Leaving Out Employment Dates From Your Resume

Q:  Should I leave out employment dates from my resume?

A:  I have seen different advice given on this, including those given by resume writers who suggest that a candidate leave dates of employment off a resume if there is a lot of job hopping, or when showcasing the depth of experience in a particular area.  This type of resume is called a “functional” resume, listing responsibilities and achievements under some of your main areas of qualifications.  It is not necessarily chronological.

My advice to you as a pharmacist job market expert who has seen thousands of resumes (not from just writing resumes that work for my private resume makeover pharmacist clients, but from seeing actual resumes that impress hiring managers) is this:  put employment dates on your resume under your Experience section.

Why?  If you leave out dates of employment, it can be a red flag to a pharmacy hiring manager right away.  Even if it does not come across as a red flag, it leaves them to wonder about when you actually worked at a particular place.  And it takes additional time for a hiring manager to find this out from you.  Remember, you have 10 seconds for a hiring manager to glance at your resume and be impressed with it.  If there are 30 other pharmacist job applications, and yours is the only one that requires additional detective work to find the information they are looking for, chances are that the hiring manager will look at the other ones first.

You may incorporate a “functional” resume format into your resume, but when you do so, include the dates of employment so that following the chronological flow of your career path is easy.

The dates of employment may be expressed by the year, or month and year.

Does this mean you should include all dates of employment? The answer to this is situational based.  In general, it is not necessary on a resume, but is recommended on a CV.  Your resume is a place for someone to look for your direct relevant experience to a particular position and does not need to include all of your work history.  Including your most recent experience is also important.

If you are concerned that a pharmacy hiring manager may think you’ve been job hopping recently, there are other ways to get over that objection.  This and other ways to overcome objections about you are taught in my programs for pharmacists wanting to get noticed in this competitive job market, so you get interviews and offers faster.