You need that internship – badly. One of the first steps you will take toward nailing it down is a knock-the-ball-out-of-the-park remarkable resume. You need it to be ideal, and that begs a couple of queries. How do you get everything you need to say on just one-page resume, and is a two- or three-page resume really a issue? Is the length of a resume really that significant to employers?

The Bottom Line 

They are all good queries, but regrettably, there is not one easy, pat answer.

Your one-page resume should depict your education and professional experiences. For college students, this means relevant classes, volunteer work and activities can all be involved in your resume – and, in fact, you might have to include all this just to get your resume to fill one page if you do not yet have extensive work experience.

But what about your high school and the writing you did for your school newspaper? Maybe you have played sports since junior high and you achieved some pretty distinguished awards along the way. It is hard to just throw all that hard work away, but…

Keep it Relevant

The key to resume writing is relevance. Is the experience you need to include relevant to the internship or position you are applying for? High honors and awards are commonly a great idea to keep on your resume, almost for a period of time. They reflect your dedication and how well you perform. But by the time you are a senior in college, you might need to start leaving out some, if not all, of your high school experiences.

Getting It Down to One-Page Resume

There are some ways you can pare down your resume. Remove few of the experiences, shorten your bullets, remove unimportant words and articles like a, an and the, and limit your experiences to those that are relevant to the position you are applying for. If you have done all of that and your resume still goes over but just one or two lines, try changing the margins or change the empty spaces between categories to a smaller font.

But if your resume is full of education, relevant experiences, volunteer and community service activities, publications, workshops/training, computer and foreign language skills, you might require to develop a two-page resume. If your resume does go to more than a single page, be sure to put your name and “page 2” on the second page. Try to fill up at least 75% of the second page.

 Use Common Sense

A one-page resume is perfect if you can include all the relevant information you need to get across to the employer and convince him that you are the best candidate for the job. Your focus should be on the employer and what he would need to know about you. If doing a one-page resume means you are leaving out a great deal of information that could determine whether you ultimately get the internship or job, then choose for that second page.