[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.