What Is a Resume? It Is an Argument, Not a Record

A resume is a one or two page document that argues you can do a particular job. That is the whole definition, and the important word in it is argues.

Most people write a record instead: everything they have done, in order, complete. A record is easier to write and much less useful, because completeness is not what the reader wants.

It is written for one job, not for your career

The reader has a role to fill and a stack of applications. They are not assessing your life. They are looking for evidence that you have done something close to this before.

So the same person applying for two different roles should send two different documents. Not a rewrite — the same jobs, the same dates — but a different top third, a different order of emphasis, different details kept and dropped.

If your resume has not changed in a year of applying, it is a record.

What is in it

• Your name and how to reach you. Email, phone, city. Not your full street address.
• A short summary — two or three lines saying what you do and at what level. Optional, but it is the first thing read.
• Work history, most recent first, with what changed under each job rather than what you were responsible for.
• Education. Near the top while you are a student, at the bottom once you have work behind you.
• Skills — concrete ones. Tools, languages, certifications.

What is not in it: a photo if you are applying in the US, UK, Canada or Australia; your age, marital status or nationality; "references available on request"; and an objective saying you are seeking a challenging role.

Resume, CV, and why the words swap depending on where you are

In the United States a resume is the short document described above, and a CV is the long academic one — every paper, every talk, running to many pages. They are different things and nobody confuses them.

In the UK, Ireland, and most of Europe, "CV" is simply the word for the short document. A British CV and an American resume are the same object with different names.

So when a European posting asks for a CV, it wants two pages, not twelve. When an American university does, it wants twelve.

Two readers, and one of them is software

Most applications are submitted through a system that stores your file and pulls text out of it. Your name, your employers, your dates and your job titles get read out of the document and put into fields.

That reading is done on geometry — where the letters sit on the page — not on how the layout looks to you. It is why a sidebar can end up interleaved with your job history, and why a heading with wide letter spacing can arrive split into single characters.

This is not a reason to be afraid of the software. It is a reason to keep the document ordinary: one column, real headings, a normal font, no tables. An ordinary resume reads correctly to both of your readers, and there is nothing a fancy one can do that is worth the risk of the plain one.

How long it should be

One page early in your career, two once you have the work to fill it. Not because two is a rule, but because a second page of leftovers is worse than no second page.

The test is simple. Cover the second page with your hand. If nothing important disappeared, it was overflow — see how long a resume should be.