A lot of my clients come to me with this question. They’ve been advised to obscure or leave off dates by friends, the unemployment office, and various other professionals. Typically, my female clients are more concerned, although I have several male clients with the same issue. The “I’m forced to reinvent myself at 50” is a common thread. While I can’t claim to understand this stage of life, I do know a few things about job searching, recruiting, and even the cold hard facts of the corporate world. 

First off, yes, there is some preselection or predisposition in hiring practices whether we like it or not. Most people in a hiring position are under stress. They haven’t been trained in interviewing and really are as nervous as you are about interviewing, perhaps even more so. They’re under the gun to find the right person for the position and if they don’t, it’s going to create a whole lot of headache for them. To that end, they may have had someone in the position before that was great or not so great. If they loved the middle aged woman that sat in your chair for 10 years, that might be what they’re looking for. If not, you might be out of luck.

Secondly, yes someone will automatically start calculating your age when they read your resume and see a graduation date. For this reason, I do advise clients to leave off their graduation date if they don’t want to include it. It’s really no one’s business and no one is allowed to ask, so in my opinion that’s a totally acceptable exclusion.

As far as dates of employment, however, no…you really shouldn’t leave these off within the past 10 or 15 years. I also don’t advocate dropping off old positions altogether either. The resume tells your story. And your first job or first five jobs may help do that, albeit in a very supporting role. Expand in detail on page 1 about your current or job and positions in the last ten years. These will be the most relevant, challenging, and applicable to the position you’re applying to. If you stayed home with your kids for 10 years and had 10 years of work experience before that, I’m ok with leaving dates off your first few positions and listing them with bullets under an early career heading.

If there’s no reason to leave off the dates, though, other than not wanting someone to know how old you are, it’s probably not the best plan. Yes, I understand that you look 10 years younger than you are. But someone is hopefully going to interview you, so they will get a general sense of the decade you were born in 🙂

I’ve asked countless recruiters about the topic as well, and they all have the same general response. Your recent (10-15) years of work experience must be dated and presented chronologically. Otherwise, it looks suspicious and an employer may wonder what you’re trying to obscure. Suspicious is never the picture we want to paint in a resume, so be bold, forthright, and honest in your resume. It sets the stage for your ongoing relationship with the potential employer.