The question often comes up with job seekers who have extensive career history of how many jobs they should include on their resume. There are couple of ways to look at this. It’s possible to “date” yourself by including jobs that go past too many years. A high number of jobs over a long period of time can make a job seeker appear either aged or incapable of maintaining any one job for a long period of time. However, one should always include the jobs that are relevant to the main work skills and industry of targeted companies.
Here are a few guidelines concerning how many jobs you should include on your resume and how far back into the past you should include in a job history.
As mentioned earlier, limit the number of jobs to the last job that you have hell in the last 10 to 12 years. By using this tactic, you can impress upon the recruiter that you have fresh up to date go that they should consider for this job. Never indicate on a resume anything that will lead to your age. Even though hiring managers are restricted from discriminating against mature workers, they can and do consider age appropriateness for each job type when reviewing resumes to weed out certain candidates.
In today’s age, it’s not uncommon for candidates to present with multiple jobs over the last few years. Do not let this intimidate you if you have a number of temporary and permanent positions to list on your resume. Most recruiters understand that working professionals have likely taken on a number of jobs while the economy was so volatile. If you worked with a specific staffing agency be sure to list all of the assignments underneath the single staffing agency name.
When deciding how many jobs to list on your resume, consider how relevant they are to the one that you are applying for. For example, you may have worked in a sales position 15 years ago and then recently worked in a sales capacity on a temporary assignment. If you can show progression in your sales career from the former job to the present this would certainly be something you would want to list on a resume if you are targeting sales positions.
There is no limit on the number of jobs you should list on a resume, but remember to keep your resume to 2 pages or less if you want it to be read by recruiters.
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