When it comes to crafting a great resume, sometimes less is more. You can’t tell your whole life story. The challenge is to state quickly and effectively the pieces of your story that are most relevant to your next boss.

Forget the one-page rule. Sometimes one page makes sense, but more often it doesn’t. When in doubt, fall back on two cardinal rules of business communication: 1) Don’t lie and 2) Don’t waste people’s time.

But you’re still left to sort through what to include and what to leave out. Last month I attended a conference of professional resume writers and career coaches in Minneapolis. Expert resume writer John Suarez laid out an editing strategy he calls the 5-5-2 Rule. Although I see this approach played out in resumes every day, I had never seen it boiled down to a neat formula.

• 5:  Limit each paragraph to 5 lines, max. No block of text should exceed 5 lines. Look at resumes and you’ll see this feels right. We like light bites of text. Anything longer feels like a concrete barrier.
• 5: No more than 5 bullets in any list. If you’re listing accomplishments after each job or summarizing your career highlights, just list the top 5. Your last 5 projects are enough, really.
• 2: Get it all on 2 pages. You can fit a lot on 2 pages. What makes you think a stranger will read more than that?

Common sense tells you this 5-5-2 Rule assumes you’re using a decent size font, at least a 10 and preferably an 11 pt. font. No fair using tiny fonts to keep everything on 2 pages.

The secret to following the 5-5-2 Rule is simple: You have to edit. You have to decide what’s important and what’s not. Prefer shorter words, tighter phrasing and fewer lines. It is hard work to write in spare, direct language, but it’s worth it. Keeping your story on 2 pages shows you’re focused, considerate and professional. It also shows  you know the only one eager to read page after page of your life story is your mother.