[astrodust]

Easy on the hysteria here. If people see r?sum? they'll know what they're dealing with, it's not going to be some dark mystery.

Some people, believe it or not, have attention to detail and if they think the correct way to spell it is "résumé" then that's what they'll do. It's something that might be appreciated by some and ignored by others, but if you want to snub someone for using accents, I can't imagine the other trivial transgressions that set you off.

Webster's is also an American dictionary and would have you believe "colour" is spelled "color", so it's not relevant here except when discussing the specific and quirky American dialect.

[geocar]

> If people see r?sum? they'll know what they're dealing with, it's not going to be some dark mystery.

Why would anyone take that chance?

> if you want to snub someone for using accents, I can't imagine the other trivial transgressions that set you off.

Sometimes people are just having an off day. You might like them fine the rest of the time, but today they just got done dealing with three's customer service.

Again: why would anyone take that chance?

> Some people, believe it or not, have attention to detail and if they think the correct way to spell it is "résumé" then that's what they'll do. It's something that might be appreciated by some and ignored by others

Attention to detail means making a hardcopy on quality paper with a proper letter of introduction and references, and posting it in. If you're doing this, then I'll concede you might be right to use résumé.

However otherwise, there are absolutely more people who will be set off by seeing those accents. People who put them in, want to put them in because they think it's right, and if they actually had an attention to detail they'd think about how the other person is going to interact with their r?sum?.

> Webster's is also an American dictionary and would have you believe "colour" is spelled "color", so it's not relevant here except when discussing the specific and quirky American dialect.

A British company doesn't want a résumé, they want a CV.

American companies are asking for a "resume" which is a short summary, and it's in a different format. Most American hiring managers will not deal well with a British-style CV, and since we're talking about resumes, we're talking about an American hiring process -- the kind of process that landed Americans on the moon.

Also:

* https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/noel

* https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/coordinate

[lucb1e]

My phone's US English dictionary suggested it. I actually thought it was resumé with only one accent but figured I was wrong and took the suggestion.

[geocar]

Résumé est Français, and it means summary not biography. Resumé is definitely very common, but is English if it's anything at all.

https://www.pongoresume.com/blogPosts/295/how-do-you-spell-r...

[debatem1]

I don't seem to be able to reply to your other comment, so doing it here.

I don't know what you mean by "your student's resume". Do you mean you are a student? If so, we may be conflating a CV with a resume.

[lucb1e]

If you want to reply within like a minute, you need to go to the comment's page (click on the time, e.g. "1 minute ago") to be able to reply. For other people's reference, here's what my parent is responding to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13380596

> Do you mean you are a student? If so, we may be conflating a CV with a resume.

Yes, I'm still a student, though with a diploma in lower education and some (relevant) work experience, so it's more than one school and one internship that are relevant.

[ionised]

UK CVs take a bit of a different format than a US resume, and the general rule for them (that I've experienced over the last ten years) is to keep it to two pages.

My own first has a brief paragraph of info about me, who I am and where I want to be.

Then my most recent/relevant employment history along with any notable achievements or responsibilities for each.

Then any relevant education, typically the university I went to along with the overall course grade and modules. This becomes less important as the length of your career increases though. If you've been a professional developer for 10 years or more, an employer likely won't care what class your university degree was.

Lastly people advise including a very brief section for references, but personally I just make it known that they are available on request.

[probinso]

Most people receive resumes in a digital format these days, you can trick them into thinking that your resume is one page very easily by producing a PDF that is 15 inches long for instance. This technicality got me through to an interview at a company that specifically requested a one-page resume.

It taught me that most people don't actually care as long as you don't waste space, they just think they do

[hectormalot]

Can't agree more on the one page part. Depending on the background / culture of candidates I've had resumes up to 12 pages long.

A bit of formatting also helps, a professional looking resume will frame your accomplishments better. Something many readers are sensitive for.

And show impact. "Developed key metrics for project hazel" reads different than: "rewrote metrics engine resulting in real time view on all client transactions, leading to $10M in new marketing opportunities".

And finally, if you're really interested in a job. Adapt your CV to show the most relevant information for that job first (and word it in the best possible way, e.g. look for the language the employer uses to describe the job)

[cauterized]

Brand new to the industry or looking for your second job in it? Yes, one page.

I would never expect someone with 10+ years of experience to have a one-pager, though, unless they have literally held only one job in that time - which is itself a red flag.

The one page advice stems from a time when people worked just one or two different jobs in a 40-50 year career.

Yes, you can omit details about things you did a dozen years ago. No, there's never any reason for a 12-page resume. Yes, you want the recruiter/hiring manager to be able to evaluate your resume quickly.

But 2-3 pages is sometimes necessary to convey sufficient information about an established career.

[zimpenfish]

> But 2-3 pages is sometimes necessary to convey sufficient information about an established career.

Especially if you're a contractor and even then you're going to be leaving off large chunks (1996-2005 is missing from mine.)

[debatem1]

Oh, and one other thing: don't put useless information on there just because it's true. You are not required to list all your jobs just because you have an employment section. Same goes for education. Putting down that summer job flipping burgers tells me you don't have a clue what I'm looking for... which means you probably aren't it.

So again, keep everything on there short, relevant, and above all /on message/.

[astrodust]

Keep it short and to the point. Eye-rolling junk cluttering up the page like favorite hobbies is absolutely inane. If anyone cares they'll ask you during the interview.

Stay focused on relevant work achievements or other experience directly applicable to the job you're applying for. If you're a poker champion and applying for a medical job, it's not relevant. If you're applying to a poker gaming company, perhaps it is.

On-message, absolutely, is the #1 thing. Sending out the same canned resume to everyone is how you get chucked in the garbage.

[anarazel]

Heh. I always went with one to two pages. And then worked on getting a US visa. And was, uh, strongly suggested to write a five to six page CV. Felt quite wrong.

[morgante]

A CV is a different thing than a resume, at least from a US perspective. I actually have both.

[anarazel]

Interesting, I wasn't really aware of the US vs. western Europe difference in differentiating those terms - they're used interchangeably in a lot of countries.

[debatem1]

A CV is supposed to be exhaustive, so "as many pages as it takes" is right there AFAIU. But then again, I seldom ask for them.