One page or two, and how to decide

The single page is a discipline, not a law. Here is who it serves, what a second page costs you, and how to fit one page without losing the evidence.

ConxfolioPublished 2026-09-12

— the second page must earn its paper.

The single-page résumé is a discipline that works because it forces a choice. It is not a law, and applying it to a twenty-year career deletes the evidence that makes the career worth reading about. The useful question is what the second page would carry.

When one page is right

While you are studying, in your first and second jobs, and anywhere the single page is the local convention. Also whenever your current second page is made of filler: an interests line, a references sentence, three modules from a degree you finished eight years ago. A reader who turns the page and finds that has been charged for the trip.

When two pages are right

When the second page carries evidence the reader needs. Several substantial recent roles. A publication or research list. A body of project work that is the point of your application. In those cases the second page is doing the job of the first, and cutting it costs you.

How to fit one page without deleting evidence

• Compress the oldest roles to a line each. Title, employer, years. The detail up front is what gets read.
• Delete the duplicates. Every skill appearing in both the list and three bullet points is paid for four times.
• Rewrite two-row lines into one row. A line that wraps by three words usually has three words of throat-clearing at the front. The verb guide covers the cut.
• Move the additional sections. Interests, references and memberships come off before any achievement line does.
• Change the design before you change the type size. Some of the 37 layouts set tighter than others at the same size.

What not to do

Do not drop to eight-point type, and do not squeeze the margins until the text touches the edge, which some printers cut off. Do not delete the dates to save room: a history without dates reads as concealment, and the check here treats missing experience evidence as a serious loss, up to thirty points of completeness.

The second page in practice

Put your name and the page number on it as ordinary body text. Never let a role break across the page boundary if you can avoid it, because the first two lines of a role are the ones that matter and the reader may not carry them over. End the page on a section boundary where you can.

Deciding with both versions in front of you

In the résumé builder, save a version before you cut. Make the one-page version, look at both, and send the one that reads better rather than the one that follows a rule. The versions are kept in this browser, so going back costs nothing.

Then run the ATS checker on the version you intend to send. If the shorter one scores materially lower, the cut took evidence with it, and the report names which rule lost the points. Readable volume reaches its ceiling at two hundred and fifty words, so a well-made single page can score exactly as well as two.

What a reader does with the second page

Often nothing, on the first pass. They read the first half of page one, decide whether to continue, and only then turn over. That is an argument for putting the strongest evidence high rather than an argument against a second page, and it changes what belongs where: the best role, the best figures and the clearest summary all belong above the fold of page one.

It also means a second page that repeats page one earns nothing. Where the second page exists to hold older roles and a qualification, one line each is enough, and the guide to how far back to go covers the compression.

Printing and sending

Where a document may be printed, keep margins that survive a printer's unprintable edge and avoid ending a page mid-role. Where it will only be read on screen, page boundaries matter less and scrolling continuity matters more, which is another reason to keep sections whole. The page size is set in the Page and sections panel of the résumé builder, and switching between A4 and US Letter moves where everything falls, so set it before you spend an hour on the fit.