How Long Should Your CV Be? Advice from a Recruiter

18 Jun

6 mins read

“How long should my CV be?” It’s a question I’ve been asked countless times during my decade working in recruitment. And it’s totally understandable – it’s often the first impression a prospective employer will have of you, so it needs to show who you are, demonstrate you’re right for the role, and hopefully get you through that first round of screening…all in a matter of seconds.

Because the reality is that in today’s market, résumés are often scanned in under 30 seconds (Applicant Tracking Systems aside). That means the way you structure it, including the length, can directly influence whether someone keeps reading or moves on.

So, what’s the correct answer? What’s the ideal length for a CV?

Here’s What Works

I’ve reviewed thousands (literally) of résumés in my career. Unfortunately, the truth is that there is no universal rule. But there is a noticeable pattern: most effective CVs sit around 2 pages. It’s long enough to demonstrate meaningful experience and value, but short enough hold the reader’s attention.

And that’s not just my experience. When I ran a LinkedIn poll asking my extensive network what the ideal CV length was, here’s what people said:

1 page — 6%
2 pages — 55%
2–3 pages — 32%
3+ pages — 7%

In other words, both candidates and employers expect something in that middle range. Anything outside that range isn’t automatically wrong, but I’d say it probably needs a stronger justification.

Why CV Length Matters

When your CV is too long, key information can get buried, roles start to blur together, and you risk losing the attention of the reader before they reach the most important information.

The problem is that the more you include, the harder it becomes to see what’s actually relevant to the role you’re applying for, and the employer or hiring manager has to work too hard to join the dots.

On the other hand, when your CV is too short, you risk underselling yourself. It might look clean and concise, but if your résumé doesn’t provide enough detail, it becomes hard for us to assess fit.

Without enough context, it can be difficult to understand the scale of your job, your impact, or how your experience aligns to the role – all of which are especially important to highlight in a competitive job market.

And trust me, the job market is definitely competitive! We’re seeing much higher application volumes across lots of roles and industries, which means recruiters and hiring managers are having to review more CVs, often in less time, so shortlisting decisions are happening quickly. This makes clarity and structure critical when it comes to your résumé.

When a Shorter CV Works (and When it Doesn’t)

If you’re early in your career, you don’t need multiple pages to demonstrate your experience, and a well-structured 1-2 page CV should be enough. This is especially relevant if you’re applying for a role that typically attracts a high volume of applications, like entry-level, admin, customer service, or retail positions.

Similarly, if you’re changing careers, a tightly targeted CV is often better than a longer, more general one. You can highlight transferable skills without overwhelming the reader with irrelevant detail.

On the flip side, longer CVs can absolutely work, especially for senior positions, technical specialists, or project-driven roles. Hiring managers for these types of positions often want to see progression, scope, and results over time. Trying to compress years of meaningful experience into a single page often means you leave out the detail that actually differentiates you from other candidates.

10 Tips to Get it Right

If you’re unsure whether your CV is too long or too short, these tips can help you find the right balance:

1. Keep formatting clean and simple
A cluttered CV can be difficult to read, both for hiring managers and Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), so keep it simple. Use clear headings, standard fonts like Arial or Calibri, and avoid heavy design elements such as columns, graphics, or text boxes. PDFs are generally fine, just avoid overly complex layouts so systmes can parse them.

2. Use bullet points, not blocks of text
This makes the key information quick and easy to skim-read, and allows you to clearly highlight your main achievements and relevant experience.

3. Start strong
A personal summary at the top can be valuable but keep it short. Think 3–4 lines that clearly position who you are and what you bring.

4. Focus on relevance, with a clear career overview
Prioritise your most recent and relevant experience with detail that shows you’re a good fit for the role. For earlier or less relevant roles, you can simply list key information (dates, job title, company), highlighting transferable skills or industry experience where relevant.

5. Describe outcomes, not just duties
Move beyond just listing your duties. Highlight what you delivered, improved, or contributed to, and where possible, the impact of your work.

6. Cut repetition and unnecessary detail
If you’ve held similar roles, avoid repeating the same responsibilities. Remove outdated, irrelevant, or low value information, and instead use the space to show how your impact differed, ensuring every section has a clear purpose and adds value.

7. Tailor it for the role
Focus your résumé content on what matters for the job you’re applying for. This shows you understand the role and care enough to have taken the time and effort to update your CV, rather than sending a generic version each time.

8. Use keywords from the job ad
Speaking of tailoring, you should include keywords (e.g. skills, systems, qualifications) from the job description to demonstrate that your experience is relevant to the role you’re applying for. This also helps optimise your CV for ATS.

9. Proofread for accuracy
With so many spellcheck and AI tools available, typos and grammatical errors can signal a lack of care or attention to detail, and can detract from your credibility, so it’s worth taking the time to check everything thoroughly.

10. Check for consistency
Consistent formatting helps your CV look polished and professional. Make sure things like dates, job titles, and company names follow the same structure throughout. If you add any new content, make sure it aligns with the existing layout, because even small inconsistencies can undermine an otherwise strong document.

Final Advice

There’s no perfect page count that applies to everyone, but the CVs that stand out in the current market are the ones that strike a balance between being concise enough to keep the reader’s attention, but detailed enough to demonstrate your value.

If you’re unsure where yours sits, aim for that 2–3 page range as a starting point and then refine from there. And rather than asking how many pages your résumé should be, I’d recommend asking yourself, “is every section valuable and relevant to the role I’m applying for?”

Because ultimately, a strong CV isn’t about hitting a certain number of pages, it’s about quickly and clearly communicating why you’re a good fit for the role.

Gemma Hill

Principal Consultant

A bit about me In 2016, I arrived in New Zealand from the UK and my recruitment journey began. With experience in people focussed industries like healthcare and hospitality across the UK and…

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Future-Focused Hiring: How NZ Businesses Can Get Ahead

Sarah Harland

28 May

6 mins read

Employer employment market future hiring

I’ve noticed a logic that lots of organisations apply to hiring, that tends to go like this: conditions are uncertain, business confidence is low, we’re feeling cautious, so let’s hold off on recruitment.

Given the last five years or so here in Aotearoa, that’s not an unreasonable instinct. Most businesses have had to navigate shifting demand, ongoing volatility, and an unpredictable economic environment, so it’s understandable that they’re cautious.

But as uncertainty becomes the norm rather than the exception, we need to be prepared to move within that uncertainty, rather than waiting for the perfect moment. Staying in a holding pattern for too long carries its own risks.

In my decade of experience, the organisations that perform best in uncertain markets are the ones that plan early and stay ready. This blog explores why that matters, and what you can do about it now.

The Gap Between Hiring Intent and Reality

Our 2026 Employment Market Report (EMR), which draws on survey responses from over 2,300 employers and employees across New Zealand, shows that there’s a consistent gap between how many employers plan to hire, and how many actually do.

For example, in 2024, 81% of employers expected to hire at the start of the year, but by the end of the year, 95% had hired. The same trend played out again in 2025, where only 69% of employers intended to hire, but 95% actually ended up hiring.

So what does this tell us? Even if you’re not currently planning to hire, you might still end up needing to hire, which is why it’s important to be prepared. It also points to increasing competition – with 83% of employers already intending to hire in 2026, many organisations will be in market at the same time.

And while there may be plenty of candidates available, finding the right person is still a challenge. According to the EMR, the number one barrier to securing talent in 2026 is the limited supply of qualified, experienced professionals, particularly in specialist roles. Identifying candidates with the right combination of technical capability, experience, and soft skills still takes time.

The Cost of Reactive Hiring

It’s not uncommon for us to get a call from a client who needs someone super urgently – no pipeline, no lead time, just an immediate gap to fill. We always do what we can to help, and the outcome can still be great, but these moments tend to highlight how much easier (and more effective) hiring is with a bit of forward planning.

Regardless of how good your recruiter is, last-minute hiring puts pressure on every part of the process. It limits options, shortens timelines, and makes it harder to properly assess fit, especially for senior, specialist, and leadership roles.

There’s also a broader cost to being reactive. When key roles sit vacant, teams carry the extra load. Projects slow down, deadlines slip, and the risk of making a rushed or compromised hire increases.

At the same time, the strain on remaining employees can lead to burnout, and people might start looking elsewhere. In a market where lots of employees are already open to moving roles (as highlighted by data in the EMR), losing key people without a plan to replace them can quickly turn one gap into several – not ideal!

How to Move From Reactive Hiring to Strategic Planning

Shifting from reactive hiring to a more strategic approach doesn’t have to be complex, but it does require some upfront thinking. At its core, it starts with clarity: what is your business trying to achieve, and do you have the people and capability to deliver on it?

When you take the time to step back and plan, it becomes much easier to anticipate needs, reduce risk, and move quickly when opportunities arise. Here are some practical ways to get started:

Align hiring with your business strategy
Start with your goals for the next 6–18 months. Consider upcoming projects, growth plans, new products or services, and any transformation or change initiatives. This gives context to what capability you’ll need.

Assess capability gaps, not just headcount
Look beyond roles and focus on skills. Where are the gaps in technical expertise, leadership capability, or critical soft skills? Strategic hiring is as much about what you need as how many people you need.

Identify critical and hard-to-replace roles
Which roles would put delivery at risk if they became vacant? Where are the niche or hard-to-source skills? These are the positions worth planning and pipelining for ahead of time.

Map workload and future demand
Where are teams already stretched? When is demand likely to increase? This helps you anticipate pressure points and plan hiring before gaps become urgent.

Strengthen knowledge sharing
If key expertise sits with one or two individuals, that can create real vulnerability. Building depth within the team reduces risk and makes transitions smoother when changes happen.

Start building talent pipelines
You don’t need an active vacancy to start engaging the market. Building awareness and relationships ahead of time makes it much easier to move quickly when a role does open up. A recruitment partner can support with market mapping and talent pooling here.

Benchmark salaries and benefits
Our EMR data shows that pay remains one of the top reasons employees consider moving roles. The EMR salary guides provide a useful benchmark to ensure you’re positioned competitively.

Revisit your EVP (Employee Value Proposition)
What are you offering beyond salary? The EMR highlights what employees value most, and where gaps often exist between what employers offer and what people are looking for.

Engage a recruitment partner early
The best outcomes often come from ongoing relationships, not one-off engagements. Early conversations allow your recruiter to understand your business, making it faster and easier to find the right people when you need them.

Planning Ahead Gives You the Edge

Uncertainty isn’t going away, but the way organisations respond to it can change. Those that take a more deliberate, forward-looking approach to hiring are better equipped to move when it matters.

And being prepared doesn’t mean overcommitting, it just means understanding your gaps and risks, and planning in advance. Whether hiring is a priority or not, being prepared gives you options, and having options gives you an advantage.

If you’re looking for practical insights to support that planning, the 2026 Employment Market Report brings together data, salary benchmarks, and trends from across New Zealand. You can download it here. And if a conversation would help bring this to life for your business, our team is always here to support.

Sarah Harland

Regional Manager - Wellington and Christchurch

A bit about me Helping shape people’s careers since 2016, Sarah spent three years in Melbourne, and five years with Madison Recruitment. She is now leading the Absolute IT in Christchurch and the…

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