How Long Should a CV Be? UK and US Page Length Rules

Two pages gives a British recruiter enough room to see a personal statement, a meaningful work history, education and skills without having to hunt. It is what most UK careers services and recruitment agencies advise, and it is what hiring managers are used to reading.

• School leavers, students and recent graduates: one page is perfectly acceptable, and one full page is better than two half-empty ones.
• Most professionals: two pages.
• Senior leaders, contractors and technical specialists with many relevant projects: two pages is still the target, though a third is sometimes justified. If you go to three, make sure the first page could stand alone.
• Academic, scientific and medical CVs: no fixed limit, because they list publications, research, teaching and clinical experience in full.

Whatever the length, avoid ending with a few stray lines on a final page. Either edit back to a clean page break or use the space for something valuable.

American convention is stricter. A resume is expected to be a tight summary, and for candidates with limited experience one page is the standard that college career centers and recruiters teach.

• Students, recent graduates and candidates with under roughly ten years of experience: one page.
• Experienced professionals, managers and technical candidates with a long list of relevant projects: two pages.
• Executives: two pages, occasionally three.
• Academic and medical CVs: as long as the record requires.
• Federal government applications: these follow their own rules and ask for more detail than a private-sector resume. Follow the instructions in the job announcement.

The one-page rule is not a reason to shrink the font to eight point or remove all white space. If you truly have two pages of relevant, recent accomplishments, use two pages. If you are padding to reach a second page, stay on one.

Recruiters and hiring managers often review many applications for each vacancy, and the first read of any one document is a quick scan. They look at your most recent job title, employer, dates and the top few bullet points, then decide whether to read on. A concise document puts your best evidence where that scan will find it. A long one buries it.

Length does not matter much to applicant tracking systems. They store and search the text however many pages it covers. Editing for length is about the human reader.

• Limit detail to the last ten to fifteen years. Summarise earlier roles in one line each under a heading such as 'Earlier career', or remove them.
• Give recent, relevant roles four to six bullets and older roles two or three.
• Delete duties that any holder of that job title would have. Keep the bullets that show results or scale.
• Merge overlapping bullets. Three lines about reporting can usually become one.
• Tighten the opening. A personal statement or summary should be three to five lines, not a paragraph that fills a quarter of the page.
• Remove references, 'references available on request', a full postal address and the words 'Curriculum Vitae' as a title.
• Trim education as experience grows. After several years in work, school-level qualifications can become one line or disappear.
• Cut skills everyone has, and soft-skill lists with no evidence.
• Check for orphan words. A single word wrapping onto a new line costs a whole line; rewording can recover several lines per page.

Only after editing content should you adjust layout. Margins of around 1.5 to 2 centimetres, or about half an inch to three quarters of an inch, and a 10 to 11 point body font are reasonable. Going smaller makes the page hard to read and defeats the purpose.

A short CV is only a problem if it leaves out evidence you actually have. Before worrying about length, check that you have included the following.

• Part-time, temporary and seasonal work, with what you were trusted to do.
• Volunteering, committee roles, student societies and sports teams, written up like jobs with bullet points.
• University or college projects, dissertations and group work relevant to the role.
• Placements, internships, work shadowing and insight days.
• Relevant courses and certifications you have completed.
• Specific technical skills and tools, with the level you work at.

Do not pad with large fonts, wide spacing or long lists of hobbies. One well-filled page is a strong document for someone starting out, in the UK as well as the US.

If you are applying in both countries, keep a full master version with everything on it and cut tailored versions from that: a two-page CV on A4 for UK applications and a one or two page resume on US Letter for American ones. Tailoring for each vacancy then becomes a matter of choosing which bullets to keep, which is far quicker than rewriting from scratch.