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How long should a resume be? One page or two

One page or two? The right length for your experience level, and how to shorten a resume without losing what matters.

By The CVticket team 5 min read

“Should my resume fit on one page?” It is one of the most frequent questions. The answer depends on your experience, but one rule never changes: every line has to earn its place.

The general rule

  • One page: students, recent graduates, candidates with less than 5 to 8 years of experience, career changers.
  • Two pages: experienced professionals, managers, technical or leadership roles where the detail of your work matters.
  • More than two pages: reserved for a few cases (academic CVs with publications, some research or international public-sector roles).

A recruiter first skims a resume in a few seconds. What matters is that the essentials (headline, latest experience, key skills) are visible on the first page.

When one page is enough

If your resume spills a few lines onto a second page, it usually means you should tighten it, not that you need two pages. A half-empty second page looks unfinished.

How to shorten a resume

  1. Trim older experience: beyond 10 to 15 years, one line per job is enough (title, company, dates).
  2. Keep 3 to 5 bullet points per recent job, focused on results.
  3. Remove duplicates: a skill shown in your experience does not need to be detailed again elsewhere.
  4. Drop unnecessary information: full street address (city is enough), “references available upon request”, hobbies unrelated to the job.
  5. Tighten the layout in moderation: margins, line spacing and font size have a readable minimum (10 points for body text).

Two pages: organize them well

If you need two pages, put these on the first one:

  • your headline and a short summary;
  • your most recent and relevant experience;
  • your key skills.

The second page holds older experience, additional training, languages and interests.

Watch out for page breaks

A job split in the wrong place, a heading alone at the bottom of a page… These details hurt readability. In CVticket, layout is automatic: page breaks fall between two lines, never in the middle of a word, and the preview is identical to the PDF. You see right away how many pages your resume has, and the effect of every setting (font, size, line spacing).

To decide what to keep, use our article on what skills to put on a resume.

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