Lizandra Vega

Job seekers often face heated competition and intense scrutiny when applying for a position, and many job seekers attempt to overcome the stress of finding work by listing as much previous experience as possible in a personal résumé. Though there is no steadfast rule for including work experience on a résumé, experts caution against including work history so old that it has become irrelevant or recent experience that has no relevance to the desired position.

General Rule

In a March 2011 article on the topic, the job finding website Career Builder interviewed Frank Dadah, a general manager in the Winter Wyman Companies staffing firm. Dadah quickly emphasizes that no concrete rule governs how far back an applicant should go when listing work history, as experience and history can vary significantly from person to person. Dadah goes on to elaborate, though, that job seekers should typically limit work history to between 10 and 15 years. This limit helps keep the résumé concise and exclude experience in obsolete technologies or processes.

Relevance

The career website Job Star stresses that job seekers should concentrate only on relevant history when building a personal résumé. If recent work history has no association with the currently available position, the site recommends omitting the entry in favor of older but more relevant work experience. An applicant to an engineering position who recently worked in retail, for example, may leave the retail experience off of a résumé in order to list more engineering-related education, work history or volunteer activities. If the unrelated job position included some relevant duties, though, the applicant should list this position to emphasize the relevant experience.

Old Information

If a job seeker has relevant work experience more than 10 years old, résumé specialist Lizandra Vega recommends listing only the job title, employer and dates of employment. Vega explains in a 2011 Career Builder article that listing old work experience by title indicates a history of relevant work experience without clouding the résumé with references to outdated technology or obsolete practices.

Considerations

Personal résumés serve as a way to highlight a job applicant's accomplishments and previous experience, so job seekers should strive to focus on the information an employer might want to see. In addition, the job seeker website Quint Careers notes that some employers may assume that workers with extensive relevant experience will require a high salary, and this assumption may lead some hiring managers to disregard résumés that include a long list of work history. On the other hand, Frank Dadah notes that some employers demand a long and detailed work history from each applicant; some specialized or high profile positions may require as much as 25 or 30 years of relevant experience, and job seekers should document this kind of history on the résumé. In many cases, Dadah explains, employers will specify when they require more than 15 years of experience.