How long should a CV be, and why page two is usually wasted
The Cvizo team2 min read
Two pages once you have a few years behind you, one while you are starting out. But the page count is a result rather than a choice: a CV gets long when it lists everything you have done instead of what matters for this posting.
In short
- Page two is read only when page one gave a reason to turn over.
- The first pass checks a handful of things, and all of them fit in the top half of page one.
- Length is a symptom. Fix what is on the page and the page count settles itself.
- What Europe calls a CV, the US calls a resume. There, CV means the long academic document.
Two pages once you have a few years behind you, one while you are starting out. But the page count is a result rather than a choice. A CV gets long when it lists everything you have done instead of what you have done that matters for this posting. Fix the content and the length settles itself.
A note on words, since this article has readers on both sides of the Atlantic: what Europe calls a CV, the US calls a resume, and there “CV” means the long academic document. The advice below is for the commercial one under either name.
What actually gets read first
The opening pass over a CV is a quick check of a handful of things at once: the current or most recent title, how long you stayed in the last two places, two or three words lifted from the posting, and whether anything needs explaining. All of that fits in the top half of page one.
Page two gets read only when page one gave a reason. So a layout that buries the most interesting thing in your career at the foot of the second page costs you the interview, not just the space.
When two pages are earned
Past about five years, across several roles. Three jobs at two sentences each take less room than one job at ten bullets, and say more.
When the field demands it. In academia, medicine and parts of the public sector the document is long by definition, because it carries publications or case lists. That is a different genre and the commercial rules do not apply to it.
When you are changing industry. You have to explain what carries across, and that is a few sentences more than somebody moving in a straight line needs.
Outside those, there is no page three. If one exists, something on it repeats what you already said above.
The two-column test
Put the posting next to your CV. On a sheet of paper, list the requirements from the posting, one under another. Beside each, write where in your CV the answer to it lives.
Now look at what you never wrote down. Those are the paragraphs sitting in the document without a reason. They may well be true, but they are not about this job. Removing them leaves your experience intact and stops it hiding behind itself.
The usual result is half a page struck out and two sentences added.
What should you cut first
Start at the bottom, where the oldest roles are, because those can almost always drop to a single line: title, company, years. Then the duties that every person in that job has. Then the interests section, unless one of them genuinely touches the work.
The summary at the top is the last thing you shorten, not the first. It is the only part of a CV that gets read in full.
