Hrm...I don't understand the "never more than one page" rule. Who came up with that rule anyway? I completely understand the concept of trying to make it so your resume catches the reader's eye in a short amount of time; but, come on! I've been able to keep my resume at one page for 7 years. But now, with my most recent job behind me, it had to go to 2.
All of the jobs listed are very relevant. No dorky jobs here, all are related to my career field. I refuse to take my first job off of the bottom simply to "make room." No. No. and No.
So, what happened is the Activities and References line ended up all alone on the second page. To beef up that 2nd page, so it doesn't look so sparse, I added a section briefly stating my research interests and another listing my professional association memberships.
That move worked out for me really well because I work in Higher Education where that sort of thing is not uncommon. Has anyone ever seen a resume for an Academic (professors..researchers..etc)? Those suckers read like phone books!
It pays to be descriptive in higher education.
Also, though it contains a fair bit of information, my layout still gives the appearance of having a lot of "white space." That makes it easy to read.
My boyfriend is a computer engineer guy. His resume is mega-long even though he's only worked for one company. I guess that people working in computers are obligated to list every last programming language he or she knows lest they not get the job because they didn't put "4 years experience in programming SQL mega-parameter hypernetworking Novell systems in D-plus XV-1 environments."
Anyway, I am very pleased with my resume. It must be pretty good because I have a very high success rate with being called for interviews. I think people need to keep in mind that one's career field may dictate how a resume should be presented. In my case, it appears to be perfectly OK to have a resume that is more than one page.
And, as someone who has studied HR, I agree that it is never a good idea to take up 3/4 of a page talking about your fraternity activities.
......Kelly