How Many Jobs Should You List On A Resume?

When you’re writing or updating your resume, it can be difficult to keep it to one page, especially if you’ve been working for a long time.

In this article, we’ll share why it’s sometimes very necessary to leave off some of your work experience from your resume, how much of it you should leave on, and some tips for formatting your resume.

Key Takeaways

• You should list approximately two to four jobs on your resume.

• You typically shouldn’t include more than 15 years of work experience on your resume.

• A chronological resume may not always be your best formatting option — consider trying a functional resume format instead.

• Remember that you’re listing the highlights of your applicable work experience on your resume, so you don’t need to include every job you’ve ever had.

How Many Jobs Should You List on a Resume?

You should list approximately two to four jobs or 10 to 15 years’ worth of experience on your resume. The exact number of jobs you choose to list will depend on how long you’ve been in the workforce and how many relevant positions you have had.

This is because if you’ve been in the industry for 30 years, hiring managers won’t care about your first job — they care about your expertise now and what it can do for them. All of the additional jobs will simply make your resume look too long and messy.

If you don’t have a lot of experience, you’ll probably want to start out by listing every job you’ve ever had and demonstrating how the skills you learned there will apply to this role. Then, as you gain more experience in your career, you can remove some of those older, less applicable jobs.

Why You Shouldn’t List Every Job on a Resume

You still might have the urge to list 30 years’ worth of experience and your last 20 employers. It’s best to fight that urge, and here’s why;

• Too many jobs make you look like you can’t hold a job.

• Too many years makes it look like you’re ready to retire.

• Recruiters and hiring managers frankly don’t care what you did more than 15 years ago.

• Listing all of your jobs can take up too much space, and a resume should be brief.

Resume Formats

There are a few different ways to write a resume, and depending on your amount of experience and how well it applies to the job you’re applying for, one format may be more effective for you than others.

1. Reverse Chronological Resume: Focus on the Years

   There are a couple of different approaches to writing a resume. One of the most popular is a chronological resume or listing them in reverse order of what jobs you had. This means that you will have your most recent job at the top of your list. Below that will be the job you had before that one, and so on.

   It’s best to only list the last ten to 15 years of your work experience if you’re choosing to do a chronological resume. If you feel that this approach isn’t the right one for you or doesn’t highlight the work experience that means the most for the career you want, then it might be best to consider a different resume layout.

2. Functional Resume: Focus on the Best Jobs
   If a chronological resume doesn’t seem like the best option, you might want to go with one that lists your relevant experience. In this resume, you’re basically admitting that you’re not giving them all of your work histories, but you’re showing them how all that you’ve done has led you to this ultimate and perfect position.

   Writing a resume that doesn’t go chronologically is a bit more difficult, but it can be a better approach, especially if you’ve had many jobs.

Resume Example

We’ve come up with this sample resume to help you format a resume if you have been in the workforce for many years or you’ve had many different jobs. In this example, our imaginary job applicant has been working for 20 years as an accountant.

To make things even more complicated, our imaginary person worked for a year at Mcdonald’s while looking for a new accounting job. She also did a lot of freelance accounting for small businesses, so there were many clients she could list on her resume. Let’s see how her resume example pans out.

Formatting Tips for Resume Jobs Section

Whether you’re going with a relevant experience or a chronological experience section, you’ll want to create an appealing-looking resume. These tips can help you with the formatting of the work experience section of your resume.

• If using the chronological format, start with your most recent position. In effect, this will be reverse chronological order.

• When you’ve decided to list relevant experience, you need to highlight why the experience is important, so categorize it by that skill (i.e., accounting experience, banking experience, customer service experience).

• In either situation, include a qualifications summary that highlights the skills you’ve learned and the high points of your experience that directly relate to the position you want. Bulleting these points can be a great way to call attention to them.

• If you have more than about five jobs or 15 years of experience, then leave some off of your resume.

• If you have some jobs that are not relevant to the position you’re applying for and you don’t need to fill space, leave them off.

• Use bold to highlight the company name and your job title.

• If you have the space, you may want to include the name of your direct supervisor, but this isn’t necessary. If you don’t want a job calling your previous supervisor, then leave this information off.

• If you have any job accomplishments, significant awards, or you have statistics to support your successes, include them.

Putting Dates on Your Resume

Many people wonder if they should include dates on their resumes. Traditionally in a resume setting, you should list each job with their starting month and year and then their ending month and year. Some people have shortened that to just the years involved and left the month off.

This is not a rigid rule today like it used to be, so you do have some flexibility. Take advantage of the flexibility if it benefits you. For example, you were an accountant for 20 years, but five years ago, you lost your job and spent a year working at McDonald’s as a checker to make ends meet until you got back in with a great accounting firm.

In some ways, this shows that you’re a hard worker, but it will probably put up red flags to a hiring agent or recruiter. It’s best to skip listing the years in this situation and omit the McDonald’s job from the resume because it’s unrelated to the job you’re trying to get hired for. This isn’t lying; you’re simply showcasing your relevant experience.

College graduation dates are another date that was traditionally included. Today that is also optional. If you graduated from college in the 1970s and you’re looking to get a job at a top tech company, you’re probably going to seem irrelevant and outdated to them.

This isn’t to say you are because you’re as youthful and on top of trends as you want to be. But it could automatically be a disadvantage due to some prejudices, so it’s best to leave it off.

Remember, there are illegal interview questions, and asking your age is definitely one of them. These rules are in place to prevent age discrimination (and other types of discrimination), so don’t volunteer information that could work against you.

A Resume vs. a Curriculum Vitae

When writing a resume, one of the first things you should know is that it’s just a synopsis of your professional experience.

On the other hand, some jobs and some countries will require you to submit a curriculum vitae, or a comprehensive list of your professional experience.

But for most jobs, this isn’t required, and a simple resume will do. Once you understand that you’re just focusing on the highlights, it can make it much easier to write, especially if you haven’t had the pleasure in a long time.

Resume Work Experience FAQs

1. Should you list all your jobs on resume?

   No, you shouldn’t list all your jobs on a resume. If you’re a recent graduate who has only had two jobs, you should probably list them all, but other than that, listing all of your jobs makes your resume too long and convoluted.

   Instead, pick two to four of your most recent, applicable positions, or include the jobs that cover your last 15 years of experience. Hiring managers won’t usually pay attention to what you did beyond that.

2. How many jobs on a resume is too many?

   More than five jobs on a resume is too many. Typically a good rule of thumb is to include just two to four jobs on a resume, or enough to cover the past 15 years of your work experience.

3. How far back should you list jobs on a resume?

   You should list jobs up to 15 years back on your resume. Hiring managers won’t care much — if at all — about what you did before that, and it will start to bog down your resume and keep your most recent experiences from shining.

Final Thoughts

Whether you’re worried about appearing too old for a job or you’re concerned that you’ve had too many jobs, there’s no reason to fear when writing your resume. It’s time to break free of the belief that a resume is a complete summary of your professional career. It’s simply a summary of your highlights.

Once you can let go of this notion, it becomes easier to hone in on the jobs that most closely align with the position you’re seeking and tailor your resume. It is difficult to customize each and every resume you send out, but being able to craft and submit resumes electronically has made it much more practical.

It’s even made it so easy that hiring agents and recruiters expect you to have a tailored resume. While this is a challenge, it’s even more important that your resume is a reflection of your highlights and not everything you’ve ever done.

There are two ways to approach a resume layout, you can go in reverse chronological order, or you can list it by experience category. The first one of these is the easiest, but if you’re worried about significant gaps in time or job-hopping, then a categorized resume might be the best option.

Remember, if you’re wondering how far back a resume should go, Ten to 15 years is sufficient in most cases. Too long is overwhelming and daunting and can put you in jeopardy of facing age discrimination.

These tips should help you format a great resume that shows your experience and expertise level without putting you in a bad light. It’s all about the highlights.

Author

Kristin Kizer

Kristin Kizer is an award-winning writer, television and documentary producer, and content specialist who has worked on a wide variety of written, broadcast, and electronic publications. A former writer/producer for The Discovery Channel, she is now a freelance writer and delighted to be sharing her talents and time with the wonderful Zippia audience.