How long should a CV be, by country and by career stage

How long should a CV be: the short answer

One page if you are looking for your first job or have a few years of experience. Two pages at most if your career, told through concrete achievements, does not fit on one. Three only in specific cases: very long careers in countries where that is common, or academic and public-sector applications with their own format.

Behind that answer is a simple idea: length is a consequence, not a goal. Whoever screens your CV reads the top first and decides in seconds whether to carry on. The second page only gets read if the first one worked. So the useful question is not «one page or two?» but «what does this person need to see in the first few lines, and what else adds to it?».

What the guidance says in each country

No law sets the length of a CV, but public employment services, job portals and universities publish guidance on what is expected in each country. This is the rule we found written down in each one, and who says it. Where the source is a university or a portal rather than a public body, the table says so.

The pattern is clear: in Europe and Argentina the ceiling is two pages; Mexico, Colombia and Chile are more tolerant of long careers, although the advice for most people is still to keep it short.

Why «always one page» is only half true

The one-page rule comes mainly from the United States and is repeated as if it applied everywhere. It makes sense for students and people with little experience, because it forces you to choose. Applied to someone with fifteen years behind them, it forces them to drop exactly what sets them apart.

The only study with numbers on this is a simulation by ResumeGo, a US company that sells CV writing, with 482 people experienced in hiring. Each one-page CV had a two-page counterpart with a similar career but more content (700 to 850 words against 350 to 500). Participants picked the two-page versions more often, and the gap widened with the seniority of the role.

Read it with care: it was run by a company that sells the service, it was a simulation and it was not published in a journal. What it does show clearly is that cutting achievements to squeeze everything onto one page has a cost, especially for experienced roles.

The right length for your years of experience

This is the criterion we use at Cernoria. It combines the guidance in the table above with a practical idea: every line of the CV has to answer something the advert asks for or show a result. If it does neither, it goes, even if there is room.

What goes on the first page

If your CV runs to two pages, the first one has to be enough on its own to get you a call. France Travail, France's public employment service, puts it like this: the first page carries what matters most for the job you are applying for; the second carries older experience, additional skills or more detail on what you said above.

In practice, the first page holds these, in this order:

• Your name, the role you are aiming for and your contact details, in two or three lines.
• A personal statement of three or four lines on what you do and what sets you apart for this advert.
• Your current or most recent job, with its achievements, and the one before if it is relevant.
• The skills and languages the advert asks for, if they do not fit anywhere else.

What to cut first, in order

When a CV runs long, the temptation is to shrink the font and the margins. That is the last thing to touch: a cramped CV reads worse than a longer one. Cut content first, and where you start matters. This is the order we follow at Cernoria, from what nobody misses to what is hardest to lose.

1. 1
   Personal details the advert does not ask for

   Full address, date of birth, marital status, nationality. None of them helps you get shortlisted. Your town, phone, email and, if you have one, your LinkedIn link are enough.

2. 2
   A generic career objective

   «Seeking a challenging role in a leading company» takes three lines and says nothing. Replace it with a short personal statement written for this advert, or drop it.

3. 3
   Jobs from more than fifteen years ago

   Keep them to one line each with title, employer and years, or group them under «Earlier experience». What you did twenty years ago rarely decides an interview today.

4. 4
   Duties without results

   «Responsible for customer service» is obvious from the job title. Drop the obvious duties and keep the achievements that show what changed because of your work.

5. 5
   Short courses that are not relevant

   Keep the qualifications and certificates the advert asks for or that show something the rest of the CV does not. The rest can go.

6. 6
   Skills everyone assumes

   Microsoft Office, teamwork, being proactive. If an achievement does not prove it, it adds nothing.

7. 7
   Only then, the layout

   Margins of at least 1.5 centimetres, a font size of 10 to 11 points and a line of space between sections. If it still does not fit after the six steps above, your CV is two pages long, and that is fine.

A worked example: from three pages to two

An invented case to see the order in action. Daniel Example is a logistics manager with 18 years of experience across five employers, and his CV ran to three pages. He is applying for a head of distribution role at a consumer goods company with a warehouse in the Midlands.

When a longer CV is the right call

Sometimes the length is set by whoever is recruiting. Academic posts, many public-sector roles and research fellowships ask for their own format, sometimes with publications, teaching or projects in detail. There you follow what they ask for, even if it is ten pages: a two-page CV for an application that wants the full detail reads as incomplete.

The same goes for technical or consulting profiles that attach a project list. The CV stays at one or two pages and the list goes in as an appendix, so whoever needs it can read it.

The check before you send it

Before you send your CV, look at it as a PDF, exactly as the employer will receive it, and answer these questions.

• Is the first page enough on its own to see why you fit this advert?
• Is every page full, with no stray quarter page?
• Do jobs from more than fifteen years ago take up one line each?
• Is there any personal detail, course or skill the advert does not ask for and that proves nothing?
• Can the text be read comfortably without zooming in, with normal margins?
• Have you followed any length or format the advert asks for?