Seriously... I've gone through 18 in one day and the majority have supplied a 3+ (up to 10!) pages of resume not including cover page.

This is for an entry level technical position. I guess if this is a kid's first shot at a job outside college they do feel it's necessary to include high school information but at what point does someone tell these people that reviewers don't want to read this stuff.

A half to full page cover letter, and 1-2 pages for your technical resume or vita is all that is needed. If you can't fit it into that amount of space, info needs to be culled!

I learned junior year at A&M when I was at career fair and got an interview with CAT. After the 30 minute interview he goes a few things:

Resume should be one page and leave off your high school stuff....nobody cares about that anymore.

Career center in college. 1 page allowed for each degree. (BA/BS=1, MA/MS=2, ph.d/professional school=3).

At least that's what I was told. When you tailor to each job, you shouldn't need more space than that.

Edit- but most college kids today try to do everything on their own. Google "How to write a resume". You could probably find several sites that don't follow these rules.

Mine is three, but that includes cover page, work experience, and project list (construction) as this is what recruiters/HR usually ask for.

I agree with the above, 1 for each degree.

3 with cover page is perfectly fine.

I try to keep mine 3 (resume, cover, references)

1 completely full page

All I have on it is college and my 6+ years worth of experience.

Should make your job a lot easier. If you don't know how to write a resume then you probably aren't qualified for the job.

New grad should keep a resume to 1 page, period.

I had to prepare a few different styles of a resume in a technical writing course in college. As others have mentioned, the career center can help as well.

Common sense and a little googling should do it.

Depends on the new grad. I started working at 15 and had a different internship every summer in college. Most of my jobs only got 1 line, but it still adds up pretty quickly.

It's been long enough that I should update my resume, and I'm having a hard time seeing how to keep it to two pages without cutting out things that I really don't want to lose.

Jayel, I would say that for ms and PhDs an additional page with published writing is welcomed. True if you can fit it in one do it, no reason to drag it out.

How would y'all advise a veteran college grad on resume updating? How often should it be done?How much space should military experience be given? In my case I only have 5 years Army as a junior NCO. Worked on campus at TAMU then got hired immediately after graduation. I've kept my resume to one page by cutting out my early student worker experience. Do I still need to keep relevant course classes listed?

I would only keep relevant coursework if it is a technical job that needed a specific skill learned in that class, and you have no work experience in that particular skill.

Depends on field. I would be more interested in your relevant experience in the army than your old course work if it was over ten years ago.

The reality of you remembering info from the course work is very low, so your experience would mean more to me as a reviewer and hirer than what you did or took in college.

I don't consider coursework relevant.

Cover pages are useless. Everybody already knows you are a goal oriented individual that is a self starter seeking a career with a company that will both challenge you professionally as well as provide opportunity to advance up the corporate ladder and that you are a team player.

The resume we use in our proposals for me is 2 pages, but I'm always changing it to make it more relevant to the type of project we are bidding on. If I were to include all of my relevant work history, it'd be 15 pages easy.

2-3 pages max, including the most relevant work history and something personal as well as the standard fare of education, training, certs, etc. that everybody thinks are extremely important.

I look at 100s of resumes every day.
Could not tell you hiw long most are.

Of course, I look at 2-3 things depending on the position.

I have never read a cover letter and I have never read a resume word for word.

And that's 100 per day over 18 years.

My god. I don't know how you're sane still.

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Depends on the new grad. I started working at 15 and had a different internship every summer in college. Most of my jobs only got 1 line, but it still adds up pretty quickly.

It's been long enough that I should update my resume, and I'm having a hard time seeing how to keep it to two pages without cutting out things that I really don't want to lose.

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Your work experience at 15 in hourly mcjobs is not relevant.

It's hard to cut out things that you did or were proud of but going beyond 2 pages might actually work against you. I had a long resume and got that feedback recently and after I cut back to just the essentials I ended up getting the job I wanted, interviews, etc. I think it had something to do with it to outside companies, HR, recruiters. As mentioned above they don't have time to read it all and they are just scanning for some buzzwords.

A summary of tricks I used:

Formatting - I created sections with two columns under my job headings to more efficiently use space for bullet points of noteworthy things. Saved some room and I got to put more examples of things I accomplished in those sections

Grouping - instead of one job after another chronologically, I grouped positions I have held based on similar experience. Technical roles all go in one section. Leadership roles in another section. Depending on the job elaborate on one or the other.

Table - who says everything needs to be in line by line format? I made a table of software, technical training, certifications, and management skills courses I have taken with headings of each. It was another efficient use of space where I was able to put in the skills I have accumulated but saved me some space and I didn't have to leave out as much.

Font size, spacing, margins - kind of like above but see where you can skimp and buy yourself more room by extending into the margins, reducing font size and spacing. It has to be readable but it doesn't need to be all in 12 pt font.

Good luck!

I cut everything prior to graduating college out a long time ago. Even when I was going for my first "real" job I had already cut my first job out... the real issue was that I had an unusually "good" job my senior year in high school and I didn't want to leave gaps in my work history (looking back I doubt it would have made a difference at that age).

Since then, rather than moving within a silo, I've moved from silo to silo, including each time I've moved up. New experience has rarely superseded previous experience, so it's hard to cut a project or bullet without losing something unique.

I keep mine one page. If they want more stuff, they just have look at my Linkedin. It has everything!

Tech Writing helped out in college! We made our own resumes and pretend we applied for Disney, since anyone could work for Disney.

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Since then, rather than moving within a silo, I've moved from silo to silo, including each time I've moved up. New experience has rarely superseded previous experience, so it's hard to cut a project or bullet without losing something unique.

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Without knowing the details I still think you could be creative and group some of those a little more. I moved to 3 different manufacturing sites and different jobs/technologies. That was once important to my resume as an engineer when applying to roles above that (technical lead roles) and I had it all fleshed out with examples from each site. As a manager now that is no longer important and I group all that experience together.

In other words, you need to do some tailoring to the job you are applying for as well. The same resume won't necessarily fit each position and you may want to highlight different projects or bullets. That'll save you space. Also, fit twice as many per heading by creating a 2 column wide table (without outlines of course) in Word. You probably need no more than 6-8 bullets for each, correct? That'll take 3-4 lines in this format. Much better use of space. Can't fit it side by side? You are probably using too much detail. Reduce font size for the bullet points and use concise wording.

Hope all that helps - I was just in your shoes with a 4 page resume that I took down to 2, so just offering the tips I used.

I graduated May 2014. Mine was 1 page with "References available upon request" on the bottom. A separate page I provided only if they wanted it.

The career center tells students they should drop all of their high school stuff. There isn't too much harm keeping some of that stuff there through sophomore year. By the time you are a junior, high school should gone.

The real problem is people not using resources. There are thousands of resume examples online. The career center does a good job helping students create a resume. In September they held "Resume-nia" with career center and industry people reviewing resume during the career fair cycle.

The career center can not force a student to use their services. I wonder what percentage of the student body uses career center services

Google

I can honestly say that I never did, but COSC was also pretty good about providing pretty much the same thing internally back when I was a student.

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I graduated May 2014. Mine was 1 page with "References available upon request" on the bottom. A separate page I provided only if they wanted it.

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Great. But even references available upon request is no longer neccessary.

I trash all resumes that are longer than one page

Google Image Search

I've worked 28 years in the DoD (C/O '86) as an engineer working for contractors and as a federal employee. I've done a lot of things in a lot of places. My resume is exactly ONE page. No cover. The point is to get them to ask about things that pique their interest. Giving too much info in a resume leads the reader to draw conclusions and lose interest in picking up the phone.

But that is just my dos centavos

I have done some hiring in the past. Quite honestly, it would take a lot for me to look at more than one page. Don't try to stuff your resume with BS. Interviewers can spot it quickly. These were the type of resumes I'd put on a "I'll look at them later if I need to" pile.

List your skills in bullet format and make sure they are to the point.

My focus was on 2 areas.
1. Knowledge - Do the resume indicate knowledge of the position and requirements.

2. Skills - Does the candidate possess some of the skills required for the job.

These are obvious areas for sure but if you bog your skills and knowledge in a resume that is long and hard to read, chances are you may get passed over.

i wish you the best of luck.