How long should a resume be?

As the title says.

Seeing as I come from a legal background, a lot of my work experience is related to that field (i.e. over 4 years had 6 internships).

Because I quit my job at my law firm after 5 months, I didnt feel I needed to place that on my resume as I dont wanna seem flaky or someone who is not there for the long term and because I'm moving away from that sector.

Over the past 6 months I have had 2 internships and starting another next month.

Plus with my extra curricular (sports and student governments), my resume is quite long and goes into almost 4 pages.

My question is is it OK for me to start to remove older WE from say 2008 to make space as clearly 4 pages is too long.

Do you reckon it matters upon industries as well. I'm getting into public sector consulting at one of the larger consulting firms (i.e. MBB, Oliver Wyman, Roland Berger etc)

(Would have stuck my resume up but that Razume website is not working!)

12 Comments
 

Don't use more than 1 page unless you are going for some research or medical position or smth like that. Take off all the irrelevant internships. 3 or 4 tops, unless they are really good. Shorten the bullet points. If it still doesn't fit, reduce the font, the margins and the spacing. If it still doesn't fit, you have 15 years experience or you are doing something wrong.

 

I had the same problem a couple of years ago. 3 to 4 pages. If you take a good and critical look at it, 80% is junk. Some bulletpoints are irrelevant (if you get an interview you can mention them). If you name specific courses that you followed during your education, skip it. Just name what is really important to an industry that you apply too (such as cum laude, best of class, high GPAs, specialization). State 1 or 2 of the most important activities that you have done during internship or whatsoever. When I did that, I got one page left (wide margins), and it became a lot easier to get invited by companies for an interview (either internship or job).

 

Remember, and I know you've been posting around here a lot, so you know this, these guys are just glancing at these resumes. Only put stuff on there that is specifically relevant to finance or something amazing you did that sets you apart from the rest of the rat pack. Check out some of the resumes on the resume board and the critiques of them, that should help give you an idea of what people do right/wrong. Generally speaking if you have less than 5 years experience you should not be going over a page. In fact, I wouldn't go over a page unless you're at the VP/MD level

"You stop being an asshole when it sucks to be you." -IlliniProgrammer "Your grammar made me wish I'd been aborted." -happypantsmcgee
 

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