Stop putting a second page on your resume unless you've got 15+ years of experience

I help review resumes for our department's hiring committee. The ones that go straight to the no pile are almost always the ones where someone with 4 years of work history tries to cram in every temp job and college club they were in. The second page shows you don't know how to filter. Why are you telling me you were a barista in 2015 if you're applying to be a safety officer now? I'm not trying to be harsh, but seriously - one page, bolder font, cut the fluff. Has anyone else seen this kill an otherwise decent applicant?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_morgan4d ago

Even if it was technically experience" - that line stopped me cold. You actually kept a summer ice cream scooping job on your resume for real? Like you thought that was helping you get a grown-up job? I mean I get being young and not knowing better but wow, that's a wild detail. Totally agree on the filtering part though. Hiring managers don't have time to guess which parts of your history actually matter. If you can't figure out what's relevant to the role you're applying for, that's a red flag right there. One page forces you to decide what's actually important. It's like a test of your judgment. And too many people fail it with that second page of college clubs and unrelated side gigs.

king.jordan4d ago

Oh man, I totally get this. I was guilty of that myself early on, I had a second page full of random stuff from college and a summer job scooping ice cream. Then a friend who was a hiring manager straight up told me it looks like you don't know what's important. I finally cut everything that wasn't directly tied to the job I wanted, even if it was technically experience, and it made a huge difference. My resume went from two pages to one tight page and I started getting way more interviews, so I think you're 100% right about that being a dealbreaker for a lot of people.