I was talking about the mistakes people make on their resumes and one of them is to model a "corporate business resume." These types of resumes are done in more of a paragraph format and have the dates the person worked at each company.
As I said on The BuZz, your resume doesn't get you work, it gives you credibility. So with each word or number you put on your resume you have to ask yourself, is this something that they could say "no" to? And obviously if it may make them say no, you don't want it on your resume.
Dates can give a lot of information that people can say "no" to. For example:
1. If your first credit was in 1963, and the director looking at your resume was born in 1983, you may get passed over because the young director doesn't want an "old guy" telling him what to do.
2. If your first 10 credits are all in 2009, clearly, you just started last year. While you have ten credits, you may still be viewed as lacking experience because you've only been working for a year.
3. If your most recent credit is 2010 but before that your last credit was 2001, the person reading it may wonder, "why wasn't this person being hired?" You may have a great answer, like you left the business to care for a parent, but you may never get the chance to explain.
4. If your most recent credit is 2001, people will really wonder, why hasn't anyone hired you and a major red flag goes up.
You don't want to raise any flags, red, yellow, or otherwise. It's just safer to keep your resume simple and date free, in my opinion. Besides, if they really want to know dates, they can check IMDB.
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