A resume should go back 10 to 15 years, or your last three to five roles — whichever tells the stronger story. Recruiters scan for recent, relevant scope; a 1998 job gets you nothing and dates you. Older experience belongs in a one-line Earlier Career entry, not a deleted decade that reads as a gap.
Recruiters read a resume backwards from today. Your current role gets the most attention, the one before it slightly less, and anything past the ten-year mark gets a glance at best. The skills market moves fast enough that a decade-old title rarely proves you can do the job now — what you shipped in 2013 was built on tools, budgets, and team structures that no longer exist. Keeping those roles at full length dilutes the bullets that actually win interviews.
There is also a bias-protection angle. Employment lawyers and career coaches converge on the same advice: graduation years and early-90s jobs invite age assumptions before anyone evaluates your work. Trimming history to 10–15 years is not hiding anything — it is standard practice, and every serious resume guide from recruiting firms says the same thing.
The rule bends when an old role carries unique proof. If the job you want is a return to something you did 18 years ago — say you are moving back into aviation after a detour — that old experience is the qualification, and it stays, with dates. If an early role has a brand-name employer or a rare credential that still opens doors, keep it as a single line.
The compression tool is an Earlier Career section: one or two lines listing title, company, and years, with no bullets. It closes the timeline so a parser and a recruiter both see a continuous history, without spending an inch of space on stories that no longer sell you. Delete the section entirely only when your visible history already spans 12+ years on its own.
Deleting old jobs outright can backfire: an ATS profile that asks for full history will now disagree with your resume, and a background check that surfaces an employer you never mentioned raises questions you did not need. The safe pattern is to compress, not erase — full detail for the recent 10 years, one line each for the rest.
Watch the arithmetic. If your resume starts in 2016 but your LinkedIn says you started working in 2004, a recruiter will notice the missing years within seconds. Either mirror the Earlier Career line on LinkedIn or accept the question and prepare a one-sentence answer. Consistency between the two documents matters more than which cutoff you choose.
Only as a one-line Earlier Career entry, unless that specific role is the core qualification for the job you want. Twenty-year-old bullets rarely prove current ability, and full detail that far back mostly invites age assumptions.
Not on the resume — it is a marketing document, not a legal record. Application forms and background checks are where completeness matters, so compress old roles rather than deleting them if the employer requires full history.
If your degree is more than 15 years old, dropping the year is common and safe. Keep the degree itself; recruiters check that the credential exists, not when you earned it, unless the role requires a recent qualification.
Run your resume through the free scorer — it flags timeline gaps and bloated ancient roles alongside 60+ other checks.
