CV - to show or not show previous employers

[Greenmantle]

I am entering the job market again after a number of years.
Currently composing a new CV with the usual sections.
I am pondering whether I should include a list of previous employers or should I hold that back.
The reason for this is that the rest of my CV should be enough to decide whether I should proceed to the interview stage and I do not need to give this information at the CV selection stage.
Obviously for the interview I can furnish the interviewer with the details.
I understand that certain agents might be upset so want to gauge whether a decision like this would adversely effect my job chances.

[Mr Pointy]

it's quite likley that your CV is going to be processed by an AI bot so the first thing to do is make sure you quote all the keywords in the job description so you don't get filtered out at the first hurdle.

[Mr_J]

Maybe it's sector specific but I'd expect to see previous employers listed and would wonder what you were trying to hide if they weren't shown.

You're clearly confident your CV is good enough to get an interview but don't base your thinking on getting through the first hurdle. The key question for me is whether or not you intend to ear suit and tie for the interview.

[Greenmantle]

Mr_J said:

The key question for me is whether or not you intend to wear a suit and tie for the interview.

Obviously it is based on the protective employers industry.
for example
insurance - always but plain and preferably grey - no flash ties.
media - no tie fitted blue suit plain open white shirt with brown shoes and funky socks
fast food - smart casual

[Mr Penguin]

What is the reason for dropping them? I can understand it if you work for a tobacco company's marketing department and want to go to a left-leaning NGO but generally it would either reflect well on you for working for a prestigious company or be neutral.

[Greenmantle]

Mr Penguin said:

What is the reason for dropping them? I can understand it if you work for a tobacco company's marketing department and want to go to a left-leaning NGO but generally it would either reflect well on you for working for a prestigious company or be neutral.

There are a number of reasons:
(1) Relevance - for the roles I am going for only the last 5 years really matter and that has been with a single employer.
(2) Ageism - my work history goes back a number of decades.
(3) Misreading - sometimes too much information is not good (more of a chance of reading into things that aren't true)
(4) Trust - Just like estate agents, jobs agents would make even Peter Mandelson blush. Unfortunately we have to deal with them.
(5) Gut feeling - that truism "less is more" is currently in my head.

[coldel]

Greenmantle said:

There are a number of reasons:
(1) Relevance - for the roles I am going for only the last 5 years really matter and that has been with a single employer.
(2) Ageism - my work history goes back a number of decades.
(3) Misreading - sometimes too much information is not good (more of a chance of reading into things that aren't true)
(4) Trust - Just like estate agents, jobs agents would make even Peter Mandelson blush. Unfortunately we have to deal with them.
(5) Gut feeling - that truism "less is more" is currently in my head.

I've just been on a long and arduous job hunt, so get some of the reasoning. It really depends on how much you are excluding, are we talking like 15 years of work here?

Generally speaking though its not just about skills but also experience. Leading a team, even in a different industry, displays leadership and management skills and maturity. Ageism, yes I get that, but I just got a great role in a generally younger company and I have been welcomed with open arms. If a company is (illegally) discounting you on age then to be honest I wouldn't want to work for them. Also, if your CV is set up to make you look younger, then you rock up looking 20 years older, its not a going to have a good first impression from a subconscious bias point of view.

Less is more is not really applicable I think to job applications in most cases. Sure if you are applying to stack shelves keep it brief but something more substantial then you need to clearly demonstrate your suitability from the off, and as someone said get it AI friendly so you can get through the bot screening.

Personally, I would include your previous work and pull out the softer skills you picked up in summary. Focus on your recent relevant work and then maybe summarise in shorter form your previous roles. Good employers wont want to be left guessing i.e. went to Uni in 2005 finished in 2008 and work section blank until 2020 is not going to be a good look!

[lizardbrain]

Greenmantle said:

The reason for this is that the rest of my CV should be enough to decide whether I should proceed to the interview stage

I'm surprised at this. Can't speak for every sector, but for me, the previous employers is usually the most interesting part of the CV

[rog007]

Greenmantle said:

I am entering the job market again after a number of years.
Currently composing a new CV with the usual sections.
I am pondering whether I should include a list of previous employers or should I hold that back.
The reason for this is that the rest of my CV should be enough to decide whether I should proceed to the interview stage and I do not need to give this information at the CV selection stage.
Obviously for the interview I can furnish the interviewer with the details.
I understand that certain agents might be upset so want to gauge whether a decision like this would adversely effect my job chances.

Good practice is to include some previous employment history, if only to demonstrate that you’ve been active in work rather than absent from the workforce entirely.

While “less is more” certainly applies to CVs, it’s really about limiting irrelevant information, not erasing useful context.

Take ageism as an example: you don’t need to list every role you’ve ever held, just enough to stay within two pages and to demonstrate competence and relevance for the role you’re applying for.

There’s obviously much more to writing a strong CV, but hopefully this helps address your employment query.

[Countdown]

lizardbrain said:

Greenmantle said:

The reason for this is that the rest of my CV should be enough to decide whether I should proceed to the interview stage

I'm surprised at this. Can't speak for every sector, but for me, the previous employers is usually the most interesting part of the CV

I agree. In my line of work it gives a good idea of the type of work the applicant might have been involved with.

[QuickQuack]

Same for me. Specific degrees and higher qualifications are mandatory for most of the roles in my teams, so I need to see the full educational history, where applicants got their degree(s) from and when. I or someone from HR also has to check their registration with the appropriate regulatory authority. After those, I would need to know where they worked and what they did. Everything, without a gap, even if it means going back 20-30+ years. For a full CV, I would expect an appendix which would include the scientific publications and scientific congress presentations, awards, fellowships, professional body memberships etc., though some of these may be omitted from an abbreviated CV. In my field, this is the usual approach, but every field is different, I guess.

Just giving the last 5 years of your employment details simply wouldn't cut it, the CV would automatically go in the bin. However, as I mentioned, I guess this is industry and field specific.

[Alex Z]

You definitely need to include more than one previous job, but it’s not recommended to include everything as you get older.

It’s slightly tricky for me, as I’ve got one job that ran from 2002 to 2015 so I either go with 11 years or 24 of history.
At some point I’ll have to eliminate that or just drop dates

[WayOutWest]

coldel said:

Personally, I would include your previous work and pull out the softer skills you picked up in summary. Focus on your recent relevant work and then maybe summarise in shorter form your previous roles. Good employers wont want to be left guessing i.e. went to Uni in 2005 finished in 2008 and work section blank until 2020 is not going to be a good look!

I did a big rewrite/pruning of CV and LinkedIn profile some time back to make it more ageism-resistant. Dropped a big chunk of the earlier half of my career, and took the date off my degree for that very reason so there would be no huge gap.
Plus just things like removing any non-relevant for role/career level qualifications that might age you, like O levels.
I do think you should sync with your LinkedIn profile to make sure there are no glaring contradictions - but maybe with less detail in your LinkedIn history so you have more artistic license to tailor CVs for individual roles.

I don't agree you should only show your last 5 years of history though, that is absurd. By all means reduce details on roles you had more than 10-15 years ago to single sentence entries if you still want to include them.

[Milkyway]

Only one of my previous employers still exists... One sold out & the others went to the wall.
The only one in existence... was my first job in eighties.

Twenty three years for a large International Company... I left in 2009 & they sold out about five years ago.

So I could list my experience...just to fill in the blanks.
(Blag it).

Edited by Milkyway on Thursday 12th February 12:56

[fat80b]

I guess it might depend a bit on sector/role etc, but as someone actively hiring for marketing, software + UX in London at the moment, I expect to be able to read someones work history on their CV and I expect to be able to find them on LinkedIn and for it to "match" enough that there are no red flags.

The only CVs that I get without detailed work history on them (i.e company names removed) are those that come from recruiters that we don't have terms signed with where they've doctored a CV to remove the identifying information and sent it to us to see if they can get a bite on it - These barely get looked at and would be very unlikely to result in an interview..

For me, we manually review the incoming CVs and a partial work history without company names would not pass the first sift. We've got plenty to choose from that haven't done this.

Before interview, I do a bit of digging first (e.g. if person worked for company X in a marketing role, I might want to go and poke round company X's blog and social media accounts to see if there's any evidence of "actual work").. If I haven't managed to find something between the CV and the real world that piques my interest, it probably gets filed in the bin. (Harsh but it's a numbers game)

p.s. it doesn't matter if an employer of 10 years ago does / doesn't exist or not, but it would look suspicious if someone got their degree in 2000, and the first listed job was 2010.....

[coldel]

WayOutWest said:

I did a big rewrite/pruning of CV and LinkedIn profile some time back to make it more ageism-resistant. Dropped a big chunk of the earlier half of my career, and took the date off my degree for that very reason so there would be no huge gap.
Plus just things like removing any non-relevant for role/career level qualifications that might age you, like O levels.
I do think you should sync with your LinkedIn profile to make sure there are no glaring contradictions - but maybe with less detail in your LinkedIn history so you have more artistic license to tailor CVs for individual roles.

I don't agree you should only show your last 5 years of history though, that is absurd. By all means reduce details on roles you had more than 10-15 years ago to single sentence entries if you still want to include them.

Interestingly if you apply for a role in a government role they ask you to remove all dates and any reference to your age from the CV. They have other specific call outs for helping you remove any likely biases in your application process, which I thought was quite neat.

[WayOutWest]

To be fair the last few roles that I've interviewed for, and worked in have been teams that are almost exclusively grizzled and experienced Gen Xers, so no cliche young fetus manager or tech lead that you might get in some bleeding edge tech start up.
Maybe more to do with my tech stack and industry sector, but I have no doubt that ageism exists.

[Landlubber]

Try getting a job in sales after 50, yeah, keep CV relevant, use any buzz words you want, be results driven. List last three jobs in brief as it gives you something to talk about.

[Cyberprog]

coldel said:

Interestingly if you apply for a role in a government role they ask you to remove all dates and any reference to your age from the CV. They have other specific call outs for helping you remove any likely biases in your application process, which I thought was quite neat.

You'd have to remove any school era qualifications also, as they seem to change the grading results every 10ish years.

[rog007]

Cyberprog said:

coldel said:

Interestingly if you apply for a role in a government role they ask you to remove all dates and any reference to your age from the CV. They have other specific call outs for helping you remove any likely biases in your application process, which I thought was quite neat.

You'd have to remove any school era qualifications also, as they seem to change the grading results every 10ish years.

As a general rule, it’s best to include only your two highest levels of academic achievement. For example, if you hold a Master’s degree, list that along with your first degree. If your first degree is your highest qualification, you can also include your A-levels.

To further reduce the risk of age bias during shortlisting, it’s advisable not to include dates for academic qualifications. This is generally acceptable, as these qualifications do not usually’expire’.