Decide What to Leave Off Your Resume

Whether you’re new to the job market or a longtime professional, a polished and concise resume is critical for finding a new role. When you’re making your resume, it’s important to remember that this document should serve as an easy-to-read marketing tool rather than a complete autobiography. Keep your resume to the standard 1-2 page length by excluding irrelevant work experience, omitting certain outdated or inappropriate information, and being selective about which of your skills to highlight.

Steps

Determining Which Jobs to Exclude

1. Leave off work history more than 15 years in the past. To avoid cluttering your resume, only include positions from the past 10-15 years since recruiters generally care most about this more recent experience. Additionally, listing anything more than 15 years in the past can make it difficult to stick to the appropriate resume length and can also put you at risk for age discrimination.
   • An important exception to this rule of thumb: if the job posting calls for more than 15 years of experience, then, by all means, include more than 15 years on your resume.
2. Omit jobs that aren’t at all related to the role you’re applying for. Include only roles that are clearly related to the position you’re trying to fill in order to make it easier for employers to find your main selling points. Remember: a resume is not a comprehensive list of your work history.
   • For example, if you’re applying for a job in IT support and have 10 years of experience in the field, don’t waste space on your resume by including a lifeguarding position you held in college.
   • One exception is for those new to the workforce. If you’re applying for your first job, feel free to include as many experiences as you can in your resume (including education, club leadership roles, and volunteer positions) to demonstrate your work ethic.
   • If you’re completely new to a certain field but have had unrelated jobs in the past, you could include abbreviated listings including your company, title, and dates of employment. This way, potential employers will understand what you were doing previously (and why you don’t have a ton of experience) but you’ll save space for more relevant clubs, activities, and education.
3. Exclude short term roles that don’t speak to your accomplishments. If you picked up particularly valuable skills or relevant experience in a short-term position, you can certainly include that role in your resume. However, if you had a job for fewer than 3 months and it isn’t particularly relevant to the role you’re applying for, it can take up valuable real estate on your resume and potentially make you look uncommitted.
   • Again, it’s more acceptable for students and entry-level position seekers to include short-term roles in their resumes in order to bulk up their experience section.
4. Remove most internships after you’ve held a few jobs in the field. If you’re further along in your career, recruiters will be more interested in your full time work history than your past internships. After your first or second job, the only internships you should keep on your resume are ones that are particularly impressive (an internship with the White House, for example) or add immediate value to your candidacy (such as an internship managing a specific and relevant database).
   • If you are a student, new to the workforce, or switching careers, you may have a limited professional work history in the field you’re applying to. In these cases, it’s fine to include relevant internships.
5. Think carefully about including roles you left on poor terms. While you don’t need to (and generally should not) include your reasons for leaving former positions on your resume, you should be aware that potential employers may contact your previous companies to ask about you. If you left a previous role on particularly bad terms or have other reasons to suspect your former boss may bad mouth you if given the chance, it’s perfectly fine to leave that job off your resume.
   • If you spent less than a year in the role you’d rather not include, you can remove it from your resume and “hide” the gap by listing the dates for all jobs by year only, rather than month (ex. 2012-2014).
   • If you spent more than a year at a job, however it can be tricky to take it off your resume without leaving a noticeable gap in employment. In these cases, it may be better to leave the role on your resume and have an interview story ready to go about how you learned from the experience.

Omitting Unnecessary Sections

1. Replace vague objective statements with a tailored professional summary. Instead of describing what you are searching for in a role with an "objective" section, opt instead for a professional summary that tells the prospective employer how valuable you can be for their company given your qualifications. Keep this introductory section punchy and concise with a maximum of 3-5 sentences.
   • For example, a new college graduate might include: “I’m a recent Museum Studies graduate who just completed an internship with the The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collections department. I have led the development of new exhibits at multiple local house museums and write a popular blog called Museums for the Future. I’m eager to assist a small institution in documenting their collections and creating more interactive exhibits.”
   • One exception would be if you’re changing fields. In this case, it might be helpful to include a concise overview of your goals in switching career tracks. For example, “Experienced Human Resources specialist interested in applying my project management and customer service skills to new challenges in business-to-business consulting.”
2. Keep references on a separate document. References generally aren’t necessary at the first stage of the application process and can therefore waste valuable space on your resume. If the job posting specifically requests references and contact information during the initial application process, you can generally include this on an additional page.
   • You can also remove lines like “References Available Upon Request.” Employers know that if you want the job, you’ll provide them with references if and when you’re asked.
3. Take out any photos of yourself. Unless you’re a model or actor and your career requires a professional headshot, you should leave photographs off your resume. Employers should make their decisions based solely on your qualifications rather than your appearance. In fact, some recruiters will automatically remove resumes that include a headshot because they don’t want to be accused of discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, age, or appearance.

Removing Nonessential Details

1. Omit your full mailing address, especially for out-of-state jobs. Since most job searches are conducted online rather than through snail mail, it’s unnecessary to include your full mailing address. If you’re trying to relocate for work, you should remove all location information from your resume. If you’re applying to a job close to your home, it could be helpful to include your city, state, and zip code to show that you’re a local candidate.
   • Including your full address on your resume isn’t just unnecessary; it can also be a security risk, especially if you upload or post your resume online.
2. Leave off your graduation date if it’s more than 15 years in the past. Including your graduation date when you add your degree to a resume can consciously or subconsciously cause recruiters to discriminate against you based on your age. However, including a graduation year can sometimes be helpful for those with less experience as it will explain to recruiters why you don’t have a longer employment history.
   • No matter when you graduated, it’s not necessary to include the date you started your degree.
3. Remove your GPA a few years after graduation. It’s generally considered fine to include your GPA for the first few years after you finish high school or college, especially if it’s 3.5 or above. For recent graduates, a high GPA can show work ethic, intelligence, and drive. However, once you’re 3 years out, grades aren’t considered to be as relevant for work performance and your GPA should be removed from your resume.
   • If you have a college degree, you should typically remove all references to high school from your resume. However, if you have a master’s degree or PhD, you should still include your undergraduate degree. Just be sure to list the Master’s or PhD first.
   • Once you’ve been working for a few years, you should also pare down your roles and accomplishments from college. For example, it may be time to omit your membership in a club sport team or sorority, but keep more impressive accomplishments such as high honors (such as summa cum laude) or an appointed position on a selection committee.
4. Get rid of non-professional personal data. Your resume should not include information such as your age, sex, height, weight, religion, political affiliation, or place of birth. In the US, it is actually illegal for employers to ask for many of these personal details. To avoid discrimination and ensure you’re judged based on your experience and qualifications, leave these details off.
   • Including this information on your resume can also pose a security issue if you post your resume online.
5. Leave out reasons for leaving your former job. Your resume is not the place to bring up why you transitioned away from previous companies. Remove any statements that try to explain why you left a certain role and address this topic in the interview if it comes up.

Being Strategic About Skills and Hobbies

1. Exclude basic computer skills like “email” or “typing.” At this point, skills like email, typing, and Microsoft Word are not considered to be differentiators: they’re expected. If you include too many of these skills, potential employers may think you’re trying to pad your resume. Unless the job posting specifically requests these skills, consider removing them from your resume.
   • One exception to this would be if you’re skilled at a very specific practice using basic computer programs. For example, if you are experienced at creating certain types of databases in Microsoft Excel and know that they would be used in the position you’re applying for, this would certainly be worth including in your skills section.
2. Refrain from listing soft skills such as “communication” or “leadership.” Although many employers are looking for these talents, listing them in your skills section often fails to make an impact. Instead, provide proof by demonstrating how you applied these skills in descriptions of your previous work experience.
   • For example, rather than listing “multitasking” as a skill, you could write something like “led multiple concurrent projects through to completion leading to an 80% increase in sales” under a relevant position.
3. Leave off languages you’re not comfortable speaking. Including language skills in your resume can be impressive—especially if they are relevant for the role. However, if you’re not comfortable holding a conversation or reading and writing in that language, you should leave it off your resume. At worst, your recruiter could try to engage you in conversation in that language during the interview, which could make you look incompetent or untruthful.
   • If you feel strongly about listing a language you are not fluent in, you could choose to include it along with a level of proficiency. For example, if you can have basic conversations in Spanish but are not comfortable conducting business operations in that language, you could include “Spanish—intermediate” in your resume. If your skill level is below intermediate, don’t include the language at all.
4. List only hobbies that are relevant to the position. While most employers take personality and cultural fit into consideration when hiring, they’re generally not looking for that kind of information on your resume. Save any hobbies not directly applicable to the role for the interview and instead use your resume to highlight professional qualifications.
   • In some cases, your hobbies and interests may provide you with skills that are relevant to the position. These can and should be included on your resume as either “Hobbies” or “Skills.” For example, if you’re applying for a position in marketing and enjoy doing graphic design in your spare time, it could be helpful to add that in your resume.

Tips

• Resume standards can vary from country to country, so be sure to do some research on what’s typically included on a resume in the country where your potential employer is located. For example, in the U.S., resumes generally should not include references, pictures, or personal information like marital status, date of birth, and social security number; however, this may not be the case in other places.
• Appropriate resume length varies but, generally, the more concise the better. Those with less than 10 years experience should typically aim for a 1-page resume, while those with more than 10 years experience or technical/engineering skills can use a 2-page resume. Job seekers with executive management experience or extensive academic publications and presentations may need a 3-page resume.

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