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The 2-page federal resume became mandatory for most federal job applicants on September 27, 2025. The change was part of the broader Merit Hiring Plan issued by the Office of Personnel Management, following issuance of Executive Order 14170. The new rule applies to competitive and excepted service positions under Title 5, including Senior Executive Service (SES) and General Schedule (GS) roles from GS-5 and above. The new limit does not apply to jobs outside the Executive Branch, unless specified in the announcement.

How can you fit all the data you need into the new 2-page version? While older, longer federal resumes – regardless of field or career pathway – let you include full job duties and responsibilities as well as key accomplishments, the 2-page resume must be edited into 2 or 3 sentences of duties that match the job announcement.

For new attorneys, lacking a significant chronology of professional experience, this shouldn’t be a problem. Law schools provide basic resume support. There should be ample room to include law review experience, clerkships, pro bono activities, and the like. But don’t stop reading! Developing additional, worthy federal resume content is still important.

And if you were in the military, served as a JAG Officer in several overseas locations, continued as a reservist, and also supported then managed a law school affiliated community legal aid program, while teaching? How can you fit everything into your new, 2-page federal resume?

Documenting the required experience and knowledge may be even more complex if considering a role as an Immigration Judge (see, for example, https://www.usajobs.gov/job/853381500), or applying to become an Attorney Advisor focusing on International Commerce (e.g., https://www.usajobs.gov/job/857479800).

While specific requirements vary widely, don’t wait for a job opening to post before creating your core resume. Many application windows are short. Include your job chronology. For roles within the past 10 years, include brief synopses of each role. Include supervisory and mentorship functions, service on leadership committees, and resource management and liaison roles. Most importantly, focus on impact. For older experience, one line descriptions suffice, enabling you to list your valuable judicial clerkships, legal aid service, and/or teaching roles.

Develop impactful content. Prepare a list of your key accomplishments within the past 5–10 years. Use the Challenge-Context-Actions-Results model to flesh them out. (Use our CCAR Builder!) Then prepare concise, 2–3 line summaries to communicate how you used your skills and expertise to achieve valuable organizational and/or client results. Use bullets to set them apart from the job description. Do not skimp on crafting the CCARs! They will become even more useful, helping you provide valuable oral responses during a performance-based, structured job interview.

Here is a sample CCAR accomplishment:
Title: Restored the Bar Association’s legal hotline program and made it accountable.
Date: 2025
Challenge: To fix our State Bar Association’s Legal and Ethics Hotline, which was dysfunctional.
Context: After joining the Association’s in-house team, I ran our Legal & Ethics Hotline. We were a large state, but the hotline was not well regarded and largely ignored by members.
Actions: I researched its history, looked at other large states’ hotlines, and created a set of best practices. I used my own experience representing clients and made a set of SOPs and FAQs. I shared them with our Executive Director and our Board. Gaining approval, I put everything into action, and assigned calls to volunteer lawyers I trained to support the hotline, under my supervision. They helped me revisit and refine the FAQs and SOPs as we moved forward. I also promoted the hotline at Association conferences.
Result: As members spread the word, our calls went from <400/yr (fine for a small state), to 4,000+ per year, commensurate with hotlines operated by the largest state bars in the U.S. Those with pressing legal and/or ethics concerns received the timely, critical support they sought, and as needed, were referred to counsel. Our member volunteers were able to fulfil their pro bono service obligations while also taking valuable knowledge back to support their own firms. Our staff benefited, too, from greater engagement with members. Many compliments were received about the reboot, and I received an Exemplary Service Award.

Here is the summary used in the resume.

Key Accomplishment:
▪ Revamped our Legal & Ethics Hotline with accountable oversight, operating practices, FAQs, and standards for making legal referrals, turning it into a valued resource while increasing its usage from <400 to 4K+ calls/yr. Our improved services drew praise from our members. Earned an Exemplary Service Award from the Association.

Federal applications are often accepted only within a brief window. When a posting is a good match, tailor the resume for it, focusing most upon the accomplishments relevant to the job at hand.

Include Veteran status, even if the posting affords no hiring preference or bears no relevance to your former military role. Your service and military awards are meaningful to hiring officials.

Pay attention to format. USAJobs recommends 10-point font – giving applicants more room to document their experience than the 12-point font many lawyers use. Check your line spacing. Your system default might be 1.15, not single (1.0) line spacing. And don’t waste room by letting a few words hang alone on the last line of a paragraph. Finally, upload your resume as a PDF, not as a Word document, to ensure the same 2 pages you see are similarly viewed on the receiving end.

The Resume Place serves as an ongoing career development source, not just for the initial resume and application, including critical preparation for your Structured Interview. Reach out for one-on-one support for roles up to GS-13. Higher-level support for GS-14/15 and SES positions is also available.

Questions? Write to us here.

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For more information and 2-Page Federal Resume consulting and writing services …

Consider purchasing a 1-hour consult to get started with the 2-page SES ECQ Resume. Our SES consultants can help you start writing. And later, we can provide writing and editing services to finalize the 2-page SES ECQ Resume.

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