Since we started in this business, we’ve seen senior jobseekers regularly choose to omit the year they graduated from college from their resumes due to fears of ageism and discrimination. But recently, we’ve also started to see early career candidates omit their graduation dates, whether out of a desire to emulate their elders, or a fear of looking young and inexperienced. Regardless, it is always a bad choice for less experienced people to leave their graduation year off their resumes. You may miss out on opportunities because recruiters or algorithms cannot determine your level of work experience. You also risk appearing dishonest and unwilling to disclose basic information about yourself, which can start interviews out on the wrong foot. If you make it to the final rounds of a process, you will have to disclose your graduation year and academic experience during a background check, so it is impossible to hide information from your employer.
Some firms use software to screen resumes for education, key words, and levels of experience. If you don’t have your graduation year on your resume, you run the risk of being automatically rejected. On the human side, as a recruiter or potential employer, it can be very difficult to evaluate someone’s level of experience without knowing when they graduated. This is especially so for mid-level candidates or candidates who attended graduate school and have not included all their work experience on their resume.
Beyond that, omitting your graduation date simply makes you look dishonest. Employers will think you are hiding time off from school, or that you attended university but never graduated. Some candidates want to have a first interview, so that the employer can “fall in love” with them before they share any complicated details from their past. However, processes rarely work this way. If anything, an employer is likely to feel disappointed and betrayed. They would rather have all of the information up front so that they know you are above board.
Resume gaps and non-traditional educational pathways are common. They are not dealbreakers, but leaving out a graduation date is lying by omission. Lying is a dealbreaker. If you want to present yourself as a trustworthy, reliable person that a firm will want hire and invest in, don’t omit your graduation date.
