How many years of detail

Ten to fifteen is the usual working range. Full lines for the last two roles, fewer for the ones behind them, and a single line each once you are past about twelve years.

Should I delete the old roles entirely

Rarely. Deleting them creates a gap that a reader has to explain to themselves. One line with the title, the employer and the years costs almost nothing and closes the question.

What about relevant work from twenty years ago

Keep it, in one line, and mention the relevance in your opening paragraph or in the letter rather than by expanding the entry.

Does an old date hurt the check

No rule here reads how old a date is. The date rules look at formatting: shortened years cost eight points of parseability, mixed formats cost four.

How do I show a long career without a long page

An Earlier roles block with one line per position, under the detailed entries. It keeps the record complete and the page readable.

Guide · Résumé

How far back a résumé should go

Detail should fade as the dates recede. Here is how far back to go, what to keep from before that, and how to compress the early years without hiding them.

ConxfolioPublished 2026-09-12

— detail fades, dates stay.

A résumé is read from the top down and abandoned somewhere in the middle. The practical consequence is that detail should fade as the dates recede, while the dates themselves stay on the page.

The working range

Ten to fifteen years of detail suits most careers. Full lines for the current role and the one before it, three lines for the one before that, one or two for anything older. A role from 2009 with six bullet points tells a reader that the page has not been edited since.

What compression looks like

An early role becomes a single line: title, employer, years. Several early roles become one block under a heading such as Earlier roles, with one line each. The record stays complete, the reader gets the shape of the career, and the room goes to work that is still relevant.

Why deleting is worse than compressing

A deleted role leaves a hole in the dates, and a reader who notices a hole starts constructing an explanation. One line closes that question for the price of one line. It also keeps the document honest, which matters when a background check compares it to an employment history later.

The exceptions worth keeping

Old work that matches this application. Keep the line, and explain the relevance in your opening paragraph rather than by expanding the entry.
A name a reader in your field will recognise. The employer is the evidence; the bullet points are not needed.
The first job in a long run at one organisation. The experience guide covers how to show progression inside one employer without repeating yourself.

Education and the same question

Education follows the same curve. A degree from twenty years ago is one line with the qualification, the institution and the year, and the grade comes off. The education guide covers where the block sits once it has shrunk.

What the check sees

The ATS résumé checker has no rule about how old a date is, and no view on career length. Its date rules are about form: four-digit years, one format down the page. Shortened years such as an apostrophe followed by two digits cost eight points of parseability, and mixing month-and-year with numeric dates costs four more. A compressed early block is fine as long as the years are written the same way as everywhere else.

Doing it in the builder

In the résumé builder, each role is an entry you can shorten in place rather than delete, and the page beside the editor shows immediately what the space bought you. Save a version first, so a role you cut back can be restored if the next application wants it.

Then read the first half of the page as a stranger would. If the most useful thing you have done is still visible in the top third, the compression worked. If it is not, the problem is the order rather than the years, and the formats guide covers how to move a section as a block.

A long career on two pages

Twenty-five years does not need twenty-five years of lines. The working shape is three detailed roles, three or four compressed ones, and an Earlier roles block that lists the rest with years. That fits two pages comfortably and it tells a reader everything they need: what you do now, how you got there, and that nothing is being hidden.

Where a much earlier role is the most relevant thing on the page, promote the evidence rather than the entry: mention it in the opening paragraph, and let the entry itself stay compressed. The opening paragraph guide covers how to do that in one clause.

Early roles that still earn their line

A first job in the trade you are still in shows the length of the run. A role at an organisation everyone in your field knows is a fact worth keeping. A period abroad explains a language or a market. In each case the line survives because it carries information a reader cannot get anywhere else on the page, which is the test for everything you keep when you are cutting. The guide to what to leave off applies the same test to everything else.

Compress the early roles

Each role is an entry you can shorten without losing it, and the page beside the editor shows what the space bought you.

Open the résumé builder Read the length guide

Questions

How many years of detail: Ten to fifteen is the usual working range. Full lines for the last two roles, fewer for the ones behind them, and a single line each once you are past about twelve years.
Should I delete the old roles entirely: Rarely. Deleting them creates a gap that a reader has to explain to themselves. One line with the title, the employer and the years costs almost nothing and closes the question.
What about relevant work from twenty years ago: Keep it, in one line, and mention the relevance in your opening paragraph or in the letter rather than by expanding the entry.
Does an old date hurt the check: No rule here reads how old a date is. The date rules look at formatting: shortened years cost eight points of parseability, mixed formats cost four.
How do I show a long career without a long page: An Earlier roles block with one line per position, under the detailed entries. It keeps the record complete and the page readable.

Conxfolio is a free set of four career tools: a résumé builder with 37 rendered layouts, an ATS résumé checker that prints its own arithmetic, a cover letter builder that traces every proof paragraph back to the line it came from, and a portfolio builder with 20 authored designs. There is no account to create, nothing is held back for a paid plan, and no language model is used anywhere in the product, so the readers, the score and the letter are deterministic code you can check.