Ask HN: How long should an ideal resume be?

2 pages maximum. I'll forgive you if a recruiter has bastardised your CV when they send it on to me.<p>One of the things I was taught about CVs is don't put down your job responsibilities, put down what you achieved. For example, in my last role, I was responsible for debt recovery in the company so instead of saying:<p>"Managed a team of 4 paralegals with responsibility for debt recovery across the group"; I said:<p>"Created a debt recovery team of 4 paralegals and put in place processes to standardise debt recovery across group achieving X days reduction in DSO and recovered over £XXXXXX in legal costs and interest"

reviewing CVs in the UK, I've been pretty happy at two pages. Three is pushing it, but okay for someone very experienced (although I find the more experienced, the more likely they're able to keep it to two pages)<p>I honestly want to circular file any CVs with more than three pages though. They'd have to be a special candidate for me to consider them after that.

I'm a two-page guy myself but a recruiter recently told me that nowadays with job searching being done by recruiters who 'grep' your resume for keywords, that longer and more detailed is fine. And, hiring managers want to see more, if you have it and it's informative. But that could also be done by having a 'misc. skills' section I imagine.

Depends on the company I got my last job with 1 page (company is a 15-20 head in the agency / digital marketing area). I listed :<p>* Last 2 jobs, listing company, dates of employment &#38; Job Title.<p>* List of Education / Certification (only relevant to the job)<p>* List of notable skills (written in a very broad manner, i.e : Administration of Windows, Linux and Mac OS X servers and major application packages.<p>Add a references on request line and contact details and I was done.<p>May not suit everyone but worked well going into a small and casual environment.

Having hired many people over the years, I prefer reading a short, highly targeted resume. One page is ideal, however if your experience requires more room, add up to a total of two pages.<p>Remember, if you have to ask if something is relevant in your resume, you should leave it off!<p>Have you thought about supplementing your paper resume with a video resume? I actually just posted a blog article on the topic here: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3655510" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3655510</a>

Personal opinion on what I look for...<p>One preferred. Two at most. Online version highly preferred <i>in addition</i> to print out.<p>Information overload is not necessary. Not all 14 years are necessary to be put on there even if all 14 years are relevant. Tackle exactly what the job is looking for.<p>Expand in cover letter if necessary.

Genrally this depends on how long you have worked<p>Fresh Grads to 1-2 Years of Work - 1 Pager 2 - beyond Years of Work - 2 Pager<p>Anything beyond 2 Pager should only be for C-Level

2 pages work the best my experience both as a submitter and a hiring manager. One's too short, 3 is too long.

Thank you all for the valuable suggestions. I will be building 2 pages..