3 steps for paring your brimming résumé to a single page

Most hiring managers skim your CV for highlights—where you worked, when you worked there and what you did and achieved. Here are tips for making yours lean and powerful.

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Job seekers who’ve had long, robust careers might need résumés that cover two or even three full pages.

That’s perfectly fine. Other job seekers—the younger, the less experienced—can make do with just one. That’s fine, too.

The trouble comes when you find yourself in the middle ground—with a résumé that doesn’t fill two pages, but doesn’t quite fit on one.

The last thing you want is a résumé with a lot of empty space on it. So that one-and-a-half-pager? It’s gotta be trimmed.

The question is how. Making razor-thin margins or opting for a microscopic font aren’t good options, because then your résumé isn’t readable.

Fortunately, there are simple ways to tighten your résumé to one action-packed page—helping you portray maximum value quickly and cleanly.

Take these steps:

Get rid of old jobs.

How far back are you going in your career history? Employers are most interested in what you’ve done recently, so jobs more than 15 years in the past usually can be omitted.

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