One-Page Resumes—12 Edits to Make Everything Fit
By Jennifer Nicole Sullivan
At the Excellence in Journalism conference last month, I had the pleasure of critiquing resumes for two days alongside Generation J committee chair Lynn Walsh. After correcting (and praising!) numerous resumes from college students and young professionals, I came face to face with the age-old resume dilemma: one page or two?
Unless you’ve worked 30+ years, there’s no reason—especially for a recent college graduate—to have a two-page resume. (I’m a former two-pager myself!) Employers simply don’t have time to read two pages.
But don’t fret—everyone can have a one-page resume. Quickly free up some room on your resume by ditching these superfluous elements:
1. References: I saw these on several resumes at the conference. Provide these only if an employer asks for them.
2. URLs: If you have a website, put it in your header sans www. (e.g., jennifernicolesullivan.com). Save all other URLs for your cover letter.
3. Extra words/articles: Use sentence fragments that begin with strong action verbs (no gerunds) to eliminate excess words and articles such as “the.” “I” is never needed.
4. Summary & Objective: Discuss your summary and objective in your cover letter. It takes up precious resume real estate and delays employers from getting to the meat of your resume.
5. Excessive fonts and borders: Keep your resume clean by omitting too many font styles like italics, bold and underline—pick one style and use it sparingly. Keep body font at 11- or 12-point.
6. All caps: They take up more space and tend to look harsh.
7. A separate “Awards” section: If you’ve won awards, keep each one listed underneath the job in which you received it.
8. High school stuff (and anything prior—yes, I’ve seen an elementary school listed!): Unless you’re a college student looking for internships, omit all high school information, clubs, and GPA.
9. College GPA: Unless you have a 3.8 or higher, do not list your GPA. After your first professional job, omit it altogether.
10. College clubs/extracurricular: If you’re still in college, only list relevant activities (e.g., student newspaper editor, SPJ Student Chapter President, etc…). After your first professional job, consider omitting them.
11. Hobbies: If for some reason they’re relevant, mention them in your cover letter.
12. Personal traits: Save all of the “hardworking, multi-tasker, organized” language for your cover letter.
Remember: Focus on conveying your experience and skills that will impress potential employers. Everything else is extra.
Jennifer Nicole Sullivan is a copywriter for Real Simple magazine in New York City. She’s also a fashion, arts and entertainment contributing writer for the weekly newsmagazine Newport Mercury in Newport, R.I. The Dallas native is a former features reporter at Corpus Christi Caller- Times. She has degrees in theater and radio-TV-film from The University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. in English from The University of Rhode Island. Visit JenniferNicoleSullivan.com and follow her on Twitter @trendyjenny.
Tags: advice, career, entry level positions, Excellence in Journalism, generation j, Jennifer Nicole Sullivan, job, job hunting, Newport Mercury, Real Simple, resume, young journalists
October 26th, 2011 at 5:14 pm
Great list. A solid resume for a recent-college grad should be just one page long. I do disagree about leaving off references, though.
Unless things have changed since I applied for jobs in newsrooms, the folks who do the hiring often have a lot of other things on their plates and they don’t have a lot of time contacting applicants to ask for references.
My advice is to always make it as easy as possible for someone to hire you, and that means including reference names and contact information on a resume. This can still be done on a one-page resume, especially if it is divided into columns to allow for more efficient use of space.
October 27th, 2011 at 9:34 pm
Jennifer, this is a great article with very specific, easily applicable tips. And timely too! I did mock interviews today with my daughter’s high school career class today, and they could have used these tips. Great advice! My own bit of advice: make sure your resume and cover letter do not have any typos, misspellings, punctuation errors, etc. Attention to detail is critical, particularly for journalists.