‘Back in the day,’ when one applied for a job in the federal government, one was encouraged to load a long resume to cover all the vital data – decades of experience, skill sets, education, training, certifications, publications, and more.  There was no limit to the number of pages one could write for their federal resume.  Three years ago (circa 2020-2021), the federal guidelines changed the rules to no more than five pages.

This year (2025), they have changed the rules again. Federal resumes can be no longer than two pages.  Federal agencies will only accept resumes up to two pages to comply with Executive Order 14170 and the Merit Hiring Plan – starting in September,.

This stings. The mandated format and layout of the federal resume takes up a massive amount of page space, thus disallows for vital data directly relevant to the job which applicants are targeting for future employment.

The new rules also requires you have to ‘re-toggle’ ON the ‘searchable’ button to ensure recruiters can find your resume. Otherwise, the resume you loaded into the system previously is no longer ‘findable’ by recruiters.

You may have to create more than one resume and load them into the USAJobs system. Use the individual resumes to ‘target’ specific jobs (more work for the job seeker!).

For example, if one has skills in the accounting field and has years of bookkeeping and accounting but also paralegal degrees and/or certifications and years of experience in that field, then the job seeker needs to create two different short (2-page) resumes versus relating the dual career information in a singular resume.  The two individual resumes can be uploaded into the USAjobs.com platform to be used to apply for either of those two specific career fields.

There is a set of minimum required information in a federal resume (noted below from the USAjobs website). Resumes submitted for federal jobs are required to have:

·       Contact Information—your name and the best way to contact you.

·       Only relevant work experience—Job experience should include employer name, job title, start and end dates (month/year), the number of hours worked per week and descriptions that explain how you meet the required qualifications in the job announcement.

·       Education, certifications or licensures—If the job announcement requires any education, certifications or licensures, make sure you include the required information and any required documents like transcripts.

You may also include additional information that may be required by the job requisition:

·       Current security clearance

·       Job-related training

·       Language skills

·       Organizations and affiliations

·       Professional publications

·       References

While this will cut down on the ‘paperwork’ that encumbers the federal resume automatic tracking system and resume database for federal workers (recruiters), this will make it harder for job seekers to showcase all their critical skills, education, and accomplishments.  Workers with decades of experience in multiple jobs will have a hard time crushing the job descriptions down to basic information with vital keywords to catch the attention of recruiters, as well as compete with other job seekers.