Your CV is a showcase of your skills, talents, experience, and attributes and a crucial document for helping employers determine if you are the best candidate for the job.
If your CV is too long, you might put a hiring manager off reading it, or your unique selling points can become lost and less evident within a vast amount of text. If your CV is too short, you might have missed opportunities to sell yourself and describe why an employer should hire you.
In this article, we look at how many pages long your CV should be.
How long should my CV Be?
The ideal CV length should be less than three pages, and for most individuals and roles, one page is sufficient. However, you should never sacrifice important and relevant content to shorten the length of your CV.
In each section, you should focus on getting your message across and maintaining a practical, efficient, and presentable structure. If you are a graduate, your CV might have little work experience to expand upon. If this is the case for you, create depth and highlight your skills and achievements demonstrated in degree modules, projects, or volunteer work.
If your CV appears exceptionally long with lots of job history, you should consider reducing this section. The best tact is to read the recruiter’s job description and only include the amount of experience they are looking for. It is rarely required to cover positions held more than fifteen years ago. However, academic and scientific roles might justice a three-page resume.
What should your CV include?
The elements that your CV should include are:
- Contact information
- A personal statement (introduction/CV summary)
- Education and qualifications
- Work history and internships
- Awards, certifications, and licences
- Professional memberships
- Publications, TED talks, or similar
- Foreign languages
- Relevant hobbies or interests
What you can exclude from your CV?
If your CV is long, the elements you can exclude are:
- References
- Religion, beliefs, and nationality
- Marital status and sexuality
- Previous salary
- Reasons for leaving previous jobs
- Photos or headshots
- GCSEs and A levels if you have a degree
Reducing margins and font size
It is possible to get more information on fewer pages by decreasing page margins and the font size. However, the hiring manager still needs to be able to effortlessly read your CV, so it is inadvisable to reduce the font below 11pt. You can also reduce the white space on your CV and opt for single line breaks.
Key takeaways
The ideal CV length is one or two pages, and length does not equal merit or value. Unnecessary Fluff' is sure to put a prospective employer off. Ensure the information you include is relevant to the job vacancy and highlight the skills, traits, qualifications, experience, and abilities the employer mentions in their job description.
CV template examples
For further help writing a one or two-page CV, view our CV templates and read our career advice.
- Accounting CV template
- Agriculture CV template
- Arts CV template
- Automotive CV template
- Banking CV template
- Charity CV template
- Construction CV template
- Customer Services CV template
- Education CV template
- Engineering CV template
- Environmental CV template
- Facilities Management CV template
- Finance CV template
- Healthcare CV template
- Hospitality and Leisure CV template
- Human Resources (HR) CV template
- Information Technology (IT) CV template
- Leadership CV template
- Legal CV template
- Manufacturing CV template
- Marketing CV template
- Media CV template
- Office Administration CV template
- Personal Care CV template
- Professional Services CV template
- Public Sector CV template
- Retail CV template
- Sales CV template
- Science CV template
- Social Care CV template
- Telecommunications CV template
- Transportation and Logistics CV template
