Dates in a Resumes - Continued

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So, how far back should you go when listing your experience? The answer is simple. When your past experience stops being relevant to your job search, leave it off. The usual is 10 to 15 years in the past, unless there is something in your older experience that is critical to your qualifications. This will help to deflect interest from your age.

Accuracy and honesty are the most important considerations when it comes to dates. Don't lie! I had a client who chose to fudge on his dates and I didn't know about it. He was invited for an interview and then lost the job when previous employers were contacted and the dates didn't match. It wasn't worth it. Honesty is always the best policy.

There are many ways to make room for the dates. One is to establish a clear column of dates to the right of a resume which keeps the text lines short and makes the dates easy to find. You should not use this clear column of dates on the right if you are creating a scanable resume since this style produces three newspaper-like columns.

Putting dates on the left gives them a great deal of importance. Since people read from left to right, information on the left of the page is read first and carries greater weight. Make sure you really want your dates to be that important before placing them in the left-hand column.

You may use months with years or years only. Some people feel more comfortable with a full accounting of their time and prefer the month/year method. However, making room for all those words becomes a problem if you choose to spell out the month, as in January 1989 to February 1993. Abbreviations or numbers for months make designing your resume a little easier:

Jan. 1989 Feb. 1993
or
Jan 1989 Feb 1993
or
1/89 2/93