How Long Should Your CV Be?

By Jamison Barry.

We’ve all heard that bit of trivia about how recruiters take as little as six seconds on average to decide if they like your application or not. This statistic is from 2012 and yet it still holds weight in today’s job market. This is because recruiters often must sift through hundreds of applications, which is why it can take months to hear back from them, especially for government positions.

So how long should your CV be?

In the United States, many employers will ask for a one-page CV covering several years of experience. In the UK, it varies, with one-page for graduates and two-to-three on average for experienced roles. In Australia, the average length of a resume is approximately four pages long, but truthfully, it depends on how much experience you’ve had.

From graduates to entry level to mid-management, the length of your resume should range from one to two pages. From senior-management to executive positions, the length of your resume can extend up to four to five pages. If you’ve held a number of roles across a number of years, such as short-term contract positions, then your resume on average will increase by one to two pages.
So now the question becomes: how to make the most of that space.
Here are some tips to keep your resume short and sweet.

1. Irrelevant Information.

To avoid discrimination, some of the things you should keep out of your resume include: date of birth, marital status, religion, gender, and photographs. Furthermore, don’t waste space including your address. Recruiters need only your name, your phone numbers, and an email address. If they require anything else, it will be listed in the job description.

If you are running short on space – gut the personal information. Your hobbies and personal attributes aren’t vital to your resume. It adds colour to you as a potential employee but does not contribute to your achievements in the workforce.

2. Summary Sections.

If you’ve held numerous positions throughout your career, what you need is a career summary. This section summarises each job you’ve held throughout your career, including the position title, the company, and the dates you were employed there.

This allows you to focus primarily on your most recent experience and highlight achievements that are relevant in today’s job market.

3. Accomplishments over Responsibilities.

If you’re an experienced sales manager applying for a sales position, recruiters don’t want to re-read the responsibilities you’re experienced with. They want to know what you excelled at in your role.

The key factor here is to focus on quantifiable data. So, following our sales manager example: did you increase sales, and by what percentages? Did you implement successful marketing strategies? Have you increased your customer-base? If you have access to this information, you should be including it.