Ask ten recruiters and you will get the one-page rule, the two-page rule, and someone insisting length does not matter. All three are describing something real from different vantage points. Here is the version that survives contact with an actual job search.
The default by experience level
- 0–3 years: one page. There is not yet enough distinctive material for two, and padding is visible immediately.
- 3–8 years: one page in most cases, two if you have genuinely distinct roles or a technical portfolio to account for.
- 8–15 years: two pages. Squeezing a decade onto one page means shrinking the type and dropping the achievements that justify your level.
- 15+ years or executive: two pages, occasionally three where board work, publications, or patents legitimately require it.
- Academic CV: no limit. This is a different document with different conventions — publications and grants are the point.
Where the one-page rule came from
It comes from campus recruiting, where every applicant has roughly the same two internships and the constraint forces prioritisation. That reasoning is sound for a graduate and stops being sound the moment you have a decade of work that differs meaningfully year to year. A senior engineer who deletes their systems-design work to fit one page has not made a better resume, only a shorter one.
Country conventions matter more than the rule
In the US, "resume" means one to two pages. In the UK and Ireland, a two-page CV is the default and a one-page CV can read as thin. In Germany a Lebenslauf is often longer and may include a photo and signature. In Australia three pages is unremarkable. Applying US length rules to a German application is a category error, not a refinement.
What to cut first when you are over
- Jobs older than fifteen years. Compress into one "Earlier career" line with employers and titles only.
- Any bullet without a result. If it describes the role rather than your performance in it, it is filler.
- The skills wall. Cut it to what the posting asks for plus what you would defend in an interview.
- "References available upon request", the objective statement, and your full postal address — a city and region is enough.
- Duplicate achievements across roles. Keep the strongest instance.
- Coursework and GPA, once you are more than three years out of university.
The rule underneath the rule
Length is a symptom, not the variable. The real constraint is that every line must earn attention from someone giving you thirty seconds. A tight two-page resume where each bullet carries an outcome beats a padded one-pager and a sprawling three-pager alike. Write it at whatever length the strong material takes, then cut everything that is not strong material.