how to create a resume in pages

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• How to Create a Resume in Apple Pages [Mac]

This post is dedicated to Mac users who wants to make their own resume with Apple’s word processing software – Pages.

Rather take a professionally crafted template? Click here and get your template for under $10.

Difficulty Level:  Beginner Requirements:  Any Mac operating system with Apple Pages installed

Before we begin, we would like you to know that this tutorial is made on a Macbook Pro running Mac OS X El Capitan (version 10.11.6), with the assistance of Apple Pages (version 5.0.1). If you are using the latest Mac OS – High Sierra, there would be slight difference in terms of user interface, but in general most features in Pages would work the same way.

Step 1: Launch Pages from Applications

Open the Apple Pages app located in your Applications folder. You will be greeted with the following window. If you don’t see this window, go to your top menu bar and select File > New… (or use the shortcut Cmd+N).

At the left sidebar, navigate to the Stationery tab, scroll down to the Resume section at the main column, then pick a resume template that you like. We selected the Modern Resume template for this guide.

Step 2: Replace the Resume with Your Details

By default, the Pages template is pre-populated with dummy info. Go ahead and replace all the dummy details with your own information. If you need help with your resume’s content, check out the  resume writing service offered by our professional resume writers.

For starters, you can remove categories you don’t need by selecting it and hit on the Delete key. To add more categories such as Awards (or Accomplishments), the best way is to copy and paste from another category to retain its formatting.

One downside to this template is that it lists out your work experience as a chunk of long-winding paragraphs. Ideally you would want to avoid doing this as recruiters can be put off by it.

If you had an extensive job scope for your previous job, split them up using bullet points. To add bullet points in Pages, go to the Bullets & Lists feature located at the right sidebar, then click on the dropdown option next to it and select Bullet .

You can also adjust the spacing between lines and paragraphs by changing the values here:

Here’s how our sample resume looks like after replacing the contents with that of a fictional person:

Step 3 (optional): Change fonts and colors to match your style

This modern resume template from Apple Pages uses Avenir Next as the default font. If you are feeling adventurous, you could also play around with different font styles.

We switched up the Headings  and  Subheadings with a serif font – Baskerville. We also removed the squares next to the name as it do not add any real value to the resume.

Here’s how our final sample resume looks in Pages:

Step 4: Save and Export Resume

Done? Double check your resume for spelling and grammatical errors. Pro tip: read your resume out loud to spot obvious mistakes such as the misuse of “then” or “than”, “your” or “you’re” etc.

If everything is correct, click on Command+S (shortcut for Save) on your keyboard to save your Pages file or go to  File > Save… .

Since you might be using this resume to apply for jobs (we hope), go to top menu again and select File > Export to > PDF… in order to export the Pages file as PDF.

In the pop-up window, you can choose to have  Good , Better , or Best image quality for your PDF export. We always go with the  Best option so that the PDF looks good on print too.

Congratulations! You are all set to deliver your homemade PDF resume to interviewers and hiring managers. We hope that you learned how to make your first resume on Mac using Apple Pages after reading this tutorial.

Looking for a one-of-a-kind resume template that can be edited in Apple Pages on your Mac? Below you’ll see one of our Pages templates..we have many more in our shop!

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Troubleshooting, create a resume with pages on mac, iphone, ipad.

Creating a resume is one of those tasks that can be stressful, but it does not need to be if you’re in the Apple ecosystem. That’s because your iPhone, iPad, and Mac, all have a readily accessible series of resume templates that you can access.

Whether it’s updating a resume into a new format, or creating an entirely new resume, we’ll show you how you can easily make a resume on Mac, iPhone, or iPad, by using the bundled Pages app.

If you don’t have Pages yet, you will need to download it to your device free from Apple. You’ll find it at the App Store for iPhone, iPad here , or Mac here . You’ll be able to sync your Pages documents, including the resume, across any of your devices using the same Apple ID.

How to Create a Resume in Pages for Mac, iPad, iPhone from a Resume Template

Pages functions mostly the same whether it’s being used in macOS, iOS, or iPadOS:

• Create a New Document
• Scroll down to the “Resumes” section and select the resume type you wish to create (we chose Classic Resume for this example)

• Fill out the resume with your information, including name, job position and experience information, education information, the standard resume fair

Once finished creating the resume, you can print it out, save it as a Pages file, save it as a DOCX file, save it as a PDF , or whatever else you’d like to do with it.

Whether you’re hunting for a job, getting ready to apply for a first job, or preparing to get back into the job market, having a nice, easy to read, and professional looking resume can make a difference. There’s no need to be intimidated by creating a resume, with the Resume Pages template, you can simply just plug in your resume information, and you’ll be finished in no time.

Looking beyond resumes, the entire iWork suite is fantastic, and each of the office suite apps offers handy templates for all sorts of personal and life tasks, whether you’re making a resume like we discuss here, setting up a budget spreadsheet , using a net worth tracker , creating a picture book, or so much more.

Have you ever created a resume from the free templates that come with the Pages app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac? What do you think of these features? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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Related articles:

• How to Export Pages as Word on iPhone & iPad
• How to Convert Pages to Word on Mac
• Disable Resume for Safari or Other Specific Applications in Mac OS X Lion
• How to Highlight in Pages for Mac

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Hello. Please note that the word RÉSUMÉ is French and requires two accents to differentiate it from the non-French word resume, which has a totally different meaning.

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Your Step-by-Step Guide to Making the Perfect Resume (With Examples!)

Your resume is arguably the most valuable piece of paper for your career. But this document can be daunting for many. Maybe you’re not sure how to fit in all your information onto one page. Maybe you’re not sure about the right way to format and write your resume. Maybe you don’t even know what the heck a resume is!

Whatever your concern, we’ll break down everything you need to know about making the perfect resume, from scratch.

What Is a Resume?

What are employers looking for in a resume.

• Pick Your Format
• Start With Your Basic Information
• Add in Your Work Experience
• Consider Including Volunteer Work or Other Experience
• Don’t Forget Your Education
• Top It Off With Some Skills and Interests
• Write a Resume Summary Statement (if Relevant)
• Tailor It to the Job (and the ATS)
• Edit and Refine It

What Are Some Examples of a Good Resume?

A resume is a summary of your career, whether yours is just getting started or has been going on for years. Coming in at around one page in length (two only under specific circumstances), it showcases the jobs you’ve held and currently hold, the responsibilities you’ve taken on, the skills you’ve developed, and the qualities you bring to the table as an employee. Together, those things make it super easy for any hiring manager to see your qualifications and fit for a role.

For all the work you may put into writing one, hiring managers actually spend very little time—mere seconds in many cases—looking at your resume. But despite this sad fact, it’s safe to say that creating a great resume (rather than hastily throwing one together) still matters.

“If you miss the mark, your resume may never be read. Even worse, you might be removed from the applicant pool by a computer before a human even knows you exist,” says Muse career coach Heather Yurovsky , founder of Shatter & Shine. So you want to get it right because, as she explains, isn’t the goal to “spend less time looking for a job and more time in a role you love?”

You might be wondering if you can lean on your LinkedIn profile instead of writing a resume. The answer, sadly, is no. Most hiring managers still expect you to submit a resume, even if they also look at your LinkedIn. Even if you don’t need a resume for a job you’re applying for now, you’re going to need one at some point in your career—they’re not anywhere close to going out of style. So it’s best to always have one at the ready should an opportunity pop up.

And although LinkedIn has plenty of benefits, a resume has one clear advantage: While your LinkedIn is usually a broader picture of your career trajectory, your resume gives you the opportunity to tailor your career story to a specific role or company (more on that later).

Oh, and you’ve probably heard of something called a CV? It’s slightly different from a resume , and usually more common with academics and job seekers outside the U.S.

Hiring managers look for three things on your resume, “What did you do? Why did you do it? And what was the result?” says Muse career coach Martin McGovern , owner of Career Therapy. “If you can answer all three of these questions in...your resume bullet points, you’re going to be on the right track.”

Clear, easy-to-understand language is key. “The truth is that most resumes make no sense. They are stuffed with jargon, they are too technical, and they are filled with redundancies. Try to read a resume that isn’t yours and you will quickly realize that it feels like an alien wrote it,” McGovern adds. Put yourself in the shoes of a recruiter who has no idea how your role works—how can you make your resume accessible to them?

The hiring manager also cares about more than just you and you alone—they care about you in relation to them. “Hiring managers want to see if a candidate matches the requirements” of the role they’re hiring for, Yurovsky explains. “Your resume should paint this picture so the hiring manager not only knows what day-to-day responsibilities you can handle, but why you, above other[s], bring value to their organization.”

How Do You Write a Resume?

Whether you’re someone who’s never written a resume in your life, or you need a nice, thorough refresher on the process of creating one, follow these steps to go from a blank page to a complete—and dare I say beautiful—document.

Related: This Free Worksheet Makes It Easy to Create (or Update) Your Resume

1. Pick Your Format

Before you start typing one single thing, you have to decide what you want the overall resume to look like.

Resume builders can be helpful for this step—they’ll take all your basic information and organize it for you, eliminating some of the legwork. You can also use a pre-made outline, such as one of these free Google Docs templates .

But it’s often safest to start with a clean slate all on your own and eventually upgrade to a more advanced layout. (If you'd still like a place to write all the relevant information before you get started, check out our resume outline .) This allows you to course correct, edit and re-edit, and choose a resume format that best fits your particular situation (after all, not everyone has a career trajectory that’s easy to compartmentalize).

In general, you’re most likely to cover and/or include sections on the following:

• Your work experience
• Your non-work experience, including professional organizations, community involvement, or side projects
• Your education and certifications
• Your skills (specifically hard skills) and interests

So how do you format and organize all of that information?

By far the most common (and safest, if you’re not sure which route to take) option is reverse chronological order . This means you organize your experiences from most recent to least recent. So your work experiences would go above your education, and your current role would go above previous roles you’ve held. This of course has its exceptions—maybe you went back to grad school between jobs, or your most recent role is irrelevant to the job you’re applying for. So the whole page may not be exactly in reverse chronological order depending on your situation. It’s just a guideline.

There’s also something called a functional or skills-based resume . This is used pretty rarely, mainly with career changers and those with limited or complicated work histories. It gets its name because it’s primarily about listing your skills rather than experiences, and showcases them above your work history and education.

You can also opt for a combination resume , which is a mix between a reverse chronological resume and skills-based resume. It highlights your skills at the top, but allows just as much room below to cover your job and school experience.

Use caution when choosing these two formats: “Combo and skills-based [resumes] can be hard to follow, because [they force] the reader to hunt for connections between your skills and experience, and [don’t] provide the full context of your work,” says Muse Career Coach Angela Smith , founder of Loft Consulting. “I’ve also heard a lot of recruiters say that they automatically discount skill-based resumes because they feel the candidate is trying to hide something. I don’t necessarily believe that, but I think it’s important for job-seekers to know that perception is out there.”

2. Start With Your Basic Information

Your contact information should always go at the top of your resume. In this header you’ll want to include anything that could be helpful for a recruiter to get in touch with you. Usually, this means adding in:

• Your full name (preferably the name you use across the web)
• Your phone number
• Your personal email address

You might also choose to include other basic information, such as your LinkedIn or personal website URL, your GitHub (for technical roles), your social media profiles (if relevant to the job), or your address. If you’re looking to move for a job, you may choose to leave out your address or write “open to relocating” to better your chances of getting an interview.

The key is to make this part as clear as possible. If a hiring manager can’t reach you, there’s no point in perfecting the rest of your resume.

3. Add in Your Work Experience

This section will most likely be the bulk of your resume. Even if you’re changing careers, employers still want to see where you’ve worked, what you’ve done, and the impact of that work to get a sense of your background and expertise.

Your “Work Experience” might be one entire category, or you might choose to break it up into “Relevant Experience” and “Additional Experience” to highlight the jobs that are most important for hiring managers to focus on. Either way, you’ll almost always want to have your most recent experience at the top and your older experience down below.

Within your work experience, you’ll want to include each official job title, the company (and possibly its location), and the years you worked there. Below that, you’ll add in two to four bullet points explaining what you did in that job, the skills you built and exercised, the tools you used, and the results of what you did. If you accomplished a lot during your time there, focus on the responsibilities that made the most impact or you’re the most proud of, as well as the ones that best align you with the job you’re applying for (more on that in the following sections). It’s key here to list, if relevant, quantitative as well as qualitative accomplishments.

For example, you might write:

Associate Accountant, Finances and Co., Ann Arbor, MI September 2017 – Present

• Manage billing and invoicing for more than 50 clients, ensuring the deadlines and needs of our enterprise partners, including Big Company and Super Star Org, are met
• Collaborate closely with sales, account management, and project management teams on project setup, maintenance, and invoice management
• Assist in the streamlining of invoicing guidelines and procedures through documentation and the implementation of new software, resulting in an average two-week decrease in total time spent per client

Your resume bullets should be in past tense if you’re referring to past jobs and present tense if you’re talking about your current roles. In addition, your bullets should always start with a strong action verb that best describes what you did. And if you have examples of your work, consider hyperlinking them here as well.

If you have a ton of experience and this category is starting to run long (read: over one page), consider kicking out your oldest jobs unless they’re super relevant to the job you’re applying for, or extra impressive for your field.

Not sure where to start? “It’s helpful to do a brain dump and create a document that has everything and anything you consider as experience or an achievement,” says Yurovsky. From there, she explains, you can start to whittle down what is and isn’t important. And you can refer to this document later if you ever decide to update your resume for a specific role.

Need more specific advice on listing your work experience on your resume? Check out these additional resources:

• When you’ve held multiple jobs at the same company: 2 Jobs, 1 Company: How to Show Multiple Positions on Your Resume
• When you’re not sure what your accomplishments are or how to explain them: Resume Revamp: How to Turn Your Duties Into Accomplishments
• When you want to spruce up a boring or insignificant job: How to Make Your Most Boring Jobs Sound More Interesting on Your Resume
• When you’re considering fudging a job title: The Answer to “Can I Change My Job Title on My Resume to Make It More Accurate?”
• When you’ve had a bunch of short-term gigs: How to List Temporary Jobs on Your Resume

4. Consider Including Volunteer Work or Other Experience

Anything you’ve done that’s not work experience—your side gig, volunteer work, special projects—can be hosted under clearly-labeled sections (“Volunteer Experience” or “Activities,” for example). Depending on how robust your work experience is, these things may be worth including, particularly if they’ve helped you level up your skill set or better align you with your dream job. Plus, they make you look that much more well-rounded, passionate, and hardworking.

If you’re a recent grad, you might also build out a section for on-campus activities, such as clubs, organizations, or leadership experience. This can be a great supplement if you’re lacking in the jobs department. You can frame these just as you would professional jobs—including your title, the organization’s name, and bullets describing what your role was and what you accomplished.

Read More: This Is Exactly How to List Volunteer Work on Your Resume

5. Don’t Forget Your Education

If you’re still in school or just graduated, your education can go at the top of your resume, but for pretty much everyone else, this goes near the bottom. Most people include their school, graduation year (for folks less up to about a decade out of school), major, and degree. Brand-new grads might also write in their GPA, honors and awards, study abroad, thesis, or other notable achievements. But keep this section super simple, as you don’t want it to take up too much space over your work experience.

It’s possible you have unique education experience, such as taking an online course or certification. If you did this specifically as a way to boost yourself within your industry, definitely include it. Again, list everything more or less reverse chronologically—so a grad school degree would go above an undergrad degree, and a more recent relevant online course would go above that.

Learn more about the ins and outs of listing your education on your resume:

• How to (and How Not to) List Education on Your Resume
• How to List Online Courses on Your Resume the Right Way (Because Yes, There Is a Wrong Way)

6. Top It Off With Some Skills and Interests

The skills section of a resume gets a bad rap, but it’s just as important as the rest of the stuff you include. It’s a quick list a recruiter can scan to see if your skill set aligns with what they’re hiring for. And it’s super ATS-friendly (ATS stands for “applicant tracking system,” the robot that in some cases reads your resume before a human does) because it allows you to add in keywords the machine is scanning for.

Usually this section goes at the bottom of your resume, but in special cases—such as a skills-based resume or when someone’s switching fields—you may place it further up.

What exactly do you throw in here? You’ll want to list any hard skills and applications you’re familiar with (Photoshop, SEO, JavaScript, to name a few examples), and, if relevant, your level of expertise. Avoid including soft skills here, like time management or public speaking—save those for your bullet points instead.

Be strategic when filling in your skills. Don’t list things you actually couldn’t do at a high competence level (I’m looking at those of you who say you’re “great” at Excel), and maybe nix skills that are completely irrelevant to the job you want. For example, you may not even need to include Excel if you’re applying for say, a design position, unless it’s listed as a job requirement.

Maybe you’re thinking, I’m a really good volleyball player, but that’s not a “skill,” right? No, it’s not, but it is a hobby. Adding in a hobby section at the bottom of your resume is underrated, and frequently a smart choice. It can be a great conversation starter with a hiring manager, and it can show that you’re a good culture fit—or a culture add—for the company. Also, it’s just a nice way to add in some of your personality. So tack on a bullet point listing out some of your interests, such as hiking, rowing, or crafting (no more than five to seven work-appropriate verbs), and you’re all set here.

7. Write a Resume Summary Statement (if Relevant)

You may have heard of a resume summary statement . They’re not super common, but they can be useful to include near the top of your resume if you’re looking to add clarity or context to your resume. If you’re a career changer, you might find a summary statement helpful in explaining your leap and tying your experience to your new path. Or if you’re a more experienced professional, you can use a summary statement to highlight a theme that brings your career trajectory together.

Overall, you probably won’t need a summary statement if your career is pretty linear and your bullet points do a great job of emphasizing what you have to offer in terms of skills and experience. But if you think it makes sense to include one, “Take the time to think about what the person reading your summary wants to know before you write it,” says McGovern. “Good summaries explain why you do what you do and how it can help. For instance: Merging a background in ABC, I help companies improve XYZ through 123. Summaries shouldn’t be any more complicated than that.”

So, taking McGovern’s example, you might say:

Merging a background in social media marketing and PR with seven years in the consumer tech space, I help companies improve their internal and external communication and brand awareness through data-driven, quality content and strategies that align with the modern trends of the space.

Yurovsky adds that “you don’t want your summary statement to be a dense paragraph with too much information. You want it to be easy to read, concise, and memorable. Almost like a tagline.”

Read More: 3 Resume Summary Examples That’ll Make Writing Your Own Easier

8. Tailor It to the Job (and the ATS)

Once you have your resume written out—you’ve broken down your work experience, tagged on some activities and additional experiences, and listed out your skills—it’s important to go back to the job description (or multiple job descriptions, if you’re applying to several similar jobs) and make sure that what your resume says matches up with the kind of candidate the employers are looking for. In other words, tailor it .

Let’s explain further. You’ll want to begin by tackling the ATS . This means combing the job description to see if individual words and phrases line up. What skills are they asking for, and have you listed them (so long as you actually have them)? What words are they using to describe their ideal hire, and do you use similar language in your resume?

Next, take a bird’s-eye view. If you were the hiring manager for the role, where on your resume would your eyes be drawn to? And what would you be looking for? Whatever you think will be most important for the recruiter, make sure it’s near the top of your resume, or otherwise emphasized.

Finally, dig into the role and responsibilities of the job. Does your resume reflect similar experience? If not, is there a way you can spin it so that it’s clear you’re capable of doing the job (and doing it well)?

These articles can help you if the word “tailoring” makes you start to sweat:

• What It Really Means to “Tailor Your Resume”
• Your Guide to Making Unrelated Experience Look Relevant on Your Resume
• A Cool Trick: How to Spin 1 Resume Bullet 5 Different Ways

9. Edit and Refine It

Please, please don’t just write your resume and shoot it out without giving it a second glance. Hiring managers may not spend hours browsing it, but if there’s one thing that sticks out more than anything else it’s a glaring typo.

The best approach? Write a rough draft, then leave and come back to it later with fresh eyes to give it an edit.

Cover the basics: Is your contact information correct and updated? Are you using the right verb tenses? Does everything look consistent and accurate in terms of spelling and grammar?

Then do some cutting if your resume’s quite long. It’s no longer a hard-and-fast rule that all resumes must be only one page—but consider it a smart guideline for most applicants, especially if you've got less than 10 years work experience. The exception is if you’re very senior or very established in your career; in this scenario, a two-page resume isn’t completely out of the question. Everyone else, read this article for advice on how to cut your resume down.

Formatting-wise, it’s key to consider a couple things. First, what font are you using , and is it legible (for a human and a robot)? When in doubt, go with one of these simple, but sleek, options: Arial, Arial Narrow, Calibri, Cambria, Garamond, or Helvetica.

Second, are you going to save it as a Word document or PDF ? Neither option is wrong, although a PDF helps ensure that your formatting is maintained, no matter what type of computer the hiring manager uses to open the document.

Third, is your resume formatted in a way that it’s skimmable? If it’s feeling crowded or overrun with words, read this: 12 Tiny Changes That Make Your Resume Easy for Recruiters to Skim .

Once you’ve given it a few good looks, it may be worth sending it to a friend or colleague (or even a career coach ) to get a second opinion. Don’t just have them edit it for spelling and grammar—they should dig into your bullets and offer feedback on whether or not your resume is showing you in the best possible light (it’s smart to also send them the job description for something to compare it to).

Here’s the thing: Your resume won’t ever look exactly like someone else’s, nor should it. How you choose to format it, organize your information, and talk about specific experiences depends not just on your career path, but on your field, the job you’re applying for, the company that job is at, and more.

So there isn’t a universal way to do a resume. But there are common themes. To give you some context as to how yours might turn out, here are three examples of different kinds of resumes.

The Most Popular: A Reverse Chronological Resume

As previously mentioned, a reverse chronological resume is preferred by many coaches and HR experts, mainly because it’s super readable. When everything’s in a clear order, it’s easy to skim and even easier to draw lines between experiences.

Who it’s good for: Just about everyone—from students applying to internships all the way up to senior-level executives (with an optional resume summary statement)

Download an Example Chronological Resume for a Software Engineer

The Unorthodox Route: A Functional or Skills-Based Resume

Rather than listing out your experience in reverse chronological order, a functional or skills-based resume has bullet points that reflect how each of your skills is demonstrated by the work you’ve done over the course of your career. At the bottom, you’ll include everything else, such as your education, job history, professional achievements, community involvement, and other technical skills. This is a good option if you have a somewhat all-over-the-place work history and want to tie everything together neatly.

Who it’s good for: Career changers whose work experiences may not appear to be relevant and people with an abundance of temporary jobs or gaps in their work histories.

Download an Example Functional Resume for a Project Manager

The Creative Angle: An Infographic Resume or Resume Website

This resume type is characterized by how it’s formatted visually. You may choose a reverse chronological order or skills-based style to organize your information, but also use graphics, colors, unique fonts, and even multimedia elements to help that information pop. Keep in mind that any creative resume is still likely subject to an ATS—and certain elements may be unreadable by a robot. So consider going this route only if you know a human will be reading your resume (and that said human might enjoy it).

Who it’s good for: People applying to creative roles (designers, editors, writers, marketers, video producers, for example), startups, or fun companies, or to jobs where a creative resume is encouraged, if not required.

Download an Example Infographic Resume for a Designer

Not a designer but want your resume to look just as pretty as this example? Check out these articles:

• 5 Sites to Create an Awesome Infographic Resume (Even if You’re the Least Creative Person Ever)
• How to Build a Resume Website That Will Impress Every Hiring Manager Who Sees It
• 5 Digital Tools That Will Make Your Resume Infinitely More Beautiful

Your resume is a living, breathing document. So while you won’t go through this whole process every time you apply for a job, you should be thinking about all these things as you go to update your resume for your next career step. You might decide later on to switch up the order, or remove or add things, or even get creative and try out a whole new format. If you’re not getting the calls back you expect, you may decide to scrap it and start over —and that’s totally OK.

Regardless of where this piece of paper goes and how it grows, when you give it the care and attention it deserves, you set yourself up for success. And you’ll make it that much more likely that you’ll land an interview and get the chance to prove to the hiring manager—over the phone or in person—what you’ve got to offer.

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• Resume & CV

How to Make Your Resume Fit on One Single Page (18+ Quick Tips)

Unless you’re a senior level manager, executive, or you've got one of those jobs where licenses and certifications are required, you may not need a second page for your resume. A one-page resume is enough.

You might look at your resume and feel that everything there is crucial and can’t be deleted. 

Let’s get real though!

If your resume is two or more pages, you’re not making a serious effort to write a tailored and concise application. In this article, you'll learn how to create an effective one-page resume . We'll also share some great templates for one-page resumes from Envato Elements.

Jump to content in this section:

• Remove Unnecessary Information
• Use Smaller Margins
• Try Creative Resume Formats
• Use Smaller Fonts
• Use Bullet Points
• Consolidate Contact Information
• Create Quadrants to Divide Your Resume into Sections
• Reduce the Size of Your Contact Information and Address
• Use Multi-Purpose Lines
• Use Numerical Figures Instead of Spelling Them Out
• Remove Repetitive Bullets
• List Only Self-Explanatory Awards
• Remove Unnecessary Information About Your Education
• Trim Your Resume Summary
• Remove Unnecessary Headers
• Use Acronyms Wisely
• Remove References
• Remove Hobbies and Interests
• Write Your Name and Job Title
• Write a Summary
• Remove Unnecessary Elements to Save Space
• Revise Sections to Fit Your Needs
• List and Rate Your Skills

Make Your Resume Fit on One Page (Quickstart Video)

Are you wondering how to get your resume down to a single page? Do you need to know how to do it right now?Our quickstart video can help. We'll provide tips and instructions for how to shorten your resume.

To learn more about one page resumes, continue reading the tutorial below.

Should a Resume Be Only One Page?

There’s no simple answer to this question. The perfect resume length depends on your professional situation.

Only professionals with more than 10+ years of experience or lots of certifications and achievements should have a two-page resume. Entry level candidates and even those with a few years of experience under their belt, can benefit from writing a concise single page resume.

According to ere.net , a survey from ResumeGO conducted a study with 482 professionals. Recruiters were 2.3 times more likely to prefer two-page resumes for experienced individuals . This means that your resume length should match your experience level.

So, one-page resumes are great for those with less work experience and can fit it all on one page. But more experienced individuals should use a two-page resume.

Think of your resume like a movie highlights reel. O nly the best action scenes are included to build hype and intrigue people into watching the movie.

Of course, it’s hard to believe how you could benefit from a one-page resume when you’ve been accustomed to a two-page resume. Below are several benefits of using a single page resume:

• A single page resume stands out because most applicants send two pages or more.
• Your achievements and qualifications are easier to spot on a one-page resume because there’s less stuff to read.
• Many recruiters, especially those hiring for entry level jobs, claim they don’t read past the first page of an application.

18 Quick Tips: How to Fit Your Resume on One Page

It’s true, both students and professionals add more qualifications to their resumes today. There are more awards, self-study courses, internship projects, software skills, and extra-curricular activities available today compared to a few years back.

Unfortunately, it’s also the sheer number of these experiences that makes it hard to cut your resume’s length. Below are 18 tips that'll show you how to make your resume one page:

1. Remove Unnecessary Information

If you want to know how to make a resume fit on one page, remove any information irrelevant to the job you’re applying to.  Only focus on relevant experience for the job you're applying to.

So, if you're applying for an Engineering job, the sales job that you worked one summer isn’t relevant, and you should take it off your resume.

2. Use Smaller Margins

Don’t be afraid to play with the margins of your resume file. The default margin in MS Word is one inch or 2.54 centimeters on all sides. If you reduce that just a tiny bit, you can squeeze in more information on your resume.

If you’re not sure what the ideal margin size is, try adjusting all the sides to 0.5 inches while keeping the bottom at 0.65 inches. Continue adjusting the margin size until you find a combination that’s just right.

Make sure you save your resume in PDF to preserve the margins of your resume when it’s printed.

3. Try Creative Resume Formats

Try using double columns or different resume layouts to fit more information into one page. For instance, use a two-column format with a small right-hand side column where you can fit your skills and other contact information.

The resume template below has a creative format that makes full use of a three-column layout without making the one-page resume look squished. 

Here are some creative resume templates you can consider when shortening your resume:

4. Use Smaller Fonts

Wondering how to make a one-page resume? That’s easy: use smaller fonts.

"Use a smaller font for your headings and the main text in your resume. Most resume writers recommend starting with 12 point font, but you can shrink it to a minimum of 10 point if need be", says  Austin Belcak , Founder of Cultivated Culture, a website that helps applicants get jobs even if they don't have a referral.

The important thing is that your resume is still readable without zooming in.

If the text looks too compact, try adjusting the line spacing so it’s easier to read. Consider the two examples below for a comparison.

Resume sample: Georgia Size 10, single spacing

Resume sample: Georgia Size 10 but with 1.15 spacing

5. Use Bullet Points

Use bullet points instead of paragraphs. Write in short sentences, up to two lines at the most. Use keywords, numbers, and power words to come up with punchy statements without fluff.

6. Consolidate Contact Information

Combine all your contact information in one line and don’t put your whole address anymore. There’s no need to have a separate line for your email, phone, and address because you’re not writing a business letter. 

7. Create Quadrants to Divide Your Resume into Sections

People generally read resumes from left to right. That means a lot of the space in the right-hand side of the page goes to waste.

The infographic resume template below makes excellent use of quadrants to divide the resume into different sections and maximize margin space.

8. Reduce the Size of Your Contact Information and Address

Some people think this part of their resume needs to look fancy and attention grabbing. It doesn’t. If a recruiter wants to contact you, they'll find this information. But until that happens, they’re only focused on your qualifications.

Don’t waste the limited space on a one-page resume on your contact information. Just make sure your name and primary job title are slightly bigger than the rest of your resume, and then use a smaller size for the rest of the text. You can even use a slightly smaller size for the contact details because it’s not as important as your job experience and skills.

9. Use Multi-Purpose Lines

Look for opportunities to combine information into one line, such as your address and contact information, or your listed skills. Another example is combining your job title, employer’s name, and employment duration in one line instead of two.

Here’s one creative example for executives on how to get resume to one page:

10. Use Numerical Figures Instead of Spelling Them Out

Numerical figures occupy less space compared to the spelled-out version. Numbers also grab attention, so it’s a good way to draw a recruiter’s attention to certain parts of your resume.

11. Remove Repetitive Bullets

Use three to five bullets at most as a way to force yourself into selecting only the best skills and accomplishment for each role.

A quick way to do this is to remove tasks where you didn’t excel. You should also remove repetitive mention of the same task because the recruiter doesn’t need to read this many times. For instance, if you had customer service tasks at all your three jobs, only mention this skill at the company where you won an award or have a notable accomplishment.

12. List Only Self-Explanatory Awards

Don’t list awards that you need to explain for recruiters to appreciate. Recognition for sales, productivity, client satisfaction, customer service, are self-explanatory. Awards for innovation, best agent, or top performer need explanation. They would probably take more space.

13. Remove Unnecessary Information About Your Education

Only fresh graduates need to include their graduation year on a resume. Working students can benefit from including their high school information. But that’s no longer needed once you get your degree.

Those who have a few years of employment under their belt need no longer list their graduation year.  Just write the degree you've got and where you got it. Employers want to make sure that you've got a degree, that’s all.

If you're a new graduate, though. You may want to feature your education a bit more. Here's an article to help with that:

14. Trim Your Resume Summary

Remember, a resume summary is supposed to summarize your best qualities for the job. It shouldn’t have more than five lines for an introduction or 10 plus bullet points. If your resume summary is this long, there’s a chance that the recruiter won’t read through all of it because it’s obvious you didn’t bother tailoring it to the position they’re filling.

Trim your resume summary to three lines of text and five to seven bullet points max. Read the tutorial below for a complete guide on how to write a resume summary that works for a single page resume.

15. Remove Unnecessary Headers

The resume summary and contact information don’t need headers of their own. It’s obvious what they are so you don’t need to waste a few lines on them. If you've got volunteer and corporate experience, you can also combine this into one section to save space.

16. Use Acronyms Wisely

Use industry-accepted acronyms for tasks related to your job. For instance, write “P&L” instead of profit and loss statement to save space. “R&D” is also a completely acceptable replacement for research and development.

Don’t use this technique for skills and licenses though. The Applicant Tracking System (ATS) some employers are using might search for the whole phrase and not just the acronyms. You don’t want your application to be ignored just because you want to save space.

17. Remove References

References can make your resume into a two-page resume. But if you want to make it into a one-page resume, you should remove the references unless the job specifically asks for them. Most of the time, they aren’t necessary and take up extra space.

18. Remove Hobbies and Interests

Removing hobbies and interests can be one way to make a resume fit on one page.

Most of the time, hobbies and interests aren’t necessary. Only include them if you want to fill up space on your resume and if they're relevant to the job that you're applying to.

How to Quickly Make a One-Page Resume in Word (With Templates)

You've just learned how to make your resume fit one page. Now it's time to learn how to use a template for your one-page resume.

You can create a simple resume template yourself by using Microsoft Word. But that might take hours of inserting tables, columns, and headers. Instead, you've got hundreds of options when it comes to easy-to-edit MS Word Resume Templates on Envato Elements. 

Let's take a closer look at how to fit a resume on one page using this template:

1. Write Your Name and Job Title

Select the correct text box then fill it out with your information. In the example template below, that’s the name and job title.

2. Write a Summary

Use a small font and a combination of two to three paragraphs and up to five bullet points if there’s not enough space in the box allotted for your summary.

Here’s what it looks like on the template:

And here’s what it looks like using bullet points:

3. Remove Unnecessary Elements to Save Space

In this case, remove the text box for the location of each job entry. Combine the lines for “ Position Held ” and “Y our Company ” (Employer’s name) to save space.

Unless your degree is specialized, combined or need any explanation, you can also remove the text box for the education section.

4. Revise Sections to Fit Your Needs

These templates have a section for “ Certificates .” But feel free to revise that section header to “ Continuing Education ” to include seminars, licenses, or other qualifications. If you don’t have anything to list that could be considered as continuing education, use this section for awards or another job entry.

Just rename the header name to the appropriate title and revise the boxes below to include the information you would like.

5. List and Rate Your Skills

Choose 10 skills, preferably a combination of technical, job-specific, and soft-skills. Write them on your resume grouped according to the skill type, then rate yourself on a scale of one to five. 

Do you want to use another template for your resume? Check out this post to find more one-page resume template designs:

Top 5 One-Page Resume Templates From Envato Elements

As mentioned earlier, Envato Elements is one of the best places to find top quality one-page resume templates . The templates from Envato Elements have modern designs and can easily be customized to fit your style. 

Some of them also include a matching cover letter as well as a business card design. So, you get the complete package to wow potential employers. 

Here are some of the best one-page resume templates from Envato Elements to build your resume in 2023 and beyond. 

1. Resume — Elegant One-Page Resume Template

The first resume on this list has an elegant and simple design. The template is easy to customize and comes in Illustrator format. 

Add your own photo, change colors and fonts. Style it to match your look. The template also includes a matching cover letter.

2. Resume CV Template 24

This resume template has a grid-based layout and four different quadrants to make organizing the information easy. Edit the template in Photoshop and Illustrator. It was designed in A4 size. 

3. CV Resume Professional

Try this resume template if you’re looking for a clean resume that’s easy to edit. With Illustrator, Photoshop, and Word versions, you can easily customize this template in the program you’re most familiar with. The template also has well organized layers and comes with a complete list of fonts used.

4. One-Page Resume CV

This resume template is perfect if you’re looking for something completely customizable. The template comes in three different color versions. It includes a resume template as well as a matching cover letter. You’ll also find a list of fonts and a help file.

5. CV Resume Vol.2

Here’s another clean and simple resume template that fits on a single page. Edit this template in Illustrator and Word. Add your information, customize the colors, and change fonts. The template comes in A4 size.

Frequently Asked Resume Questions

Do you have questions other than does a resume have to be one page? Here are some common resume questions and answers:

1. How Do I Include Freelance Work on My Resume?

There are several problems people run into when adding freelance work to their resume. Some of these problems include:

• What job title do I give myself?
• How much detail do I include about my projects?
• I have a freelance job and work full-time. Do I include both?

These are all good questions that are answered in this article:

2. How Do I Personalize My Resume in Microsoft Word?

There are many different ways to personalize your resume in Microsoft Word. One of the ways is to install a font. Many premium templates come with a unique font that you can install to make your resume stand out. To find out more ways to personalize your resume in Microsoft Word read this article: 

3. How Do I Make My Resume Stand Out?

You can make your resume stand out by using different types of resumes. For example, you could use a personal one-page resume website template that is unique but not off-putting to hiring managers. This article has more creative resume ideas: 

4. How Do I List My Skills On My Resume?

Listing professional skills on your resume is important. Both hard and soft skills can go on your resume. To find out how to effectively list skills on your resume, read this article: 

5. How Do I Email My Resume?

Most of the time, you apply for jobs online. This could mean that you need to email your resume. When emailing your resume, you need to be able to do it professionally. For a quick guide, read this article: 

More Awesome Resume Templates

One-page resumes are great if you’re just getting started. But if you’re a seasoned professional or if you need more pages, there are plenty of other resume templates on our marketplaces. Check out the articles below to see even more great resume template designs.

Learn More About Building a Great Resume

Creating a great resume isn't easy. Luckily, we've got plenty of tutorials to help you out. Learn more about creating a great resume with these tutorials:

Build Your Single Page Resume Now

Should a resume be only one page? There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to the right resume length. It all depends on your job history and whether you’re exploring a new career in a different direction.

If you do need a one-page resume, remember that it’s totally possible to squeeze in all the important information in your once two-page resume into a single-page resume. You just have to get creative in your formatting and design and get selective about the information you include. The tips listed above on how to make a one-page resume should help.

Using the right resume template will make this easier for you. Envato Elements has a wide selection of resume templates that you can easily edit on Photoshop or MS Word. 

Editorial Note: This tutorial was originally published on March 28, 2019.  It's been revised to make it current, accurate, and up to date by our staff—with special help from  Brenda Barron and Sarah Joy . A video has been added by Andrew Childress .

A Breakdown of a Successful One Page Resume – And How to Write Yours

In This Guide:

Should your resume be one page, how to fit 25 years of experience in a single page – william’s one-page resume., a ceo and co-founder’s one-page resume – how pavel fit his professional life on a single page., founder, director, and vp of product – gal’s double-column single-page resume., how to write your resume to fit on one page – a handful of actionable resume tips., key takeaways.

Having a one-page resume is possible, even if you have decades of experience behind your back.

In this article, we’ll analyze concrete examples of one-page resumes built by Enhancv users – from William, a Japanese entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience to Pavel whose professional background took him to three countries, and Gal that has spent a decade in the product management and business development world.

All three of them share one common thing – a single-page resume.

So, how do you fit that many years of experience into an effective resume without omitting important details?

Keep reading and you’ll learn:

• If your resume should be one page long.
• How to focus on relevant skills and experience to cut down your resume to a single page.
• Which resume sections are a must in single-page resumes.

Hands down the best and most intuitive resume builder I've used. Go for the pro plan - it's the best bang for your buck. You get a lot more sections, which helps with the different variations of your cv, especially if you want to tailor it to different industries.

Alex Lafreniere, a happy user

Make this your resume

Use Enhancv’s Resume Builder and make a resume that stands out.

Is your resume good enough?

Drop your resume here or choose a file . PDF & DOCX only. Max 2MB file size.

Yes, your resume can be one page, regardless of experience. Single-page resumes focus on the most relevant parts of your work history. Put important and relevant information first, as this makes for an efficient format for any professional field.

If you can’t fit all relevant experience on a single page, only then go for a two-page resume.

How to make a one-page resume if you have a ton of experience?

The secret to making a one-page resume when you have 10, 15, or even more than 20 years of work experience is to include information that’s highly relevant to the job you’re applying for.

Study the job description – hiring managers usually include what experience and skillset they’re looking for. Show that. Remember, that may mean you’ll have to make a tailored resume for each job position you apply for.

Thankfully, with Enhancv you can easily copy, edit and download your resumes as many times as you need. It also saves time that you don’t have to worry about design or layout – check our resume builder .

So, does a resume have to be one page?

A resounding no. Professionals with a lot of relevant experience  in a field can benefit from two or even three-page resumes . If you’ve spent the past 15 years working as a business transformation manager and you have a lot of examples to communicate on your resume, then definitely go with a longer one.

Does it mean the one-page resume format is dead?

No. A resume should focus on your relevant experience  and  give insight into the impact you’ve had at previous companies  you’ve worked for and give a glimpse into who you are .

Fit all three on a single page and you’ve got yourself a pretty impactful resume. In the examples we’re going to review below, we’ve made sure to analyze how each has made their resume.

William’s single-page resume takes advantage of our compact resume format . The best way to fit more information on a single page is by browsing the Enhancv resume templates  and choosing a two or three-column layout .

With a single click, you can fit around 50% more content on a single page, compared to what a Microsoft Word template allows you to do.

Still, William took things up a notch. Here’s what he did especially well when writing his resume.

Right under his name, William wrote what defines him as a professional: “Entrepreneur, keynote speaker, advisor & cyber czar’’. This quickly gives you an idea of the kind of jobs he’s held previously, and what is most significant about his career – all in seven words and contained to the resume header.

Next, William shared his life motto in a single sentence: “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity”.  A simple quote can speak volumes about you as a person and your attitude to work and life itself.

Beyond showing how you see the world, it signals to companies whether you might fit into their culture. This shows us that William is not the kind of person that gives up. He perceives problems as opportunities.

Taken together, these sections give a brief and quick insight into who William is and the energy he would bring to his role and the team. As opposed to a lengthy personal summary, William said all he needed to in two short sentences. Now, let’s continue with William’s experience section…

• • Guided 50 + products from inception through development to market, with maximum efficiency
• • Established strong connections with investors, banks, members of the legal profession, consulting firms incl. Fujitsu, NEC, Sony, and Toshiba
• • Invested in 24+ companies, 14 of which are run by women
• • Supporting an ecosystem that encourages experimentation and opportunity to learn from mistakes
• • Launched at the age of 14
• • Sold to Microsoft for a price that would have let me retire at 33

William includes 3 jobs within his experience section. These are the most recent and significant jobs that relate to the field he hopes to work in. They’re also quite diverse.

Rather than writing pages on every job he has ever had, he has tailored his experience to three impactful descriptions of the jobs that relate most to the job vacancy.

He also decided to name the section Entrepreneurial Experience . This suggests that it covers only a portion of his work experience. This is a case where careful decision-making really pays off.

William goes on to make use of an Enhancv exclusive – the “My Time” section. This allows users to show their time spent during the week or a typical day-in-the-life.

For example, the section makes it obvious that Cybersecurity is something he does best. Again, using this quick visual saves a ton of space.

Furthermore, William utilizes an awards section to mention advising the Japanese Government as well as over twenty tech companies  regarding business, technology, and security.

His other point is ‘’Giving back to the community’’, where he mentions that he’s been supporting charitable and community-based organizations. This saved William another page where he listed all his advisory positions and achievements. All in a few sentences, with bits of his character.

William backs up his previous experience with a notable metric that shows his impact on the bottom line. In a few short words, we see the results of his work. His Authored Books section (another section offered by Enhancv)  contributes to this, too. Here, we get a quick visual of the books he’s published, rather than a long description that would take up many paragraphs.

Pavel’s resume is a great example of someone who has taken our modern resume template  and made the most of it.

Pavel has utilized the Technology section of our resume builder to give a snapshot of the programs he is familiar with. Here, we see five highlighted technologies. It’s simple but effective. This cuts down on writing full sentences to show what systems you’re comfortable with.

• • Lead a strategic project defining where and what type of accommodation supply our marketing and commercial teams (200+ people) need to acquire for our marketplace.
• • Identified a collection of business opportunities for the company helping it to earn 1MLN+ EUR.
• • Mentored 10 people in frame of the collaboration with a research group from TU Delft.
• • Introduced and advocated a culture of 1-pagers for every project in the business unit which improved communication and decreased the need for redundant catch-up meetings.
• • Developed classification techniques to predict inaccurate assignments in crowdsourcing platforms (e.g. Amazon Mechanical TURK, CrowdFlower) utilising the browser behaviour data of workers (e.g. keyboard, mouse, tab events) achieving 97%+ precision and 80% recall.
• • Introduced an approach to collect high quality training data for natural language understanding for arbitrary chatbot domain using crowdsourcing.
• • Organised a Slack community of 200+ researchers and practitioners in the field of crowdsourcing ( http://hcomp.community ).
• • Mentored 3 master students.
• • Introduced regression-based methods to predict abandoned assignments in crowdsourcing tasks, eliminating which leads to 200% speed up with an extra cost of less than 10%.
• • Conducted quantitative and qualitative analysis of workers experience in crowdsourcing platforms. Detected task searching, rewarding, and execution issues. Designed, implemented, and launched (with 400 users, 3 clients) a mobile crowdsourcing platform addressing these issues.
• • Cofounded and lead the company in Italy with a mission to bring the experience of watching space objects to masses.
• • Showed the Moon and planets via telescopes to 5000+ people.
• • Conducted a user study about task searching experience.
• • Developed a prototype of task listing page, optimising task searching experience. It was partially adopted in production.

Taking a look at Pavel’s experience section, we can see how job-rich it is. We’re looking at 6 job titles – from a researcher to a co-founder and CEO. Data science  is a relatively new and expansive area of tech.

For this reason, it’s beneficial to include as many previous experiences as you can that relate to possible duties. Each job is accompanied by a quick bullet point that explains all of Pavel’s responsibilities, and everything is written concisely.

Much like William, Pavel intertwines his impact with his previous experience by providing a significant metric to measure his achievements.

For example, he showed the moon and stars to 5000+ people.

This short description focuses the recruiter on tangible evidence that does not take up a lot of space. If a recruiter wants to know more, they will ask in an interview or over email.

Pavel’s experience is further explained in a simple list of his Selected Courses . Here, space is saved by collecting all relevant and important courses he’s taken in a single section. The titles are enough for the recruiter to understand his skill.

Gal shows us that any resume template can be used when building a one-pager. Using Enhancv’s staple – the double-column resume  – Gal makes an impact without drawing things out.

Accomplishing this in two-three sentences will do wonders to signal to companies that you fit within their culture – ultimately getting you an interview sooner.

Gal makes use of Enhancv’s technologies section but renames it as an “Expertise” section. With this, the recruiter can easily see that Gal is gifted when it comes to B2B, B2C, SaaS, and more. This is an excellent example of cutting paragraphs down to singular words with the same impact.

• • Leading the company's platform product management team and operations across five business units
• • Accelerate the delivery of cross product features by 50% QOQ, resulting in higher retention and ARR growth of platform customers
• • Delivering disruptive email marketing product, reducing x10 time to create stunning emails & frictionless setup: x1,000 less complex
• • Driving company-wide eCommerce innovation, including being the first to offer retention analytics & unified campaigns & flows management
• • Leading product strategy, ownership, marketing and UX of B2B2C video AI platform with +50M users
• • Driving 2,000% revenue growth: product value to existing & new customers, infrastructure optimization & unique AB test product
• • Delivery of new products in 1 to 3 months, tapping into user goals: VOD, data, self-service, existing platforms
• • Driving new business with tier-1 customers through new product design and go-to market: edge cloud virtualization solution
• • Designing open, cross-platform and automated solution empowering customers to launch new services in minutes instead of weeks
• • Leading the growth of the companies eco-system from a single partner to over 15 best of breed technology partners
• • Development from idea to 50,000 active users’ acquisition and initial paying users, including team buildup, delivery & online marketing
• • Build partnerships & custom offering with leading payment gateways
• • Product offering & ecosystem continuous evolution driving 100% to 200% annual revenue growth
• • Establish strategic partnership with Accenture and driving business with strategic accounts such as DoCoMo, Vodafone & Travelocity

Again, Gal introduces his impact by providing a significant metric to measure his achievements. For example, “driving 50% to 100% annual revenue growth”. This captures his ability in one bullet point, as opposed to several sentences on ways he brought a change in a previous company.

Whether you’ve got 25 years, a decade, or a month of experience, making a strong impression is essential. A single-page resume helps you do that.

We gathered the career counseling team at Enhancv  and put all their know-how around writing impactful one-page resumes.

Use a double-column or compact resume template.

A one-pager resume with plenty of experience will not fit on a single-column template. At Enhancv, our double-column template is specifically designed to meet applicant tracking systems requirements and with one-page resumes in mind. You can fit up 50% more information compared to what general resume templates allow for.

Write short, action-oriented bullet points.

Cut the fluff and focus on the make-it-or-break-it moments in your career. Stick to active words and use buzzwords properly .

Draw inspiration from the examples above, or recollect the moments that made you the professional you are today. If you need more inspiration, we have over 500 job-specific resume examples  for you to explore and inspire from.

Use smaller fonts.

Choose a smaller font size but make sure the text remains legible. Size 10 or 11 looks fine and passes readability checks, anything smaller would make your resume hard to read.

Fonts like Oswald , Bitter , and Volkhov  are more compact and allow you to fit more text on a single page.

Remove unnecessary sections.

When you have a lot of relevant experience, you can skip the Education section. Unless you have Cum Laude  from an Ivy League university, you’re generally okay with not including your education. Leave off references as well, unless they’re highly relevant for the job position.

Make sure that your summary is short but packed full of information. It’s the best way to communicate who you are and your skill set in a single sentence.

Decrease the margins' size.

When you decrease the margins of your resumes you get to add more information, however, you have to keep in mind the readability of your resume. No hiring manager wants to read a wall of text.

Enhancv’s resume builder has in-built resume margins you can switch between that still keep your resume readable and easy on the eye.

Use creative sections to spotlight career milestones.

One-page creative resumes are the hardest to make. We’ve compiled over 20 creative resumes  for you to check out. You can make your very own by signing up for Enhancv –– or you can hire our career counselors to help you make your resume .

Single-page resumes seem difficult to create until you get the hang of it –– focus only on experience and skills that show how you can make an impact in the company you’re applying at.

• Cut the extra fluff. Choose only the relevant, result-driven information.
• Use different sections to reframe and communicate your experience in short and engaging ways.
• Choose an Enhancv resume template and focus only on the information and not the design.
• Focus on font size and margins to fit as much information as possible.

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How to Make a Credible One Page Resume

Trying to fit in all the important career information into one 8.5×11″ document is no easy task. Still, the common job search lore goes that having a one-page resume is always the best way to go. Or is it? Let’s dig in together! 

Should a Resume Be One Page Long?

The general conclusion is that yes, it’s best to file a one-page resume whenever you can if you are in the beginning/middle of your career. But things are not absolutely black and white when it comes to resume length. Can a resume be more than one page? Again, yes. 

No one will fret upon a two-page resume if you are a senior candidate with 10+ years of experience and multiple job posts under your belt — all relevant to the new job you are routing for. 

Lengthier resumes are also fine for candidates with a wide set of technical skills , educational credentials, and industry accolades. 

Lastly, if you are applying to a job abroad and get asked to file a CV, rather than a resume , it’s OK to go beyond a single page. 

You can learn more about the ideal resume length from our previous post. 

How to Fit Resume on One Page: Tips and Tricks 

OK, so you are certain that you’ll do better with a one-page resume. Now the big question is: how do you fit all your professional deets into that single page without resorting to using an eight-point font or trying to cram a lot of text into the available white space?

After creating over 150 one-page resume templates , we can say with confidence that the next tricks will work like a charm!  

1. Adjust Your Page Margins and Layout 

Most people leave page margins at the pre-set default option of 1-inch in Microsoft Word when they start designing their resume. 

But, you can actually trim this a few simple steps to have a bit more elbow room. Here’s how it’s done:

• Go to Layout > Margins

• Select either one of the pre-suggested configurations or add a custom range

NB: Don’t forget to test if your design looks good in other word processing software or when sent via email as an attachment!

As a rule of thumb, it’s OK to go with a half an inch margin, but not less. In this case, you will still have a defined white space edge and your resume won’t look really cramped together.

2. Merge Sections Together

Every great resume has at least three standard sections — header, work experience, and education. Plus, some optional ones such as Skills, Hobbies, and Interests , Accolodates, Resume Objective , Professional Bio, etc. 

While all of them can play a role in hiring, they eat up some valuable space. After all, having multiple sections requires extra room for large headings.

So if you really need to cut down your resume to one page, aim for three or four distinct sections and combine the rest. 

For example, you could combine your resume objective and professional bio or add accolades to the work experience section. Also, you can pack all the different things you want to mention, as short bullet-point highlights under an ‘Extra Information’ section.

Let’s take a look at one of our popular one-page resume templates — Contrast Resume Template .

It has 4 distinct sections you can use to your advantage: 

• The sidebar area where you can place your professional bio or resume objective
• Skills sections that you can pack with keywords and popular skills that employers look for
• Header area you can use to leave your contact details, personal website, or squeeze in personal branding statements. 
• Lofty work experience section that can be tweaked to fit more positions 
• Minimalistic education section to list the essentials. 

This design is also versatile enough to be further tweaked up to your liking. You can forgo the bio/objective in favor of an “Extra Information” section or place your contact details and short elevator pitch there to expand the Skills area. 

3. Condense Information

Always look at ways of combining some of your information that may be important, but it doesn’t have a direct bearing on the job that you are applying for. For example, where you list your educational qualifications, instead of listing each qualification or achievement on a single line, condense them together and leave off any early or lower-level qualifications that an employer may not be interested in knowing about.

Treat your employment history in the same way. If you have created your work experience to read as your job title and company address in a block style with each part of the address on single lines, then you can free up some space by just putting your job title and company name on one single line and cut out the company address completely.

Even your own personal details can take a healthy trim. Many career experts recommend that you don’t include your home address on your resume just in case the employer judges candidate suitability depending on their location and proximity to the workplace. Simply including your name and contact number, email address, and LinkedIn profile.  

4. Spring Clean for Redundancies 

Don’t go about describing every job duty you had at every job listed — most will likely duplicate one-another. Instead, focus on listing one-two main accomplishments for each entry and sprinkle in some relevant hard and soft skills . 

Take a look at our customer service resume example . Instead of going at length about every job, you can just write a one-line description and then provide a quick bullet point list of accomplishments/skills. So that your entry looks the following way:

Customer Service Specialist (April 2017 – March 2020)

Started in telephone customer support and quickly transitioned to web chat support. Assisted retail customers with concerns related to their orders, billing, shipping, and returns. 

• Ranked highest in the European region for chat resolution speed.
• Employee of the Month (August, October, Dec)
• Zendesk, HubSpot Live Chat, and Salesforce proficient 

5. Adjust Your Line Spacing And Font Size

Recruiters want to see resumes that are easy on the eye, so the need for your resume to have good line spacing is still important. However, you can maximize the space available by adjusting your line spacing to give you a little bit more room.

If you are using MS Word to create your resume, then you can manually change the line spacing between paragraphs and different sections. The default setting is actually quite generous, so even if you change it to shrink down the line spacing by half between paragraphs and sections, you will still get a defined visual space, but you can squeeze out an extra couple of free line spaces for more information by doing this.

While going as small as an 8-point font may mean certain eye-strain for a recruiter trying to read your resume, you can safely change to 10-point font and still leave your resume perfectly readable. It would be wise to leave your name at least at a 14-point font if not larger.

6. Trim Your Bullet Points

Bullet points are the key trick for fitting as much information as possible into a one-page resume. The key here, however, is to avoid writing full length, logically connected sentences. 

Instead, think of your bullet point as a mini headline — short, catchy, and sufficiently communicating one key idea. 

Here are some extra tips for writing powerful bullet points for your resume:

• Avoid complex, lengthy words (unless these are actual keywords)
• Keep your bullet point to one line to avoid space waste 
• Aim for the same bullet point length to make your resume look neater 
• Make your bullet points symmetrical i.e. always start with a verb or noun. 
• Keep the bullet points thematically-related.

Here’s how we incorporated all of these tips in our hospitality resume example : 

The Royal Suits, Downtown Miami (2018 – 2020)

Concierge and Guest Services Supervisor

Skills and accomplishments:

• Provided guest services to over 1,500 guests per month 
• Organized personalized entertainment and shopping experiences
• Managed all the concierge services for VIP guests
• Brought in extra 20% via services upsells/cross-sells per month 
• Maintained customer satisfaction rating of more than 98%

7. Don’t Fret About The Resume Length Too Much!

There is no harm in having two versions of your resume – one single page version and one longer multiple-page version. These can be very handy to keep on file for when an employer specifically asks you to submit one or the other. A lot of employers will initially ask for a one-page resume, and then follow that up with a request for a more detailed resume for when they are creating a shortlist for the job interview.

To Conclude 

If you’ve tried all of the tips above and still didn’t arrive at the coveted one-page resume length, don’t sweat it any further.  At the end of the day, it is your skills, qualifications, and past experiences that make the most difference! So go with a two-page resume or two versions of your resume, if you feel that a lengthy version will represent you better as a job candidate. 

Finally, if you need some extra help, you can always browse our ever-growing collection of professional resume templates that are already optimized to pack a powerful punch within a single page!

This article has been originally published on April 30, 2018 and has been extensively revised and updated on November 12, 2020.

Elena runs content operations at Freesumes since 2017. She works closely with copywriters, designers, and invited career experts to ensure that all content meets our highest editorial standards. Up to date, she wrote over 200 career-related pieces around resume writing, career advice... more

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When to Use a 2-Page Resume [7 Samples Included]

We’ve all asked ourselves at some point, “How long should my resume be?”

The most common answer you’d get on the internet is straightforward: one page.

But what if your 2nd page is jam-packed with relevant work experience?

Or, what if you’re applying for a position in academia?

In this article, we discuss the appropriate length of a resume.

• Should you use a 2-page resume?
• What’s the right length for your resume?
• How to fit a resume on 1 page?
• 7 two-page resume samples (which you can reuse!)

Let’s get started!

Should You Use a 2-Page Resume?

One-page resumes are the norm in the industry. 

For a long time, recruiters have preferred concise, one-page resumes that can be looked over quickly. A 2013 survey of 475 Canadian hiring managers found that 39% of recruiters spend less than a minute looking at a resume while 23% spend less than 30 seconds. 

However, even though it is widely accepted that a resume should be one page long, there’s no rule that says yours can’t be longer. In fact, recent evidence suggests that for certain situations, two pages are preferable.

A 2018 experiment featuring 482 US-based hiring managers shows that recruiters are becoming more accepting of 2-page resumes, especially from applicants for mid and top-level management positions. 

In short, you can go with a 2-page resume if you’re:

• An applicant with over 15 years of experience
• Applying for positions in executive or middle management
• Applying for a role in academia. In which case, there’s no limit on how long your resume can be (more on this later)

Resume & Length - All You Need to Know

Still confused about the one-page vs two-page resume standoff?

We don’t blame you! The lines are pretty blurred. 

What if you have less than 10 years of experience, but a wide range of professional experiences that just don’t fit into one page??

What if you’ve been employed for 30 years and yet 2 full pages seem difficult to fill?

Or maybe a student with dozens of achievements? Is it okay to have a two-page resume then?

Let’s break it down one item at a time:

How far back should a resume go?

If you have a long work history, you should only go a maximum of 10 to 15 years back . 

Unless it was something outstanding, the recruiter doesn’t need to know what you were doing 20 years ago. Chances are, the jobs from the beginning of your career aren’t as impressive as the ones you’ve held more recently. 

For example, there’s no need to mention you were a market research assistant 18 years ago if you were head of marketing 3 years ago. 

Have some notable achievements from back in the day?

You can still list them without going back 20 years with your work experiences!

Just create a section called “Achievements” and use it to highlight all your career wins, whether they’re recent or old.

How long should a student resume be?

If you’re a student, you shouldn’t have any reason to go past one page. 

If you find yourself struggling to fit everything onto a single page, re-evaluate the information you want to present. Chances are, there are things you can cut altogether. 

An extensive list of hobbies and interests ? You can trim it or go without. 

Part-time babysitting job? No need to mention it when applying for an internship at IBM.

Look at your resume critically and make sure what you’ve written is concise and relevant to the job you are applying for.

If you’re certain that your personality is your most qualifying trait and a single page is not enough of a canvas, you can link your preferred and relevant social media account at your own discretion. 

What about CVs?

You should be aware that a curriculum vitae is different from a resume. However, in Europe, these terms are largely used interchangeably.

While a resume is tailored to each job you apply for and aims to sell you as the best candidate for that role, the purpose of a CV is to tell a detailed story about who you are, what you’ve achieved and what you are looking to achieve. 

This means it’s usually longer than a resume with an average length of 2-3 pages, and no maximum length restriction.

If you’re applying for a job in academia, you should write a CV . 

Resume Length Cheat Sheet 

To sum up, here’s a recap of recommended resume lengths based on experience level:

How to Fit a Resume on 1 Page

For students and entry-level professionals, sticking to a one-page limit should not be that difficult. 

For the more seasoned professionals, here are some tips to fit all of the necessary information on one page:

• Use an online resume builder . The templates they offer use the optimal typeface, font size, and layout for an aesthetically pleasing one-page fit. This saves you a lot of precious time since you don’t have to get involved with formatting at all. All that you have to do is fill in the information. 
• Tailor for the job. Mention only skills and experience relevant to the position you are applying for. Anything unrelated should be removed from the resume entirely. If the company is looking for a data scientist, there’s no need to mention your social media marketing internship. 
• Achievements over responsibilities . For each work experience entry, instead of listing your duties, focus on your achievements . What was your performance? What did you and the company gain? Can you put that in numbers? Quantifying your achievements will eliminate unnecessary adjectives and help you stand out. 
• Use bullet points. They’re easy to read and give your resume an organized look while also saving space. Don’t go past 6 bullets though, as the result will likely be a giant block of text. 
• Remove the high school entry. If you’ve attended college/university, it goes without saying that you also graduated high school. So, if that’s the case, you can just not mention high school altogether.
• Avoid repetition. If your responsibilities in several jobs were the same, try to be selective and only mention similar tasks once. If you’ve been a social media manager for three different companies, don’t write “created content” three times. Instead, focus on your top achievements for each role. 
• Have a concise resume summary or resume objective . After all, this is supposed to be a short, attention-grabbing intro to your resume. Use only 2-3 sentences (3 lines of text) to highlight your achievements and skills.

7 Two-Page Resume Samples

#1. simple resume template  .

With some upgrades from the traditional resume, the Simple resume template could be a great choice if you don’t want to experiment a lot. 

As the name suggests, it has a simple design and is perfect for any position. 

#2. Professional Resume Template

This all-time favorite template puts equal emphasis on your work experiences and skills. It has a minimalistic design that is easy to skim and makes the resume perfect for executive position applications. 

#3. Modern Resume Template

This template helps your resume maintain a professional look, yet stand out among others. It focuses on your previous work experiences and highlights your skills with a pop of color. 

#4. Creative Resume Template

If you’re applying for a job in marketing, advertising, design, or any position in the creative space, our Creative resume template is what you’re looking for. It starts with a bold header, emphasizing your resume summary or objective, followed by a more minimalistic design for the rest. 

#5. Functional Resume Template

This functional resume template highlights your work experience and skills you’ve developed through the years. It’s minimalistic, featuring a color-accented header and skills section. 

#6. Basic Resume Template

This template is as simple and clean-cut as they come. It uses a limited, monochromatic color palette and can be used in any industry.

#7. Executive Resume Template

Key Takeaways

Discussions over the length of a resume have been going on for ages and all answers seem to have a “but”.

We hope that this article helped clear some of the air around two-page resumes and when to use them. 

Before you go, here’s a recap of what we talked about:

• You can use a two-page resume if you have an extensive work history of over 10-15 years or if you’re applying for an executive position.
• If you’re a student or entry-level applicant, your best bet is to use a one-page resume.
• An online resume tool can save time by providing a customizable template to fill in, and make it easier to create a one-page resume.
• Using the appropriate typeface, font size, and line spacing can help you fit more information onto a page.
• If you’re a senior professional or a job-seeker in academia, though, you’re free to use a 2-page resume.

Discover More Resume Templates

• Minimalistic Resume Templates
• Chronological Resume Templates
• Combination Resume Templates
• Creative Resume Templates
• High School Resume Templates
• Google Docs Resume Templates
• Word Resume Templates
• One Page Resume Templates

Suggested Reading:

• How to Write Your First Job Resume [For 2024]
• 101+ Essential Skills to Put on a Resume [In 2024]
• The Complete Guide to Remote Work [W/ Tips & Tricks]

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