How Long Should My Resume Be? One Page or Two?
Short answer: it depends on the employer's country and how many years of experience you have, not on a single universal rule. A resume that is exactly right for a US recruiter can look thin to a UK one, and a CV that reads as complete in Germany can get flagged as unfocused in the US. Length is a market convention, the same as photos or date of birth — it doesn't travel automatically.
The US: one page is the strong default
In the US, a one-page resume is expected for most candidates, including many with ten or more years of experience. US recruiters typically spend under 10 seconds on a first pass, and a second page often just doesn't get opened. The one-page limit forces you to cut to only the achievements relevant to this job — which is also why it's treated as a proxy for how well you can prioritize, not just a formatting rule. A two-page resume is accepted in the US mainly for senior/executive roles (typically 15+ years) or deep technical roles where a skills/publications list genuinely needs the space.
UK, Canada, Australia: two pages is normal, three is too many
Outside entry-level roles, a two-page CV is the standard expectation in the UK, Canada, and Australia — condensing a real career onto one page can read as under-qualified rather than concise. The ceiling is still firm, though: three pages reads as unedited in all three markets, the same way one page reads as thin.
Continental Europe: length norms vary more, but the CV holds more
In Germany, France, and much of continental Europe, a CV (not called a "resume") of two to three pages is common and often includes fields a US resume never would — date of birth, nationality, sometimes a photo (see our photo guide) — because the document is doing more than a US resume does. This isn't the CV being unfocused; it's a different document convention with a different information load.
The variable that matters more than country: years of experience
Inside any single market, experience level shifts the expected length more than country does at the margins:
- 0–5 years: one page, almost everywhere. There usually isn't enough relevant experience to justify a second page, and padding it out reads worse than a tight one-pager.
- 5–15 years: one page in the US, one to two pages in the UK/Canada/Australia, two pages in continental Europe.
- 15+ years or executive-level: two pages becomes acceptable even in the US, since the case for the role increasingly rests on a career trajectory that one page can't show.
A quick decision list
- Employer in the US, under 15 years of experience → one page, no exceptions
- Employer in the US, 15+ years or executive-level → two pages is acceptable
- Employer in UK / Canada / Australia → two pages is the default, one page only if you're early-career, never three
- Employer in Germany / France / continental Europe → two to three pages, following the local CV format is expected, not a red flag
- Not sure which market the employer is actually hiring from (a global company, a remote role) → default to the tighter one-page US format; a hiring manager expecting two pages will not penalize a strong one-pager, but the reverse isn't true
Why "just cut it down" is harder than it sounds
Fitting a real career onto the right page count for the right market means deciding, line by line, what this specific job posting actually needs to see — not applying a uniform trim to everything. That's a different task each time you apply, and it's easy to either cut a genuinely relevant achievement or keep one that's just taking up space. JobFit Rewrite rewrites your resume for one specific job posting — matched to that market's length and format conventions, in natural English — for $19.