Keeping your resume up to date is not on everyone's to-do list. But resumes are changing fast— and career experts say you have to keep up.
The job resource site LiveCareer compared data from 50,000 resumes from 2018 and 2023. It found resumes, on average, doubled in length.
In 2018, the typical resume had 312 words and was likely prepared as a single-page document. By 2023, resumes had an average of 503 words, making two pages the norm.
Career expert Toni Frana said there's nothing wrong with a two-page resume as long as the information is relevant to the role.
"Think about it in terms of adding something like a professional summary, work experience, education, and even a technology section," Frana said. "Someone could even include some key highlights in addition to those sections because that really adds value to an application."
Frana said there's also a clear trend toward IT and specific software skills.
"We noticed that coding languages dominate the hard skills we see on resumes. With advances in technology, like AI tools across several different industries," she said.
A not-so-surprising change, Frana said resumes that reference "hybrid" or "remote" work increased from 2.44 percent of resumes to more than 7 percent, "so tools like Zoom, Slack, and Google Workspace tend to be commonly mentioned in a section like this."
One of the biggest mistakes in the job searching world remains, according to LiveCareer, which is uploading the same generic resume to all potential employers. Instead, experts say customize each resume to match the specific requirements of the job.
