How Long is your CV?

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Mines starting to go onto three pages now

 

Try to keep it short, 2 pages max. You've probably got a lot of info in there which is no longer appropriate when directing your cover letter (which should always be customized) to a potential employer, along with a customized CV that contains the perfect balance of experience and information.

Most HR people will glance at the first page and may even forget about anything else. If the first page doesn't have the most crucial information there for them to see at a first glance, it's not a good sign.

I know experts in many fields that get by on a single page, and have no problems getting hired, or even requested for interviews.

Mine is 1.5 pages, although the second page mostly contains information which is often not considered experience related, maybe just a line or two about the languages I can speak and write in, my hobbies, and some of my earliest studies and the like. The meat of info is on the first and main page.

 

60cm.

 

mine for years was 2 pages as I was always told this was the maximum it should be. About 1 year ago an agency whom I have a good relationship with the consultant there said it should be longer due to my experience in IT as simply put I couldn't fit all of my experience onto 2 pages and should go into more depth on my skills. Looking back I tend to think she was right and my CV is now much better and gets my skill set across to potential employers.

I personally don't think there is a definitive answer as you use as many pages as needed to sell yourself as long as it's not full of drivel and doesn't read like a novel and gets to the point.

 

3 pages, because thats the space I require.

Edit: I could easily reduce it to 2 without too much effort to be fair, but My front page is four things:

1) Contact Details
2) Profile
3) Key skills
4) Key achievements.

pages 2 & 3 are educational, and experience histories.

 

3 pages, layout similar to Fergals.
I could do with trimming it down a bit though.

 

3 pages, the older you get the more that needs to go on it (I also trim previous roles the older they get).

 

Might wanna drop that couple mil to make it 2 pages only Jonny

Mine is 2 pages but it's becoming a struggle to keep it like that. Got to the stage where everything is relevant but some things are more relevant than the others. Yay me!

 

The wife is always asking me to lose a couple of inches, but, hey, you get what you're given...

 

Same here... CV would be way too long otherwise. HR might not care too much about the finer stuff I did 3 or 4 companies back, so I make it to the point on the work and skills most relevant to the position I would hope to get as time goes on.

For example: say I worked at company X and Y. In them, 5% of my job was to manage a SOHO firewall or Juniper setup, but 50% of my work was related to managing AD or Exchange.
Now I'm looking to get hired by company Z that is looking for an AD or Exchange admin.
What I would be doing by now is to shorten up the releavant sections on work experience at company X and Y, and instead I would add a section on"software/hardware firewall experience" into a general 'skills' table.
This keeps the CV length down, still might show that I have skills in this or that, but as it was a very small part of my job and not relevant to the now position I am hoping to get hired into, it's pretty much time to just drop it from those sections.

This is even more relevant to us in IT in that many of us start out by doing help desk jobs, fixing printers, etc, but ten years down the road we're fully fleshed system admins and getting down a road where we are increasingly specialized in a smaller subset of technologies. And so some stuff just has to go in the end...

They can still be brought up when HR wants to know more about your background, but ultimately they are interested in hearing about your skills in A or B, the products you will be working in at the new company.

 

Mine's 4 pages long, 9 pt Arial and has shallow margins all-round. I've never had anyone tell me it's too long

 

Sounds like you created it in publisher!
My CV is private like other things although............. show me yours and if I'm impressed ill show you mine!

 

2 pages, with employment history going back to 1989.

 

I'm actually on 2.5 pages, my first page containing relevant skills, contact details, personal statement and further education. other 1.5 pages containing work experience of the last two employers because I haven't been in IT for too long, I need to squeeze every last drop out of previous employers, so that when the potential employer decides from the first page that I'm worth looking into, they don't dismiss me because I decided to keep it too 1 page of work experience.

So as many as needed, although trimming the older stuff as you go along. I think keeping it at 2.5 / 3 pages is the max, that's about in depth of the last 2/3 employers plus the first page of standard info.

 

Same here but I'll push it to 3 pages if and when required.

Always got to have one that's just a bit bigger than everyone else!

 

mines 2 pages as well, you'll want to wait for phoenix to jump on this thread I think his is a mini novel.

 

I heard once that the bible is actually based on his life story.