How far back should a resume go?
For most people, about 15 years is a sensible limit. Canada's Job Bank says jobs "more than 15 years old should either be cut out or minimized." The US federal government asks applicants to put their most relevant and recent work first. Older jobs can stay only when they still prove something the posting asks for.
The Job Bank page on how to write a good resume, last modified May 30, 2024, puts it in two lines. It says to "Place the emphasis of your resume on your most recent experience." It also says to "Limit your resume to two pages."
Fifteen years is a ceiling, and you can stop well short of it. A new graduate may have three years of work to show, and that is fine. A person with 25 years in one field will have to choose. The question to ask of each old job is simple: does it prove a requirement in this posting?
What do government hiring guides say about older experience?
Both Canadian and US government guides point the same way: recent and relevant work first, old and unrelated work out. Job Bank sets the 15 year mark. The US Office of Personnel Management tells federal applicants to "Remove outdated or unrelated experience" now that federal resumes are limited to two pages.
The OPM guidance on the two-page limit on resume length explains the rule. Starting September 27, 2025, USAJOBS limits every resume to two pages. If the only resume an applicant sends is longer, OPM says the applicant "is ineligible for further consideration." That makes the cut a requirement for federal jobs, where before it was a style choice.
The same OPM page lists "Helpful Hints for Creating a Two-Page Resume." The first is "Prioritize most relevant and recent experience." For each job you keep, it asks for the job title, employer, start and end dates by month and year, and the number of hours you worked per week. Even outside federal hiring, that list is a useful model of how much detail each job needs.
How should you decide which old jobs to keep?
Keep an old job when it is the only proof of a skill, credential or industry the posting asks for. Cut it when a newer job proves the same thing. Shrink it to one line when it explains your path but proves nothing new. This test works the same at year 8 or year 20.
Start with the job posting, not your history. Write down each requirement, then mark which of your jobs proves it. Any job with no marks is a candidate for cutting. A job that is the only proof of a requirement stays, however old it is.
Here is how the test plays out for common cases. The table is a guide, and the job posting always decides.
| Situation | What to do with older jobs | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Under 10 years of work | Keep everything relevant, including student jobs if they prove a requirement | You need the evidence, and it fits on one or two pages |
| 10 to 15 years of work | Show full detail for recent jobs, shorten the oldest ones | Job Bank puts the line at 15 years |
| More than 15 years of work | Cut or shrink anything older than 15 years | Job Bank says these "should either be cut out or minimized" |
| An old job proves a key requirement | Keep it, with one or two bullets that tie to the posting | It may be your only proof |
| Applying to a US federal job | Keep only what fits on two pages, with month and year dates and hours per week | OPM's two-page rule and its required details |
| Career change | Pull older relevant work forward under a skills or relevant experience heading | Newer jobs may not prove the new field |
How do you shorten old jobs without hiding them?
Use an "Earlier experience" line at the bottom of your work history. List the job titles and employers, with no bullets. You can include dates or leave them off. The reader sees that the history exists, and you spend your two pages on the work that proves you fit this posting.
Here is a made-up example of an earlier experience section. Change the names and titles to your own.
Earlier experience: Customer service lead, Northway Foods; Inventory clerk, Lakeside Hardware; Sales associate, Bay Street Books
If one old job matters more than the others, give it its own entry with a single bullet. Write that bullet about the requirement it proves. Our guide to writing resume bullet points shows how to write one line that carries a result.
Federal applications are the exception. OPM asks for start and end dates in month and year for every job you list. If you are applying through USAJOBS, list fewer old jobs with full dates rather than many with none.
Can you leave dates off old jobs and degrees?
Yes, for most private sector jobs you can drop the year from an old degree or an earlier experience line. Keep dates on recent jobs, because a missing date there looks like a gap. Federal resumes are different, since OPM asks for month and year dates. Follow the posting if it asks for dates.
Dropping the graduation year means the reader cannot work out your age from it. That is your choice to make. If an application form asks for dates, answer it truthfully. A resume is a summary you control, and an application form is a set of questions you must answer accurately.
Recent jobs are different. A reader who sees a job with no dates may assume you are hiding a gap. If you do have a gap, our page on explaining a resume gap has wording you can use.
Does age discrimination law affect what you include?
These laws protect you from being judged on age, and the resume choices stay yours. In the US, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act protects people aged 40 or older at employers with 20 or more employees. In Ontario, the Human Rights Code protects anyone 18 or older. Job Bank advises leaving age off a resume.
The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission page on age discrimination states that the ADEA "forbids age discrimination against people who are age 40 or older." The EEOC page on prohibited employment practices says it is illegal to publish a job ad that "shows a preference for or discourages someone from applying" based on age. Its example is an ad asking for "recent college graduates."
In Canada, protection comes from provincial and federal human rights laws. The Ontario Human Rights Commission page on age discrimination defines age as "18 years or older" and lists ways ageism can show up in hiring. Job Bank also advises leaving out "personal details such as age, weight, height, marital status," which it says "will prevent any potential bias."
Trimming old jobs is a choice about relevance. If you believe an employer turned you down because of your age, the EEOC and your provincial human rights body are where to start.
What if your strongest work is more than 15 years old?
Then keep it, and make it easy to find. Add a short summary at the top that names the old achievement and links it to the posting. Put the job in a "Relevant experience" section if it would otherwise sit at the bottom. The 15 year guide exists to save space, and it never outranks proof.
This happens most often for people returning to a field. A nurse who spent ten years in sales and wants to go back to clinical work needs that old nursing job near the top. Our career change resume guide shows how to group older relevant jobs under their own heading.
It also happens for licences and training. A certification earned 18 years ago that is still current counts as current. List it with the year you renewed it, if that helps.
How do you check the cut before you send it?
Read the posting and your resume side by side, and find the line that proves each requirement. If a requirement has no line, an old job you cut may hold the proof. If an old job proves nothing on the list, it can go. Then check the page count against the limit you chose.
A master resume helps here. Keep every job and every bullet in one long file that never goes out. For each application, copy only what the posting needs. Nothing is lost, and each version stays short.
If you are deciding between one and two pages, the guide to one-page vs two-page resumes covers that choice. For federal jobs, two pages is the limit, and OPM says longer resumes are not reviewed. If you are applying in Canada, our Canadian resume format page covers what Canadian employers expect.
The free resume optimizer rewrites the lines that matter for a posting and keeps your facts. You can also paste the posting into the free job match tool, which checks every requirement against your resume and gives a score out of 10. Prept writes tailored resumes only from facts you confirmed, so an old job you choose to keep is described as it was.
Once the resume gets you an interview, the panel interview tips page covers what happens when several people ask the questions.