CA Student recruiting dilemnas: Should I have a 1 or 2 page resume?
It's come to my attention that students at some schools are drilled into believing that the 1-page resume is where it's at, and they'd be fools to do otherwise.
This is, of course, complete and utter nonsense.
It's like being extremely hungry after hiking up a mountain and stopping at just one delicious burger, when there's a second one available, ready to sate your hunger.
Of course, that analogy can be painfuly stretched to answer the question, "so when should I stick to one page?"
The answer is simple: if you only have one page of valuable information to share, just stop there. In other words, if you're full after one burger, eating a second one would be silly.
If you lack part-time jobs, have very few extra-curricular activites, and otherwise have a very "skimpy" resume, then one page is of course more than enough.
People asking me this question, however, are typically applying for a job at a Big 4 firm where they'll typically become a CA or CPA student.
The competition for openings is fierce. Yes, you'll normally need to score some strong referrals - even if they're from the recruiters you meet at the September recruiting events.
But those won't take you very far if your cover letter and resume are both weak. If you're considering cutting out a section of accomplishments and
skills to avoid going past the one page mark, don't. Include it. Remember to catalogue all the Good Things you've been doing, either as personal development or for the Benefit of Society. These are things you'll want to include on your resume - unless
you write something insane, it'll be to your benefit.
We'll get into a bit more detail on these recruiting topics in the next post.