Resume over 1 page for non traditional student? Forum

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DistrictDisaster

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Resume over 1 page for non traditional student?

Post by DistrictDisaster » Tue Sep 19, 2017 11:39 am

My current draft resume is 1.5 pages. I have advanced degrees and now work in legal research. Right now I have education / honors in the top 1/3 of page 1, professional experience filling up the rest of page 1 (kept myself to 1-2 bullet points except for 3 for my current job, and left off stuff that didn't seem to matter), and have service filling up the top half of page 2. Was planning on adding a very brief personal/interests section at the bottom of that.

So....too long? Force it to 1 page? I honestly don't think I can. If I'm going over 1 page, does it look weird to have it be 1.5? Should I go up from 10 point to 11 point TNR and see if I can get it to fully fill the 2 pages better? Thanks!

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cavalier1138

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Re: Resume over 1 page for non traditional student?

Post by cavalier1138 » Tue Sep 19, 2017 11:41 am

You can go over one page for submitting to law schools, but you're eventually going to have to cut it down to one page. Now's as good a time as any to do that.

Also, I've never seen someone include a separate section for "Service" on their resume, so that may be something you can drop and allude to volunteer work in special interests/activities.

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A. Nony Mouse

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Re: Resume over 1 page for non traditional student?

Post by A. Nony Mouse » Tue Sep 19, 2017 12:01 pm

Service is common in academic c.v.s, and often includes stuff that would be pertinent.

Going over one page for law school admissions is fine. I don't agree that you need to cut it down now; ad comms aren't reading resumes for the same purpose as employers. And 1.5 is fine too. If it just looks bad aesthetically feel free to monkey with the font size till you like how it looks, but don't feel you have to spread it out if you go to 2 pp.

(I also applied to jobs as a law student with a 2-pp resume and did fine, so I don't actually agree you're absolutely going to have to cut it down in future, either. It may be that your specific resume *is* one that can be better cut to one page, but it may not be.)

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DistrictDisaster

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Re: Resume over 1 page for non traditional student?

Post by DistrictDisaster » Tue Sep 19, 2017 1:28 pm

Thanks to both of you for your opinions. I'm sort of inclined to say I won't be able to crunch down to 1 page. At my age, with multiple jobs in the legal field plus other (aka a few too many) degrees, it just doesn't compress without leaving things out. I promise I'm not including my high school job scooping ice cream etc.

And yes, I'd hate to remove my service stuff as it shows that I've always been involved in service when at school, as well as through work / my current (hopefully not for long) profession.

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UVA2B

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Re: Resume over 1 page for non traditional student?

Post by UVA2B » Tue Sep 19, 2017 1:33 pm

It'll be fine for admissions, and your career services will let you know whether you're the type of job applicant that can have a >1 page resume when it comes to applying for jobs, but as someone pretty similar in length/breadth of prior employment, I'll just say that I got it down to one page, and I'm skeptical that your experience can't be truncated enough to get it to one page, but I'm not looking at your resume. Just be prepared to follow the advice of your career services when the time comes, because they might take a buzzsaw to your resume in order to make it a single page.

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