How to Fit a Resume Onto One Page

Make the margins and font smaller. If your resume is less than half a page too long, the font and margins alone may be able to fix it. The smallest margins you should ever have are half inch on each side, and the smallest font size is 10. Be wary of making the margins too small for your printer. Most printers will print half inch margins but older printers may not.

Use any white space. Look at your resume and assess where there is white space. If you have a heading standing alone on the left side of the page while the entries for that heading begin several inches to the right, place the heading above the entries to utilize the white space.

Use lines to define sections. Instead of leaving a space between a section heading and section entries, use the underline function on your word processor and then tab over to the end of the page. Using tab rather than space bar will preserve the underlining.

Consolidate lists into series. If you have a list that takes up a lot of room, turn that list into a series separated by commas. This is especially useful for listing computer skills and for listing honors under the education section.

Prioritize experience and eliminate irrelevant entries. Everything you have ever done will not fit on your resume, so keep a multiple page master resume with all of your experience and then use the master resume to create a relevant resume of one page for each new position you apply for. Choose only the most relevant three or four items for the relevant experience section of your resume. If you have more experience you would like to list, create a second section called "Other Experience" and simply list the items rather than give details. This can at least expose potential employers to more of your experience and allow you to discuss more in an interview.