A Guide to Writing a Solid 2-Page Resume
While fresh grads worry about lacking work experience, your challenge may be the opposite: how to fit your work history into your resume without making it too long. Your 2-page resume is your pitch on paper that could get you that job interview, and ultimately, the job itself. So you want it to be just right.
You want to keep your resume clear and concise, but you also want it to be substantial, impressive, and compelling for hirers to take notice and be convinced that you have the work experience , educational background, and qualifications they are looking for. So how do you manage the content of your resume? Here is our guide to a short but solid 2-page resume.
Customise your 2-page resume
Study the job ad carefully. What is the hirer looking for? What are the keywords in the job ad? Now create your resume to answer to that job ad and provide the information a hirer requires. Highlight work experience that is most relevant. Use the same or similar keywords in the ad. If the recruiters use an app to scan resumes for keywords - which many Singaporean companies do - it will surely pick up yours.
You want to keep it concise but compelling, so don't write down your entire history of job titles and descriptions from the first to the present. You want to choose what you think will matter most to the hirer, and which are most useful to the position you want. This means you will have to tailor-fit the content and format of each resume depending on the specific position you are applying for.
Still, there are parts of the resume that you cannot do without and should include in every resume version to make it solid. Here are some of them:
- Academic Background: Basic info would include your undergraduate degree and postgraduate, if any. You may add short studies or certificate courses you have taken. Just make sure that they are pertinent to the job.
- Professional Summary: Hook in hirers with a strong career history summary, a description of what you do, and how this is relevant to the work you are applying for. One or two sentences should do.
- Recognitions and Achievements: You may choose to include any awards or recognition, achievements or successes that are applicable to the work and promote your qualifications for the position.
Find the right length
So, is there a standard or ideal resume length? Usually, it is anywhere between one to two pages. Different hirers may have differing opinions on how long a resume should be, but they will agree on a common value: content. The important information must be relevant and valuable to the work you are applying for.
According to AOL college recruiting specialist Yolanda M. Owens, quality matters more than quantity. Choose the work experience and accomplishments that are relevant to your present work and the job you want, and let go of the rest.
Levo's Erica Murphy even advises to choose your three most relevant work experiences and build on those. Demonstrate your achievements by giving concrete and specific details in performance outcome and production, best expressed in numbers like growth percentages.
Remember the 10-second rule: that is all the hirer is giving to read your resume. You want to grab the hirer's attention and show your strengths in qualifications, education, and the best of your professional experience. Make every second count. Fresh grads applying for entry-level jobs would do well to stick to one page. More experienced candidates vying for higher positions can go for a 2-page resume.
Keep it tight
In choosing relevant content, you can edit out all personal and professional information that are not required and unnecessary. More often than not, you do not have to include your parents' names, marital status, or body measurements. You are also better off leaving out jobs you worked at ten or more years ago. If you think any of those old jobs are important to include, limit information to the position, company, and dates of employment.
Be direct, confident, and concrete in presenting what you have done in the past. Choose strong descriptive words. Avoid buzzwords and weak vague descriptions.
A strong resume can get you a long way ahead and find you that job that balances your passion and purpose.
Working on your resume is a good start towards getting the job you want. Update your profile at Jobstreet. Add #WorkNow to let hirers know you can start immediately. Search here for #JobsThatMatter. The more you search, the more JobStreet understands your preferences so you can be better matched to the right job. And finally, visit our Career Resources hub for more expert job searching advice.
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