3 key takeaways
- Learn how long your resume should be based on your experience, career stage, and more
- Get expert tips to make your resume layout neat and ATS-friendly, no matter its length
- Find out the mistakes many people make with resume length (and how to avoid them yourself)
Resume length often feels like one of those “rules” everyone assumes you already know but no one fully explains. Is a one-page resume enough? Will two pages make you seem unfocused? And is there ever a right time to use three pages?
Here’s the truth: The perfect resume length depends on your experience, career level, resume format, and target role or industry. There is no single “rule” to follow. We can offer guidance, but the best resumes aren’t just long or short, either. They’re specific to your desired role and shine a light on your value.
In this article, you’ll discover how long your resume should be and tools to help you create a great one fast.
How long should a resume be? Factors impacting length
The best resumes clearly show why you’re a strong candidate. Whether that takes one page or two (or three) depends on a few factors:
- Your relevant experience
- Your career stage
- What’s common in your industry
- Your resume layout
Let’s dive into these below.
Relevant experience
It’s tempting to include every job, task, and skill you’ve picked up, but that distracts from what matters most: showing why you’re the right fit for a particular position.
As Teal CEO and Founder Dave Fano—who has hired more than 3,000 people—puts it:
“The job of your resume is to showcase the top 10% of your experience that’s directly relevant to the role you're applying for. [...] Think of it as a sales document, not a history lesson.”
So, in other words, stick to the roles and achievements that best match the job description.
Example:
Miriam, a UX designer, is applying to a marketing startup. Here’s what she should keep and what she can cut:
✅ Past UX design roles
✅ A marketing internship
❌ That old investment banking internship
💡Pro Tip: Not 100% sure what’s relevant? Teal’s Resume Job Description Match tool helps you align your resume with specific job descriptions, so it’s easier to pick which skills and achievements should stay and which should go.
Career stage
As a rule of thumb, the more specialized or senior your experience, the more space you might need in your resume. But no matter your career stage, your resume should be targeted to the role you’re after.
What does that look like at different points? Let’s explore.
Early-career (0–5 years)
If you’re a student, recent graduate, or just getting started in your field, your resume should be one page. Highlight only the positions, internships, or apprenticeships relevant to the jobs you’re after.
Example:
Tom is a recent graduate applying for entry-level human resources (HR) roles. His resume includes:
✅ An HR internship where he helped screen resumes and schedule interviews
✅ A part-time campus orientation leader job where he trained and onboarded new students
❌ A high school babysitting job
❌ A part-time cashier role
Tom should keep the first two entries since they align with HR roles. The other two don’t, so Tom should cut them.
Mid-career (6–15 years)
One to two pages is the sweet spot. The goal is to highlight a clear, relevant progression of your experience.
To do that:
- Focus on the last 10 years, unless you’ve had a 10-plus-year tenure in a specific role.
- Highlight career growth by mentioning promotions, leadership, or shifts between company types (such as moving from a startup to an enterprise).
- Use strong bullet points that start with an action verb and include specific results—ideally with data like percentages, time saved, or revenue impact. For example, “Launched well-being program that improved retention by 28% in nine months” is better than “Improved retention.”
You can write these manually or have Teal analyze the job description and suggest tailored bullet points that highlight your strengths and match what the employer is looking for.
- Include more details for recent, relevant roles. Use fewer bullets on older jobs unless they directly tie into the role you want.
Executives and specialists
Two or three pages are often appropriate, but one page could be all you need.
- One page may be best if you’ve held only two or three executive positions (e.g., Vice President of Product and Chief Operating Officer) and scored clear, strategic wins (e.g., led a merger and acquisition) in each.
- Two pages are standard for most executives. It can be a great choice if you’ve progressed across various roles or companies.
- Three pages can be appropriate for executive positions requiring specific qualifications or professional experience, such as roles in academia, aerospace, or healthcare.
Industry norms
Different industries have different expectations when it comes to resume length:
Resume layout
Your resume layout affects its length and how easy it is to scan—important for busy hiring teams and applicant tracking systems (ATS) looking for specific information fast.
Here are a few tips to keep in mind:
- Use line breaks to create space between your resume sections (e.g., Professional Summary, Work Experience, Key Skills).
- Keep bullet points short, no more than two lines each.
- Stick to easy-to-read fonts (like Calibri, Arial, or Helvetica) in 11–12-point size for the body text.
- Draw attention to key information using larger font sizes (e.g., 16 point for section titles) or bolded text (e.g., for key accomplishments).
- Consider a two-column layout if you need to save room. This layout reduces your page count but allows plenty of white space so your resume doesn’t feel cramped
- Avoid design elements like graphics, images, or embedded icons, which can prevent an ATS from reading your resume properly.
📌 Resume myth: “ATS can’t read two-column resumes.”
Total fiction! Modern ATS tools can handle two-column resumes, so you don’t need to stress about compatibility.
💡Pro tip: When you're ready to put everything together, Teal's Resume Builder makes it quick and easy to build a polished, ATS-friendly resume that aligns with the role you want.
Common resume length mistakes
Here’s a quick-hit list of mistakes to avoid when creating your resume:
❌ Including every job you’ve ever had. Stick to roles that are relevant to the job you’re applying for.
❌ Trying to stretch a short career history into two pages. A focused one-page resume makes a bigger splash than a padded two-page one.
❌ Using big blocks of text. Long paragraphs make it harder to see your key accomplishments (and can make recruiters’ eyes drift from the page). Keep paragraphs to 3–4 sentences max, and use bullet points wherever possible.
❌ Forgetting that recruiters scan first, read later. A clean layout, clear headings, and bolded keywords make your resume stand out for the right reasons.
❌ Not tailoring your resume for each job. Update it to reflect the experience, skills, and results that matter most for the position.
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