How long should a résumé be in 2026? One page, with exceptions
Recruiters skim before they read. Length is not a morality contest. It is a signal about whether every line earns its place on a first pass.
Default to one page
For most individual-contributor and early-manager roles, one US Letter page is still the right default. A dense, single-column page with clear dates and quantified bullets is easier to scan than a padded two-pager.
If you cannot fill one page with evidence you can defend in an interview, the problem is not the template. The problem is missing stories. Talking through the work usually surfaces the numbers a blank page never does.
When two pages earn their keep
Two pages can be honest for senior operators, researchers, and people with long client or publication lists that a hiring manager actually needs. The second page has to add evidence, not repetition. If page two restates the same soft skills with different adjectives, cut it.
Federal applications, academic CVs, and some regulated hiring packets follow different rules. Those documents are not the same product as a recruiter-facing one-pager.
How to cut without losing the story
- Keep one strong bullet over three vague ones.
- Drop duties that any peer in the role would also claim.
- Prefer a concrete result over a responsibility list.
- Remove contact clutter, skills duplicates, and unused sections.
VoxResume's consumer path is built around that one-page constraint: a voice interview that inventories evidence, then a generated résumé that must fit one page without inventing claims.