Career Coach: Year I Received My Degree

Q. As a training professional, I have had different feedback about including the year I received my degrees along with the listing of the degree on my resume. I didn't include dates previously and then a person who gave me feedback (who was a recruiter for physicians) suggested I include them because excluding the dates made it seem I was much older than I am! What do you suggest?

A. Given that there are no absolute rules in resume writing, here are my thoughts/rationale for your consideration, based on resume best practices and what has worked for my clients.

Let's say you graduated with your undergraduate degree in 1990. If the first job listed on your resume began in 1990, then yes, it would be good to include the dates of your college graduation because you wouldn’t want people to assume that you graduated before 1990.

But if you decide to leave off your early experience between 1990 to 1997, and the first position listed on your resume starts in 1998, there is no need to highlight your date of graduation. It will be assumed that your date of graduation is before 1998, which it is. In general, the best practice today is to go back no more than 15 years on the resume. There are strategic ways to highlight earlier relevant and important experience on your resume, but employers are usually most interested in what you’ve done recently. So it is generally fine to leave education dates off of the resume if you graduated well before the first experience entry listed on your resume.

You will likely, however, need to be ready to provide your graduation dates on the actual job application, which is a legal document. But providing it on the resume—which is a marketing document—is your choice. If you include the dates, then employers will be able to calculate your age, which may or may not influence your chances of getting an interview, depending on the employer.

If you have questions you’d like answered, please send to info@resumesandcareerstrategies.com, re: Ask the Career Coach, and I’ll be glad to answer it. All questions posed are confidential. Look forward to hearing from you.  

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Resumes for Dummies 2019