Shricareer
Mon, 09/12/2022 - 13:33

There is certainly no shortage of mistakes candidates make while creating their resumes, like spelling mistakes, grammatical mistakes, flowery wordings, or missing keywords. However, most job seekers will be turned down if they submit a two-or dare, we say three-page resume.

Even if you have decades of experience with you, it is still feasible to have a one-page resume. So how can you squeeze so many years of work into an effective CV without leaving out important information?

Why your resume should be on a single page?

Keeping your resume to one page allows hiring managers to assess your strongest qualifications swiftly. When you submit a one-page resume, you highlight the best traits and competencies that make you qualified for the position. You may pick which achievements are worth maintaining on your resume by looking at your prior work experiences.

According to experts, many mid and executive-level job seekers would highly benefit from adhering to a one-page resume because hiring managers have limited attention spans. Hiring managers don’t have time to look at a two-page resume when your CV is competing with dozens or hundreds of applications.

Tips to create a one-page resume

You are aware that you should have a one-page resume. We both know that, unless you are looking for a high-level executive post, no one makes it past the first page, no matter how much you want to hold to your two pages. You might as well cut off the bullet points and get everything in 8.5x11” document.

So, how to create a single-page resume without using an eight-point font? Here are a few tips to help you create one.

1. Customise Your Resume

It’s good if you have a two paged list of accomplishments, but don’t mention those in your resume, unless you are interviewing for a senior position. Tailor your resume for each of your past work experiences. Show 3-5 achievements that are the best match for this job position.  A custom fit can reduce the space and cut the chaff.

2. The Bullet Points Must be Brief

Instead of using paragraphs, use bullet points to save space. The ideal approach to listing experience and education on a resume is in bullet points. Make each one 1-2 lines long. Never use a three-line bullet point. The finest sentences to use in the resume are concise ones.

3. Less Bullet Points Are the Best for One Page Resume

Use 3-5 bullet points per previous employment, at most to save space. Your bullets should highlight your most notable, quantifiable accomplishments. Make them your best achievements from that position. Ensure that they apply to this new role as well.

4. Focus on Your Most Profound Achievements

Imagine you have 30 incredible successes at your last employment. Do all of them really need to be disclosed to your future employer? Just sharing the top few will do the work. Also, this is just the beginning. You are yet to win a lot. So, save space by removing the redundancies

5. Trim Your Education

Experience always beats education unless you are a fresher or you are applying for an internship or entry-level position. Candidates with experience should include two or three bullet points in their education section. If there is an exception, like you have got a specific training, then show it.

6. Avoid Using MS Word Templates

Use paid resume templates rather than the free one-page resume format. Because the word template formats can appear longer on the hiring manager’s computer. You should also keep the resumes in PDF format always. As the word files look different on different systems, PDFs don't change.

7. Avoid Mentioning References on Your Resume

The phrase, `"references available upon request`" is frequently added by a lot of candidates at the bottom of the resume. It is not merely a space-saving tactic to skip that section, but also it stops you from including information that managers already know on your resume.

8. Cut Your Synopsis

A lot of time candidates have created some egregiously-long summaries. Some have written resume summaries with 10-line openings, followed by 9 bullet points. This is not called a summary, but the entire resume. Reduce your resume summary to 3-5 lines of text, with short sentences.

9. Focus on Accomplishments

Focus on mentioning the achievements if you want to create a one-page resume. Don’t list the job description that is too long. Instead, talk about the money you saved, the time you saved, or the quality you improved. Concentrate on specific examples of how you improved things for your organization by using important job skills.

10. Make Smaller Fonts

Yes, you can reduce the font size on the resume to make it one page. Simply don’t overdo it. The manager has a tougher time reading small print. It also demonstrates how you economize by applying shoddy fixes to issues.

11. Use Smaller Margins

To minimize space and achieve the ideal one-page resume, experiment with the margins. There is a limit to how far you can go, just like with fonts. The secret is to avoid filling every inch of the paper. Your resume is less intimidating when there is white space in it.

12. Be Creative with Formatting

To fit additional texts, experiment with using several columns or various resume layouts. You are working as a full stack developer but don’t possess strong layout abilities to create a resume? Use ShriResume’s resume builder tool to create the ideal layout the first time. To make the procedure simple, you can choose from a number of free one-page resume templates.

Even after following all these points, you still couldn’t manage to confide your resume to a single page. Well then, now you need to remove a few things from your resume.

Things to cut off from a one-page resume.

You might be surprised to know that a lot of sections mentioned in your resume are necessary. To assist fit a resume on one page, remove them completely. Let us know what those sections are.

1. Address

Not every time, you need to mention your full street address on your resume. It is best to leave it off to conserve space. It also saves the manager’s time by removing unnecessary clutter. It is sufficient to list the same city as the company.

2. High School

You don’t need high school on your resume if you have too many amazing achievements to fit on one page. Include your wonder years, only if you are struggling to fill that one page and need some extra stuff to mention in your resume.

3. Old or Irrelevant Jobs

Remove any employment that is more than ten years old. Also remove the job profile which is irrelevant to the current job position, sometimes known as irrelevant work experience. If you are having problems filling out page 1 of your resume, include older experience. Even so, include accomplishments that are relevant to the new role.

4. References

Remove any references. If you must include them, don’t state, “references available upon request.” It is assumed, and it takes up valuable space that might be used to highlight your remarkable accomplishments. Visit ShriResume and find out how and when to add references to your resume.

5. Irrelevant "Other" Info

Skip “other” resume areas like interests, hobbies, volunteer work, and extracurricular activities to save space. When these facts are pertinent to the job offer, they are excellent resume additions. For instance, if they can demonstrate that you have the required skills. If not, you can drop them.