How Far Back Should a Resume Go for Work History

Preparing a well-developed professional resume is not easy.  There are lengthy lists of resume do’s and don’ts that are meant to help your resume get noticed and get you the job you are looking for.

Perhaps one of the most common struggles faced by applicants is deciding how to keep their resumes concise and what information to include or exclude.  Inevitably, an applicant will get to his or her section on work history and wonder what should be excluded and how far back should a resume go.

After all, should you really include your high school lifeguard and babysitting jobs in your resume work history when applying for a software engineering position?

The purpose of this article is to help you understand how far back you should go on a resume and useful tips to help you narrow down what may be a lengthy job history.

How far should you go back on a resume?

Okay, just exactly how far should a resume go back? Is it five years? Ten years?

Unfortunately, there is no bright-line rule.

Some experts suggest something in the vicinity of ten to fifteen years, but like most things in life, the real answer to how far back should you go on a resume is. . . it depends.  It depends on your industry, experience level, and personal qualifications.

When to go back longer than fifteen years

Let us start by discussing instances when you should devote more than fifteen years to your resume work history.

Perhaps the most glaring reason would be if you have only held a few positions over the past 15 years.  If your entire career spans three jobs over a twenty-year period, there is no reason to exclude portions of that span if everything is related to the current position you are applying for.

That said, you can still ditch the babysitting and lifeguard jobs.

When to eliminate prior work history and keep things short

Many people not only change jobs throughout their careers, but they may even change careers.

For example, assume you start your career as an accountant and work six years at an accounting firm.  But one day you decide there is a greater opportunity for you in the tech space, and you want to pursue your dream of becoming a software developer.

When applying to future software developer positions, you may want to only include information on your resume that pertains to software development, rather than including information about your accounting days.  After all, you want your resume to tell a story about becoming a developer, and not a narrative that says you are an indecisive, career hopper.

The big takeaway

At the end of the day, the important question when considering how far back should resume work history go is not really a function of “when”, but a function of “what”.

Too many people make the mistake of simply including a chronology of their entire work history when putting together a resume.  A much better approach is to include a work history of positions that are relevant to the job for which you are applying.

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