One Page Resume: Should You Make Your Resume One Page in 2023?

A one page resume is more common and acceptable during the job search process and it increases your interview chances and gets you the job contract you want. Today, you will learn how to make a resume fit on one page and highlight your accomplishments with our writing guides, templates, and relevant examples. 

In this guide, you will find an answer to the most common things you stumble upon in your single page resume quest: 

• Should a resume be one page?
• The criteria for the perfect resume;
• What to exclude from it?
• Examples and templates for best one page resume;

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Meanwhile, don’t forget about professional platforms like LinkedIn during your job hunt. You get a higher chance to be discovered with a keyword-enriched account, so a hiring manager will be the first to reach out to you. If you doubt how to make it work, you always can contact our professional resume writing service to help you with a perfectly formatted profile. Less stress always means more focus on what’s important.

Should a resume be one page?

It’s a common misconception that the wordier your job application is, the more experienced you appear. In reality, a resume - one page or two - has a clear function to summarize your professional skills and career achievements. If you are a candidate with more than ten years of experience, you might need to display more information, which might not fit into one page. 

Why should you keep your resume to one page?

You might feel compelled to fill the gaps in your work experience with other relevant information, but it might not affect the hiring decisions of your potential employers. Even though a one or two page resume is a dilemma as old as the world, you should stick to one page resume format at the end of the day. It then becomes easier to focus on your qualifications and highlight the existing competencies and skills you possess. 

Ask any career advice expert, and they will tell you to present what you have as the most treasured thing an employer might want to see in their team. The rest would be a history in making.

Examples for one page resume template

It is easy to find a perfect one page resume template narrowed down to basics you need to display and provide. It is a must to stand out among other candidates and cement your interview. 

[Your name]

[Your address (You can indicate only a city)]

[Your phone number]

[Your email address]

[Your website URL/online portfolio or online profile at professional platform]

Summary/Objective: [Describe yourself in one to two sentences in this section. It is a perfect chance to highlight only essential information that the recruiter will see first.]

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Skills

• [Skill]
• [Skill]
• [Skill]

Additional skills (if applicable)

• [Skill]
• [Skill]
• [Skill]

Experience

[Job title]

[Company name - Dates of employment]

• [Key responsibility]
• [Key responsibility]
• [Key responsibility]
• [Key achievements]

Education

• [Name of graduate degree]
• [Name of college - years attended]

When looking for one page resume templates, you might notice that job seekers often change section positions. Try to adhere to common rules to be the first from applicants to choose from.

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Jane Smith

New York

+1234-567-890

janesmith@exampleemail.com

Linkedin.com / Canva.com/design/12345

Summary/Objective: I am a conversion-oriented social media manager with more than 5 years of experience. I have worked with industry leaders and increased their brand visibility online by 40% with content strategies and accurate customer target strategy.

Skills

• Social Media platforms engagement data analysis
• Lead generation
• Digital brand strategy

Additional skills (if applicable)

• Customer service
• Email marketing

Experience

Social Media Manager

Gotham PR - 2017 - 2022

• Analyzed engagement data and brand-related mentions on all social media platforms
• Engaged with people and identified their needs
• Increased Instagram conversion rate by 40% with improved content strategy
• Identified accurate target strategy and acquired more solid customer base

Education

• Bachelor in Social Media Marketing Analytics
• NYU Tandon - 2016

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One Page Resume criteria

Usually, a detailed description and opulence of details are favorable to underline your experience. Yet, it’s something that goes in the opposite direction with writing a resume. A good one page resume attracts more opportunity than a wordy CV. 

• A single page resume stands out among other applications;
• It saves time for recruiter and increases the chances your resume will be read;
• It highlights your key competencies in the industry of your interest;

We hope it will convince you to never doubt and ask yourself “does resume have to be one page” and be more confident with it.

How to fit resume on one page

Back in the days, our writers had to manually highlight the relevant skills and qualities for writing a resume 1 page or more. Skillhub optimizes the process by connecting a curated list of skills after analyzing your resume and position you apply for. In this way, all important details stay in place.  

Use Different Resumes For Each Job Offers

It is a fact that you can’t have one standard resume, one page or more. Every senior position and organisation has specific requirements you have to fit. While you can be a perfect candidate for any job offer you choose, your resume should be modified. 

There is no need to rewrite a perfectly normal resume per se. Many talent acquisition specialists believe that while most offers are similar, they can have specific keywords you might want to include in your CV. 

Keep Bullet Points short

Many people make a common mistake of overexplaining their competencies, which would make a resume longer than one page and ruin the first impression. Bullet points work best as short statements that describe your experience or education. Less lines in your resume save more than space on a page. With on-point statements, you grab the recruiter's attention and keep it on what’s important. 

Use 3-5 Bullet Points

The best answer to the question "should my resume be one page" are fewer bullet points that save space and make your resume readable and neat. They should concern measurable achievements and relevant skills for the position.

When you opt-out describing anything that might be redundant for the resume, you would see how the pace of your resume changes. Everything outside of the job requirements should be omitted, unless it’s something impressive to mention.

Highlight the most relevant achievements 

For people who don’t have decades of work experience, it’s hard to imagine how can a resume be longer than one page, but it’s all about the way you talk about your wins. You can spend hours talking about your accomplishments and still appear as an incompetent employee. The real art of using the accomplishments you acquired at your last job is to highlight the most relevant ones. The recruiter always looks at how you manage to present what you’ve got.  

Shorten Your Education

In most cases, people tend to compensate for a lack of experience with their impressive training list, which results in a resume more than one page and achieves less than you expect. Of course, you might want to pinpoint essentials like internships and additional information. Like in other sections, keep your education list down to several bullet points. You can always share with the recruiter the story about additional courses and classes during the interview. 

Skip References for Your Resume

Usually, listing your references can be a waste of space in your one page resume or two, if you really need to fit your impressive work experience list. Your potential employer rarely has the opportunity to contact your previous jobs. 

In most cases, you would be asked to provide information if needed. An obsolete and standard phrase “References available upon request” should also be avoided. It has no impact on the hiring decisions and clutters your space.

Focus on Accomplishments

If you really want to stick to the golden rule that a resume should be one page, focus on your key job skills that brought change in your workplace. You don’t need to be abstract with your competency descriptions or dull retelling of what you have been doing. Present each of your accomplishments as something that really improved your company sales or helped in internal communication processes. 

Shorten your Summary

All resumes begin with summaries that highlight your biggest achievements and top skills. A key to a perfect 1 page resume is a summary that doesn’t feel like a tiresome paragraph with more than ten sentences you once wrote for your book report. You want to stand out right away, so hiring managers would feel like they want to continue reading your CV. Keep it short, neat, and avoid unnecessary wordiness.

Fonts have to be Smaller

Fonts are essential to keep resumes one page and stylish, but they also should be readable and not cause a headache. The font should be adjustable and not cause any problems when changing the size. You can pay attention to a job description on the company website and find a similar font that would be perfect in small size. Attentiveness to details also shows that you know what you’re doing and you qualify for the position.

Use your Creativity to Keep a resume in one page

You might think that one page resumes are restricting to creative people. On the contrary, you can unlock most of it if you know how to adjust different layouts and each section to fit more content. While the structure can stay the same, you can use different resume builders to fit the most valuable info in one sheet. Arguably, creativity can be not only a skill, but become an honorable mention in your achievements when writing your resume.

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Elon musk one page resume

You might think that tech giants like Elon Musk won’t have a simple one page resume because, come on, how could he? In reality, it's not about a microscopic font or formatting, but how you present your expertise.  

For instance, check this Skillhub example on what Elon Musk’s experience section can look like, so you get the idea of how to get a job even without as many years of experience as he has.

Experience

CEO / Founder/ Lead designer 

SpaceX - 2002 - present

• Negotiated key contract with NASA for cargo transportation
• Supervised more than 80 successful launches of the Falcon 9 rockets 
• Curated the rocket development from reusable parts, originating affordable space travel

CEO / Product Architect 

Tesla, Inc - 2004 - present

• Increased tesla sales by 50% in 2019 
• Launched Tesla's initial public offering, increasing it to over $226 million 
• Developed and marketed cutting-edge lithium batteries, cementing Tesla as a green tech industry leader 

Co-Founder / Former Chairman 

SolarCity - 2006 - present 

• Established SolarCity as the most prominent solar power company in 2008 with a no-money-down leasing program 
• Expanded SolarCity's capacities in 2015, installing over 870mw of solar power

You can get more interviews by presenting key achievements and avoid boring retelling of your daily routines. 

Exclude those items from one page resume

So, we convinced you to fit resume on one page and got to the part of the guide, where we advise you what to toss out of it. One of those golden resume one page rule is to get rid of obsolete information:

• Address - you don't need your full street address to get a job offer. You can indicate the city and it would be enough; 
• "Other" info section - usually people list their favorite activities, hobbies, and volunteering information in the section. It takes space and brings no value to your competency (unless proven otherwise); 
• Irrelevant job experience - you might want to omit mentioning your previous roles that are more than ten years old or don't relate to the current position.

Additional tips on how to make resume fit on one page

• Shorten your margins - one page resume format implies having more space for providing essential information without completely awry with the style. The common margin used in resumes is 1-inch. It is possible to shorten it to 0.5 or 0.65 and still keep it professional. Any resume building service gives you room for improvements with style and formatting. As an advantage, you get extra space;
• Use numerals instead of spelling - it's completely acceptable practice not to spell out numbers when describing your skills or accomplishments. It is the best strategy to have a single page resume if you deal with quite a few accomplishments to present;
• When choosing between one page vs two page resume always choose 1 page resume to stand out for the hiring manager. Anything additional can be discussed during interviews or brought up later during hiring process;

Don't forget to increase your chances by a professional cover letter. With the help of resume and cover letter services you'll have it with no effort!

Key takeaways for making resume in one page

• You don’t need heavy worded resume to get the attention of a potential employer;
• Having a one page resume is always better than overexplaining your competencies;
• Use your creativity and experiment to create the best one page resume to be selected for a position;
• Focus on accomplishments, achievements, and key skills that make you a perfect candidate;

If you still doubt should your resume be one page, contact online affordable resume service like Skillhub to get the best assistance. The mission of Skillhub is to land you not only an interview but increase your chances of getting hired to the company of your dreams;