got laid off in February. been applying for 3 months. i have 7 years of experience across 3 jobs and my resume is exactly one page.
four different people have told me it's "too sparse" and i should add more. but everything i've ever read says one page is the rule and two pages is only ok if you have 10+ years.
my current resume has: summary (2 lines), 3 jobs with 3-4 bullets each, skills section, education. it fits comfortably on one page with normal margins.
is there actually a problem here or are these people projecting? what would you add?
5 replies
recruiter_rita
the one page "rule" is not actually a rule anymore, especially at 7 years experience. if you have 3 jobs and can only write 3-4 bullets per role, the question is whether those bullets are as strong as they could be. sparseness is sometimes a length issue but it's more often a depth issue.
i'd look at whether each bullet is doing real work before deciding to add more content.
numbers_only
3-4 bullets per role with 7 years experience is on the lean side but not crazy. the question i'd ask: are there accomplishments you left out because they didn't fit? if yes, add them and go to 1.5 or 2 pages. if no, it's probably a quality issue not a quantity issue.
laidoff_lena
honestly there are things i left out. i kept cutting stuff trying to stay on one page. maybe i should just let it breathe.
numbers_only
yeah go to 1.5 pages without guilt. the one-page thing made sense when resumes were printed. nobody is printing your resume.
staff_steph
7 years and 3 jobs: i'd probably expect 1.5-2 pages depending on what those jobs were. if you were an IC contributor with narrow scope each time, 1 page is fine. if you had meaningful ownership and delivered things, you've got room to expand without padding.
what level are you targeting? that changes the advice too.