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I wouldn't say I'm old, but I'll certainly be getting there soon enough. I was reviewing my resume today, is there ever a point where a job candidate should not list their college years or graduation dates because it is so far back?

I've got 4 jobs listed on my resume (spanning 10 years), and it does not include the two jobs before that after college anymore. I've got a top university 4 year degree in my field, but at this point it is at the bottom of the resume after experience. It's dates will forever indicate my age, and I find increasingly speak to initial HR people and colleagues that are several years younger than me these days.

Should I remove the years on my college experience or is that inappropriate for a resume?

This is not an age discrimination issue as much as it is an appropriateness or normality of excluding years as one gets older. They'll obviously know my age when interviewing me, within a range.

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    No idea. I don't remove my dates and I am probably ten years older than you - I like to tell people including interviewers that I've gone from young, stone cold handsome and stupid to just stupid :)
    – Vietnhi Phuvan
    Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 17:07
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    Is there an actual age issue here or are you just asking whether old experience information is still useful? Please edit. If it's the age issue this question is indeed a duplicate.
    – user8036
    Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 18:40
  • I do not believe a question about age discrimination questions at an interview and a question about resume styling for years are entirely the same. I already the read the other question before asking this, and it didn't answer my question.
    – Miro
    Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 19:22

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is there ever a point where a job candidate should not list their college years or graduation dates because it is so far back?

Yes.

There are no rules saying that you must put graduation dates on your resume.

Thus, at whatever point you personally feel this might be hindering you - that's the point at which you should remove the dates from your education items. As I got older, I removed the graduation dates from my resume for the same reasons you are expressing.

Resume readers almost never care when you attended college and graduated - just that you did. These dates typically add no value. Once you have a few jobs under your belt, the year you graduated is pretty much meaningless.

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    I have seen it go both ways on degrees. Generally I think it being there is "nice, but not always necessary" If you're a fresh grad I'd say absolutely you want it there... but when you start creeping up to ten years exp... It might be a point of interest or can be nice to have that info at hand, but it wouldn't be a negative if it wasn't there.
    – Eric J Fisher
    Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 19:34
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I would put everything. They're already going to find out you're older when they interview you so be proud of it and list everything. I'm 47 and my resume goes back to 1986 with relevant experience.

College is certainly relevant and even though I've been writing software for over 25 years, I still get asked "where did you go to school?" when I actually don't have a degree. It's likely you'll start getting questions like I get if you leave it out.

I would add that you probably don't want to work for someone who would discriminate based on age anyway. I know I wouldn't. We're not older, we're experienced.

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  • Good point about everything. I have my earlier (but relevant) jobs all the way back. I am the oldest person in our office and probably in the top 5% age wise in my company (and I am still in my 40's). I didn't get any sense of age discrimination when interviewing.
    – Bill Leeper
    Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 17:37
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There's rarely any upside to including graduation dates on your resume. A recruiter or hiring manger doing a quick scan might see fairly old dates and think "that's a while ago - could it be obsolete?". If the degree type and school are prestigious and appropriate for your industry, leave that on the resume, but the dates are rarely going to help.

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