Ask HN: How long should an ideal resume be?

One of the things I was taught about CVs is don't put down your job responsibilities, put down what you achieved. For example, in my last role, I was responsible for debt recovery in the company so instead of saying:

"Managed a team of 4 paralegals with responsibility for debt recovery across the group"; I said:

"Created a debt recovery team of 4 paralegals and put in place processes to standardise debt recovery across group achieving X days reduction in DSO and recovered over £XXXXXX in legal costs and interest"

I honestly want to circular file any CVs with more than three pages though. They'd have to be a special candidate for me to consider them after that.

* Last 2 jobs, listing company, dates of employment & Job Title.

* List of Education / Certification (only relevant to the job)

* List of notable skills (written in a very broad manner, i.e : Administration of Windows, Linux and Mac OS X servers and major application packages.

Add a references on request line and contact details and I was done.

May not suit everyone but worked well going into a small and casual environment.

Remember, if you have to ask if something is relevant in your resume, you should leave it off!

Have you thought about supplementing your paper resume with a video resume? I actually just posted a blog article on the topic here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3655510

One preferred. Two at most. Online version highly preferred in addition to print out.

Information overload is not necessary. Not all 14 years are necessary to be put on there even if all 14 years are relevant. Tackle exactly what the job is looking for.

Expand in cover letter if necessary.

Fresh Grads to 1-2 Years of Work - 1 Pager 2 - beyond Years of Work - 2 Pager

Anything beyond 2 Pager should only be for C-Level