The unemployment office made me go to this job-seekers workshop yesterday, and one piece of advice has left me stumped.
The advice was not to list jobs more than 10-15 years old on my resume. The main reason was that it gives at least a hint of my age, and was an open invitation for employers to practice age discrimination. Plus, the experience was no longer really relevant. This advice wasn’t personally directed at me, but generic advice to a room full of people.
I hadn’t thought of it before, but my resume goes back 30 years. And I am reluctant to purge the old stuff, because I worked for some employers back then that everyone knows, like the Smithsonian. I moved to Madison 15 years ago, and my employers since have not been so prestigious – not that there’s anything wrong with them.
There is certainly one advantage to trimming old jobs, which is that I can offer more detail on what exactly I did. Another of my resume memes that may be dated is the belief that I should keep my resume to one page, which doesn’t leave me much space to to do much more than list titles, employers and dates.
My opinion is to ignore it. I’ve worked here for 20 years, but if I were ever to leave, I would certainly list my newspaper experience. It provides a complete picture of who I am — a writer.
I think it depends so much on your particular career (or lack of). If you have been working your way up a particular career ladder, then listing all your jobs shows that you’ve continued to develop and take on more challenging roles.
I’d certainly agree that you don’t need to do a full explanation of each role, in terms of achievements and responsibilities, I tend to leave that for my most recent two jobs and then just list the others as Position - Employer - Time Employed.
Personally I think one page is fine unless you have really significant achievements. What you describe above – listing no more than names and dates of jobs – isn’t very helpful to the employer. So if that’s all your resume consists of, it’s pretty useless as is.
I wouldn’t necessarily say you have to cull the oldest jobs, but you should cull the least relevant jobs to make space for describing your responsibilities, and often those are the oldest. Personally more than 4-6 lines looks like fluffing, but a brief description is helpful unless you are the extremely rare indivudal who job titles are fully self-explanatory. 90% of my jobs, you wouldn’t have any idea what I did, just by my title.
I’m having to break myself of the one-page only habit. But here’s something else to consider.
I’ve worked in marketing, writing, and as an executive admin. So depending on the type of job i’m going for, I just put on the resume the applicable job experience. So my writing job just lists all the times I’ve been employed as a writer - or used writing skills in my job.
So it’s more skills-based than chronological. That’s a way you might want to go.
What about the year(s) that an applicant graduated from school(s)? Should graduation dates be removed since they can also easily reveal an approximate age? (For example, a college graduate in 1988 would have had to be at least 22 years of age or so… or possibly older! Thus making him or her at least 44 as of 2010.)
Also, should the applicant be lucky enough to be called for an in-person interview, his or her age to a range of x years will also be apparent.
I just ask because the advice given the OP doesn’t seem to stretch far enough in order to cover the age discrimination rationale for removing older jobs from a resume. Surely other factors, such as those I’ve listed, could come into play? Did the unemployment office mention anything about those? Should applicants not include year(s) of graduation on resumes, which I was taught to do?
Polly, I’ll tell you this - I used to have on my resume that I went to school from 92-99. I went to night school, but they told me to leave that off.
I’m finally finishing my degree this August - which means I will look like I’m this very young applicant, even though I’m 40. But my job XP will reveal the true age, I’m sure.
My issue is that I’ve been working as a contractor - which means I might have a different job every few months/year. People assume I’m a job hopper even though I’m really not - just trying to find a place that can hire me as an employee vs. a temp. It really sucks.
Even with recent schooling, you’re right, it’s easy to connect the experience/education dots and come up with a reasonable ballpark of an applicant’s age. :mad:
Also in terms of the contracting… did you work for a contracting company or would you consider yourself as having been self-employed during that time in which you contracted? I wonder if you couldn’t just list your accomplishments and contracting employment timeframe under one “employer umbrella?” For example, for a couple of years I worked as a temp, mostly for one agency although obviously I actually did the work at several different companies. I simply listed myself as an employee of “XYS Temps, Inc” on my resume. You could probably do something similar if you were entirely self-employed, ie, “melodyharmonious consulting services” would be the listing.
You don’t want anything on your resume that might automatically screen you out. That includes old graduation dates and old jobs. Once you get called in for an interview, of course, they can decided against you instantly. But at least in an interview you (theoretically) have an opportunity to explain things/sell yourself.
It’s a can’t win for losing situation. Because I contracted for some big names like T-Mobile and Charles Schwab, some places don’t want me eliminating the names. And because I didn’t just work for one agency, I can’t just put “Aerotek” as the umbrella and then list the assignments underneath it.
I have put “Independent Contractor” in some cases and therefore get a few years lumped together. But when you lump it up, the agency who’s trying to place you wants it broken out, and when you break it out, the recruiter wants to lump it together.
I currently have about 20 versions of my resume, and I customize it every time to highlight/downplay whatever thing might need adjusting. Frankly, it’s exhausting.
On the other hand, my boyfriend is faced with a resume where he’s worked one job for 12 years - in a field that just doesn’t have any openings in the area due to the economy. So his biggest challenge is how to translate the skills he has from one very specific field, and try to apply it to corporate postings.
We are both in our 40s, so it just becomes daunting.
Very much a dated meme, though some fellow Dopers will come in here and argue the point.
The “one page ONLY!!!” thing is really only a hard-&-fast rule for recent graduates and folks who have only been in the work force a short time. With three decades in, a multi-page resume is A-OK for 999 out of 1000 employers (the occasional old-school HR flack may not like – egad! – a two-page resume).
What is true, though, is that a prospective employer should be able to glean your qualifications from your resume’s first page. What’s commonly done these days is to list on the first page your contact information, a line-item list of skills relevant to the position, and a meaty summary of your most recent (or relevant) job or two. Then your “jobs” section would continue on to pg 2 with older/less relevant experience.
I’ve been in a position to hire several engineers, software folks, and security personnel. My own feeling is that I would expect a resume to be about 2-3 pages, so the one page rule definitely doesn’t apply. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, mind you, but I doubt I could get a feel for your skills in just one page. The only way I could see this hurting you is if this is a very entry level position with no experience required, and you have a long resume. That simply says to me “I’m taking this job because I’m desperate and you can bet I’ll keep looking for something better while you waste time training me” Other than that circumstance, I’ve always felt more experience is better and shows maturity, especially if you have jobs where you’ve worked for a number of years in the past (i.e. you don’t job hop).
Personally, I would want to see your experience and would only leave off older jobs if they were controversial or irrelevant. That is, if you were a cashier at Bob’s Porno Emporium, leave that off. Likewise, if you are applying for an editor job, I don’t need to know you worked at Burger King 20 years ago.
Good luck!
And to **melodyharmonius **, to avoid the perception of job hopping on your resume, I would put “(Contract Position)” after the jobs where you worked only a short time to explain why they were so short. That’s a common issue with people in my industry who do summer internships lasting 2-3 months. You just put “(Summer Internship)” after the employer name to explain it so people don’t just look at the short time periods and dismiss you.
Not in the US. Your height, weight, marital status, whether or not you have kids, and any hobbies other than ones that are directly relevant to the job don’t belong on resumes in the US, either. Nor do we send photographs with our resumes.
It’s standard practice to list only ten years of experience on a resume, unless there is an exceptional reason to do so. For instance, let’s say you were a Fortran programmer in 1984 and a job you apply for in 2010 requires knowledge of Fortran.
A resume is just to get you in the door to the interview, you can always go into your details at the interview.
