USAJOBS Federal Resume (2-page rule) — Syllabus & notes
Practice bundle
Resume and assessment, in one purchase
- USA Hire practice: 2 full mocks + a drill per part
- Federal Resume Builder: three announcements
- Each resume written against the specialized experience, two pages or less, PDF and Word
Exam overview
Resumes for most United States federal jobs must be no longer than two pages. Under the Merit Hiring Plan, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) set a two-page limit for all competitive service and excepted service job announcements under Title 5, posted on USAJOBS or another platform, and from 27 September 2025 USAJOBS restricts every resume, uploaded or built, to two pages. OPM tells agencies to review only resumes of two pages or less: if the only resume an applicant sends is longer, the applicant is ineligible for further consideration. Agencies outside Title 5, and judicial and legislative branch agencies, may accept a longer resume through the "other documents" option if the announcement says how, and positions that need a curriculum vitae, typically in medical and research fields, may ask for one the same way. For each relevant job, OPM and the USAJOBS Help Center ask for the job title and employer, the series and grade for federal jobs, start and end dates with month and year, the hours worked per week, and brief descriptions that show the applicant can do the tasks at the level the announcement asks for. The resume must be 5 MB or less; USAJOBS recommends a PDF, a sans-serif font, 0.5 inch margins, 14 point titles and 10 point text. The job announcement is the authority for each vacancy.
- Subjects
- Federal resume
- Exam languages
- English