How many pages should your resume be?

I've seen one page. It's important to note that a resume for MBA admissions is target resume different from applying for a job in your field. I'm in engineering and we usually list all the projects I've worked on but for school I just highlight the "super" projects. A school resume is more of a brag sheet than typical job duties.

Do some searching and you can find some example student (1st and 2nd year) resumes. SHow the school you can "fit" and craft it in a similar fashion. Just my opinion.

I empathize. I've unfortunately held 4 jobs in the 4 years since my college graduation. I held a number of part-time work positions during college as well.

The solution proposed to me was to list my college work experience on my application, but keep it off of my resume so I can emphasize my full-time work experience on that 1 page's worth of precious resume real estate.

Haven't looked at Stanford's application, but perhaps it will allow you to do the same?

Don't go beyond 1 page. I know several people who held several (4+) different positions before school and they all fit their stuff in 1 page. Unless you are a Ph D. candidate (in which case your resume would list research and papers), make it fit.

Tips:
- Use Arial narrow 9.
- Fit the name and address part in 1 or 2 lines (don't use 5 lines for street, zip, city, phone #, etc.).
- Edit! List around 3 or 4 accomplishment for the 2 most recent jobs and use less space for the rest.
- Edit ECs and other stuff, as well. If, for eg, you speak 4 languages, don't list each on a single line along with some certifications. Cluster them together.
- It takes a while (and it feels bad to cut some good stuff) but it should fit in the end.



L.

not sure if this is ideal, but the format I'm following is laying out the company name and breaking down each role I've had within the company. Thus far, I've had 3 roles and am giving 3-4 bullet points to each. This gives me just enough space to put in some info about college ECs or to put in college internships - I'll need to fiddle a bit to get them all in there! This approach also let's me show career progression without having to say "hey guess what! I got promoted!"

cheers,
ac.

Even if you are in academics, I wouldn't go beyond a single-page resume. Full citations of abstracts and papers would belong on a CV. A resume should feature pretty brief descriptions, i.e. "Multiple first-author publications regarding X in Journal of Y and The Z Journal." If you do have more room you can get more descriptive, but you get my drift.

In target resumes, NYU's LPDP also suggest making each bullet two lines so you can give more information that the reader would understand to show how outstanding it was. NYU also recommends quantifying everything you can so it's not so hand-wavy general. I.e. how many project under budget, what % safety rating, how much did you raise ($), what % of company revenue did you manage, how many people, etc.

ONE page, unless you have more than 10 yrs of WE, then you should apply to Exec MBA.

check out the Knowledge Vault for more links talking about resumes and tips and tricks.

terry, i can't imagine how your resume would be just one page.

very small font, small margins, and concise wording.

Seriously. Each resume comes with a magnifying glass.

Kid, is that a crack at my age?

It actually wasn't too difficult. Med school got a line or two. Summarizing medical training was a bit challenging within the confines of bullet points, but I eventually figured out something workable.

In any event, I'm told that most of the firms I'm going to be looking at (medically-related, non-banking/consulting) typically want to look at a full CV anyway. So I'll need to make sure I keep the ol' CV up to date.

While I was filling out the HBS 2+2 application last week, applicants are given the option to submit a 2-page resume. I was a little confused by this because I had read somewhere else in their application materials that they wanted a 1-page resume. So I called the admissions office and asked about the length of the resume. I was told that while HBS allowed a 2-page resume for that application, they strongly encouraged and preferred a 1-page resume.

I know that this is for the 2+2 program, which caters to college students, but thought it was interesting none the less. Take it for what it's worth.

Your age? haha I'm not that far behind.

Bingo!

2 pages for college students? That is a lot. I think I had Blockbuster Video on my resume in college. hahaha

This is interesting...I have 5 years of consulting experience, and have probably worked on over 15+ projects over the years. How do I fit a project based career, each one different, on a single page....

Either small fonts, or you will have to prioritize your projects and just list the top 6 or 8 ones.

No, don't do small fonts. It has to be readable. Make sure you have plenty of white space too. What you really should do is put it in the school's standardized format, since that will be the format the adcoms are most familiar with.

I think the one-pager is usually standard in b-school because there are so many resume books, both those provided by the school as well as the clubs. I've never seen a multiple pg resume in a resume book.

A resume is not a place to list everything you have ever done. It's a place for highlights, to just give them a taste and get the juices flowing so they want to call you for an interview. If it can't be read in 15 seconds, don't even bother.

Do not use smaller fonts, do not widen margins and do not include anything that isn't attention grabbing. Does someone really want to know the details about your role as a junior analyst on a project from 4 years ago? Could it possibly be that different from the experience of the thousands of other junior analysts that come out of college each year? Yawn...

My interview resume had college and two advanced degrees (one in progress of course), a year each at two different law firms (a dozen or more deals at each) and 4+ years as an entrepreneur running an international business ringing up sales up to $3mm+ annually - beleive me lots of stories and experiences. I was able to fit everything comfortably onto one page, with room to spare to talk about wine collecting.

Type up everything that you think you might want to include, and then sit back, pretend you are an adcom or recruiter, look at each line and ask yourself "why would I give a crap about this"? If you still can't cut it down to a page, you shouldn't be applying to business school, you should be running a company, or for congress or something.