How Much Experience Should Be On My Résumé?

Writing a great résumé takes a lot of work and a lot of thought. You must consider your past and your future. Where are you now, and where do you want to be? How can you use this document to get from Point A to Point B?

At CareerPulse we spend a lot of time talking with our customers about these career factors. One question we answer a lot is this one: “how much experience should be on my résumé?”

It’s a complicated question and while there are industry conventions, the answer is different for everybody. Today we’re going to explore how we determine the answer for our customers, and we’ll explain how you can figure it out for yourself.

Let’s start with the understanding that most job seekers are also looking for a change. (There are rare exceptions where somebody is laid off or furloughed from their dream job, and they want to find another one just like it). But for most of us, when we make a transition we are looking to improve our situation somehow.

Maybe this means more money, a better commute, more compassionate leadership, upward mobility potential, or something else. With that in mind, consider that the main role of a résumé (and cover letter) is to help bridge the gap between where you’ve been, and where you want to be. These documents tell your story and they seek to grab the reader’s attention and influence them to contact you for an interview.

Some of you reading this are earlier in your careers, and some of you may be toward the latter part. Both of these situations have pros and cons - let’s unpack the simplest differences.

Early career:

• Less experience; harder to follow career trajectory or show loyalty

• Generally easier to transition to new industries or job responsibilities

• In many cases, you should expect less in compensation

Late career:

• More experience; in most cases, loyalty is obvious via longer terms of employment

• Major transitions can be difficult if you’ve been in the same industry for a long time

• Usually entitled to more compensation due to earned experience

Now to answer the big question: how much experience should be on my résumé? Again, the answer is different for everybody and the best way to find your answer is to work with a professional résumé writer. But as a general rule of thumb, the “Experience” section of your résumé should contain your most recent 10-15 years of relevant work experience.

Some of you read that and thought “that’s reasonable”. But most of you probably objected for one of these two reasons:

1. You’re earlier in your career and you don’t have that much relevant experience yet. No problem. You need to know your goal in making a résumé, and then frame your résumé to give you the best chance of achieving that goal. You need to put all of your relevant work experience on your résumé, and then fill the rest of the page with other experience that could be helpful. For example, if you are looking for a job in public relations but have mainly only worked in a supermarket, describe your supermarket experience in a way that highlights your customer-facing communication skills and your attention to detail.

2. You’re later in your career and you have more than 15 years of experience. Also no problem. You should focus on highlighting the most recent 10-15 years of relevant experience in the Experience section. Depending on the quality/relevance of your other experience, you can include it in a section toward the end of the résumé called “Additional Experience”, or something to that effect. If most of your early experience was in another industry or is otherwise irrelevant, it’s okay to take it off of the résumé altogether.

In either case, or even if you think you can highlight 10-15 years of experience with no problems, it’s safest to have a professional résumé writer take a look and make changes.

CareerPulse has solved this particular problem for our customers many times, and we’d love to help you too! To get started, click the button below: