Whether you’re a recent graduate or a career professional, looking for jobs is one of the most daunting things you can experience in life.  From which font style to use to which colour shirt to wear to the interview, the details can be suffocating.

And something as rudimentary as counting the years of experience on your resumé doesn't get much focus, but it can set you apart from hundreds of other applicants. 

This article will help you gather up your years of experience, so you can put your best foot forward before you go through the door to interview.

You may find sources of experience that you never realized were worth presenting before, and that definitely won’t go unnoticed by your employer.

Why count my years of experience?

This is a no-brainer, right?  Employers stipulate the count of the years of experience they require on their posting.  If you don’t have that, three strikes you’re out!

Not necessarily.  Often employers ask for the moon and the stars but don’t get them.

Regardless of if you have the required years of experience or fall shy of it, you need to show them that they won’t be settling for you when you could spell the job title correctly and the other short-listed candidate did everything but.

You can show the employer that they’d be levelling up because of the strengths and type of experience you showcase on your resumé.

A count of years of experience is a traditional way of assessing how battle-hardy a candidate is.  

But there are so many different ways you can show your stripes.

Years of experience is also a way to distinguish candidates into categories of skill ranges and pay grades when they become employees.  But the world has been changing, especially in the past few decades.

That sounds wonderful.  But what happens when you don’t have that rudimentary count of years of experience, which is often their first qualifier anyways?

You rack ‘em up. Properly that is.  But let's examine first how to express your years of experience, then we will return to how to properly count them. 

How do I express my years of experience on my resumé?

Of course, count by the duration of months you served under job titles relevant to the posting.  Divide by 12 and you get the years.  If this matches the years of experience the employer wants, apply, and presto!  Interview!

There's more to it than that.  Expressing your years of experience appropriately on your resumé makes a difference. 

Just as years of experience is often the first requirement on a job posting, it is often the first line under the highlights of qualifications section (typically for Canadian resumés) or profile and skills sections (typically for U.S. resumés).

Employers often count up the accumulation of your experience entries to ensure the correctness of this count you express.  Yes, they do that.

If these values do not match, this looks bad for your integrity.  Make sure your math checks out.

And speaking of a count of experience, include in your count, and under the experience section of your resumé, the experience that you gained from your country of origin if you're now in another country applying for jobs.  And if you're in a regulated profession (physician, engineering, law, etc.), it is good to show on your resumé that you have joined the relevant regulatory body, and you're enrolled in a bridging/equivalency program to help you continue your career in the country you live in now.

Counts of five

Employers usually ask for years of experience in counts of five, the most common being zero, five, and ten.  Common exceptions are when they ask for zero to two years for entry-level or recent graduate positions.

It is recommended that you express your years of experience to match what the posting requests.  But what if you have more?  

“Plus” is a useful word.

Use it when you want to show that you are recognizing that count of five (or if you prefer an exact number), and have additional years, e.g., "five plus years", or "ten plus years".  Alternatives to using "plus" is "more than" or "over", e.g., "over two years" or "more than five years". 

But what if you fall just shy of it?

“Almost” is another useful word.

For example, if a posting is asking for "two years" of experience, you can express that you have "almost two years of experience", "one and a half years" or "one year, nine months".  

The advantage of using "almost two years of experience" is that "two years of experience" will likely be interpreted as a matching keyword by the ATS (application tracking software) the employers use.  This can categorize you as a good match, making you less likely to be screened out, especially when a human sees your resumé and decides to read on. 

As for postings that require five or more years of experience, what do you do when you have a wealth of years of experience?

If you have over ten years in the industry, you can express it as "ten plus years" rather than saying the exact number.  

Saying you have "twenty plus years", or even "fifteen plus years" in the industry, though it is quite an achievement, may, unfortunately, age you out of an interview before they even open the door.

It is not often you see a posting asking for over fifteen years of experience, even in white-collar jobs (jobs that have a regulated industry, such as doctors, lawyers, engineers, nurses, teachers, etc.).  This is because employers usually stop looking at your experience past ten to fifteen years, as they take the most recent experience as the most relevant.

It is prudent for you, therefore, to best represent your experience within that time frame.  And even to avoid detailing or even mentioning experience beyond that time frame, unless it has the integral experience that speaks to the employer.  And when you express your years of experience, it is best to match the count on the job posting and specify it with "plus" because of the ATS.  (See the last section of this article for more details.)

Instead of going by counts of five, job seekers sometimes use the exact number of their years of experience, e.g., four years, seven years, etc.  This is also acceptable.  Remember, however, that the ATS matches keywords.  So it is wise to match keywords too, using "plus" or "almost" as specifiers. 

Years and change

If you have years and change, using words to denote the fraction of that change is useful.

“Plus” can be used again, e.g., "one plus years" or "five plus years".

Or you can use the word “half” in the count, especially if the count of years of experience rounds up under five years, e.g., two and a half years, or three and a half years.

You can also use months in the count, e.g., "four months", "one year nine months", "four years three months".  This is less common but is useful for recent graduates who may want to count every drop in the bucket.  

If you have ten plus years of experience, it is wonky to say "ten and a half years" or "eleven years nine months".  You can simply say "ten plus years". 

When counting years and change, it is better to match the number of years required on the posting, e.g., for two years, you can say "two and a half years", for five years, you can say "five plus years".  

And again, better to say "almost one year of experience" rather than saying "nine months of experience" because of the ATS.  If you want to be a stickler with the count, and a posting is requesting you have one year of experience, you can say "almost one year of experience (nine months)", again so that "one year of experience" is picked up by the ATS.

Let's move forward on what counts as experience. 

What counts as experience on my resumé?

When counting your years of experience, you rack ‘em up, right?  But where do you rack them up from?

This is not always cut and dry.  This is because job postings are clear-cut but people's aren't.  Let's have a look at what can be counted according to what an employer is looking for. 

Consider all sources of experience

You can consider all sources of your experience.  But that doesn't mean that you include all sources of your experience when applying for a job.  That being said, when you consider all sources of your experience, you can find unlikely but relevant experience entries to include. 

Experience does not have to be paid full-time work.  I repeat…

Here are sources of experience that job seekers overlook but are not overlooked by employers.  This can give you far more experience entries than you thought before.

1. Survival jobs or other/additional experience.
2. Temporary jobs, such as summer jobs and contracts.
3. Part-time jobs.
4. Volunteer experience (including charities, community service, and serving on boards, clubs or committees).
5. Paid externships, internships, or co-ops.
6. Unpaid externships, internships, or co-ops.
7. Freelance/self-employed hours.
8. Work as a business owner, partner, or business associate.

These jobs can either be paid or unpaid work, as long as you can count them.

Why would you want to include your Toastmasters Committee Member hours as relevant experience?

It also shows that you have a focused interest in your industry or that you're dedicated to developing yourself. 

Here are some examples of unlikely but relevant sources of experience that you can include as experience entries on your resumé:

1. A job seeker who is in construction, architecture, engineering or project management may volunteer at Habitat for Humanity and use those hours as relevant experience when applying for jobs.  
   
2. A job seeker who is training as a lawyer may use their part-time hours serving as a courtroom clerk.  
   
3. A social worker may use the volunteer hours they served in programs at a women’s correctional facility.  
   
4. A new immigrant applying to be a chef or a shift manager at a restaurant may use their experience owning and running a restaurant from their country of origin.  
   
5. A recent graduate with a teaching diploma applying to be a music teacher can quantify their band hours from high school.  
   
6. A university student applying to be a faculty accounts assistant can show their hours being treasurer for their high school hockey team.
   

The experience doesn’t have to be in your field or related field either.  They can be survival jobs. 

As long as a job can give you transferable skills, and all jobs can, it counts as experience.  Therefore, don’t forget about that Subway Sandwiches job you worked part-time while you were in college, especially if you were left to run that franchise by yourself or in a tiny team.  Survival jobs show high levels of responsibility and perseverance.  Uber and Uber Eats also show dedication to being self-reliant and learning new skills such as navigation, social skills, promptness, accountability (yes, for those who won’t ditch me curb-side during game nights!) and problem-solving (figuring out alternative routes through traffic).

You can get valuable references from these jobs as well, from managers to team members and clients giving reviews.

How do I match the quantity of experience the employer wants?

Here's how you can express your years of experience on the first page of your resumé as well as on your experience entries. 

Make the most out of that first bullet

In North America, Canadian employers often first look at the highlights of qualifications section of a resumé, while U.S. employers often first look at the profile and skills section of a resumé.  These sections do the same thing, functionally. 

Employers use it to hone in on as an answer key to the question they ask on their job posting.  These sections pique their interest in you for them to read on and call you for an interview.   

The very first bullet on your resumé under the highlights of qualifications section, or the very first line under your profile,  is about your years of experience.

So, you just write your years of experience in the industry, right?  Yes and no.  Write this first line to best represent you.

Here are some examples of sourcing experience.  

Example one for sourcing experience.  

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Instead of …

Leaving the years of experience blank.

After counting all sources, you can say…

“Six months of experience in account management.”

(This person was the treasurer for their high school hockey team.)

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Example two for sourcing experience. 

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Instead of …

Again, leaving the years of experience blank.

You can say…

“Three plus years of experience in customer service.”

(This person is a refugee with no work experience in the country, but served as a hairdresser and cashier for three years in a family-owned salon in their country of origin before migrating to Canada.)

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Example three for sourcing experience. 

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Instead of …

Leaving the years of experience blank again.

You can say…

“One and a half years of experience in customer service, public service and community programs.”

(This person is applying for an entry-level coordinator position and served a full-time volunteer mission for their church away from their home after graduating high school.  They detail this experience entry on their resumé under experience.)

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And then there are instances the posting may request a certain count of years of experience, with some of it being dedicated to a certain qualification. 

Therefore, you can differentiate your experience. 

Example one of differentiating experience. 

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Instead of saying…

“Six months of experience as a news anchor.”

You can say…

“Three years of experience in radio and television studios, with six months as a news anchor.”

(This person started in the job by writing scripts for radio ads and TV commercials in studios, and then got different positions.)

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Example two of differentiating experience.

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Instead of saying…

“One year of experience in real estate.”

You can say…

“Three plus years of experience in multiple sectors (one year of experience in real estate)”.

(This person had a business in their country of origin before migrating to the U.S. and getting their real estate license.)

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Example three of differentiating experience.

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Instead of saying…

“Two years of experience as a podiatrist.”

You can say…

“Ten plus years of experience in hospitals and clinics (two years as a podiatrist)”.

(This person was a registered nurse who completed their medical license while working before they decided to specialize in podiatry.)

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However, be careful not to appear as over-qualified.  It would be prudent to stick to the years requested on the posting, specifying it by "plus" if needed, and then going into the differentiation. 

Rack ‘em up

Now that you’ve got your sources, how do you rack ‘em up?

You can count experience entries by their months.  But it is not always that simple as you may have experience entries that are part-time (under 40 hours per week).

For each non-full-time experience entry, you can describe it with a qualifier and/or quantifier.

Examples of qualifiers are "part-time", "volunteer", or "freelance".  

Examples of quantifiers are "10 hrs./wk.", or "500 hours".

Specifying the hours of a non-full-time experience entry not only shows the employer you are counting all your relevant experience but that you are diligent in your service since part-time can mean anything from half an hour a week to just under 40 hours per week.  And freelance can even be over 40 hours.   You can even specify the hours for your club efforts with Rotary, Lions, or Toastmasters, in this way. 

How exactly do you write these non-full-time experience entries?

Here are some examples.

Example one of specifying non-full-time experience entries. 

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Fact-Checker/Editor (Part-time, 20 hrs./wk.) June 2020 to Aug 2022

The Sun, New York NY

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Example two of specifying non-full-time experience entries. 

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Lion’s Club Committee Member (100 hrs./mth.) Jan 2018 to July 2019

Binbrook Chapter, Montreal QC

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Example three of specifying non-full-time experience entries. 

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Build Site Crew Member (Volunteer, 500 hrs.) Sept 2016 to Nov 2017

Habitat for Humanity, Oshawa ON

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Then you go on to detail each experience entry with bullets.  You can opt for bullets that sound more like accomplishment statements rather than generic job descriptions, with the first bullet being a battlefield bullet, aka overview bullet. 

That’s all well and fine, but how do you count them in your years of experience?

All right, here’s the math!  But don’t worry, it’s not differential calculus, I promise.

Here is how to equate part-time job hours to full-time job hours, using the examples above.

Example one of counting non-full-time experience to add to your years of experience. 

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Fact-Checker/Editor (Part-time, 20 hrs./wk.) June 2020 to Aug 2022

The Sun, New York NY

Equating it to a full-time work week would be 20 divided by 40 which will give you 0.5 or 50%.

June 2022 to Aug 2022 is three months.

Your experience in that job is therefore 50% of three months, which is one and a half months added to your years of experience.

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Example two of counting non-full-time experience to add to your years of experience. 

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Lion’s Club Committee Member (100 hrs./mth.) Jan 2018 to July 2019

Binbrook Chapter, Montreal QC

A full-time job is 40 hrs./wk.  And there are four weeks in a month.

Therefore, 100 hrs./mth. divided by four weeks per month is 25 hrs./wk.

Equating it to a full-time work week would be 25 divided by 40, which is 0.625 or 62.5%.

Jan 2018 to July 2019 is nineteen months.

Your experience in that job is therefore 62.5% of nineteen months, which is around 12 months added to your years of experience.

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Example three of counting non-full-time experience to add to your years of experience. 

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Build Site Crew Member (500 hrs.) Sept 2016 to July 2017

Habitat for Humanity, Oshawa ON

Sept 2016 to July 2017 is eleven months.

Dividing 500 hours by eleven months is 45.45 hrs./mth.

Therefore, 45.45 hrs./mth. divided by four weeks per month is 11.36 hrs./wk.

Equating it to a full-time work week would be 11.36 divided by 40, which is 0.284 or 28.4%.

Your experience in that job is therefore 28.4% of eleven months, which is around three months added to your years of experience.

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As you can see, the most relative quantifier is the hrs./wk., as that can easily be compared to full-time hours.  It is therefore better to show specify non-full-time experience entries as hrs./wk. unless an employer stipulates otherwise.

Let's move forward how to regard your experience entries. 

What happens if I have too many experience entries?

In your efforts to make a decent count, and to show your multi-faceted self, you may end up populating your resumé too much.  

After all, any resumé that is over two pages is often not taken seriously, even for white-collar jobs.  

The employer will think that you are not able to comprehend what is relevant from what is not, and that this lack of discernment can affect your performance on the job.  This is a red flag and though you are qualified, you might not make the cut to interview. 

Here's how you fix it. 

Be selective

Including all of your experience entries is excellent for your master resumé. Nobody has to see that except you and your mentor or employment coach.  You use it as reference material to make resumés to target jobs.  

A resumé you use to for a job is far slimmer as it targets that job.  You can trim the fat on a targeted resumé by thinking from the perspective of the employer and writing accordingly. 

Include experience entries you think they’d prefer to see.

Detail the relevant experience entries

But what if most of your experience entries are still relevant anyways (either by being in a relevant field of work or showcasing important transferable skills)?  

There is still a way to counter overpopulating a resumé.  You need to avoid detailing every experience entry!  Detail meaning to further describe using bullets.  

Many employment coaches recommend that job seekers detail between one to four experience entries that are most relevant to the posting.  

You can include the other experience entries but you can leave them undetailed or simply include their battlefield bullets, aka overview bullets. 

Alternatively, you can include other experience entries under a subsection called "additional experience".  This should only be for experience entries that might not be in the industry of the job you're applying for, but still demonstrates transferable skills.  You can opt to list them undetailed, or detailed only by their battlefield bullets.  You might have seen subsections like "volunteer experience" do the same thing.  But since volunteer experience can be relevant to your career, it is best to use them under experience instead. 

How will I get picked up by the employer?

That's a good question.  Some people get picked up without the employer ever seeing their resumé.  But they would still need to know how to express themselves well, and expressing their years of experience plays a part.  Either way, let both your years of experience and the experience you mention talk to each other. 

Measure twice, cut once

This principle not only applies to a piece of wood or fabric.  But in all things.

Remember to check the expression you use for your years of experience against your count of all of the experience entries you include.  And the expression should match what the posting requests. 

Here are some examples of expressions of years of experience that make sense to the employer:

1. Instead of saying "two years, nine months", if that is your count, what is better is saying "two plus years" or "almost three years" (two plus years because of the ATS).   Do this especially for postings that ask for "zero to two years" or "two years" of experience. 
2. If your count is anything over ten years, you can say "ten plus years".   Do this for postings that ask for "ten years", but if the posting is asking for "five years", you stand the risk of looking over-qualified.  You can say "five plus years" instead. 
3. If your count is anything over fifteen years, it is not advisable you say "fifteen plus years" as this can age you.  You can opt for saying "five plus years" or "ten plus years" if it corresponds to the years of experience the posting requests.  
4. If you express "two plus years" or "five plus years" or "ten plus years" to correspond to the years of experience the posting requests, but your experience entries shows an accumulation of more years of experience, that's okay.  This happens for persons who worked many years for one employer, or who have worked many years for different employers.  (See below for more details.)

The approach

There's nothing wrong with you being over-qualified.  If you are in a position where you are willing to accept a job you are over-qualified for in order to get hired and apply for more openings later at the organization, or you wish to accumulate more local or industry experience as you build your career, that's good.  However, your resumé must be expressed well. 

The best resumé for a job is the one that expresses a fit and showcases your potential, not everything that you are. 

If you show that you are over-qualified on your resumé, it's a red flag to the employer because they will assume that they cannot afford you, or that you will not be teachable at the level you will be operating.  

So what do you do?  When you are applying for a job you are over-qualified for, express the same number of years of experience the posting is requesting with the word "plus" as a specifier.  And being selective with your experience entries can save you.  The most recent experience (anything within the last ten years to date) is taken as more valuable by the employer.  

But what if you worked for the same employer for many years?  There might not be much of a way around this.  However, if you have worked in different positions (had promotions) at the same employer, you might want to include only the last positions.  If you have that employer as a reference, they will be able to verify how many years you have worked in that position. 

If after all of this, you still end up with a high count, you still stand a chance.  Ensure that you use keywords that demonstrate you have the skills pertaining to the job you're applying for.  And at the interview level, you can demonstrate your humility to the employer by telling them how much you like the organization, that you think this position is a good starting point, and that you're willing to grow with them. 

And then you may be under-qualified in terms of years of experience required.  Again... show them you have what it takes in terms of the skills they are looking for, and that you're looking for a chance. 

Be proud of yourself

Your experience is a giant part of who you are.  Be proud of it.  

Value the exposures that helped make you who you are.  And bring that stellar person to the interview.

Before you shoot your shot on every application, give your resumé a once over.  You can ask a trusted friend or mentor to review it before you apply, especially for those dream jobs!   

Continually being appreciative of and showcasing the experience that built you can be the difference between you not just getting the job, but also taking your career in a direction you like.