Writing a CV after 50: experience without looking dated

Reading time: 5 minutes

Your experience is the advantage, your CV turns it into a problem

Someone who has worked for thirty years has seen more, solved more and guided more people than someone in their thirties. That's exactly what an employer is paying for.

Yet with candidates over fifty, we often see a CV that hides that advantage. Not because the experience is missing, but because the CV is built like a chronological archive: everything you've ever done, in order, starting from your first job. The reader then starts at 1994 and works out your age before they've even seen what you can do.

This can be fixed without hiding anything.

Condense the first fifteen years into a few lines

Your roles from before roughly 2010 no longer need bullet points. One line per role is enough: job title, employer, dates. Anyone who's interested will ask about it at the interview.

What you should write out in full are your last two or three roles. That's what an employer judges you on, and that's where you need the space you've just freed up.

One exception: if you did something earlier that directly matches the vacancy — you started out in engineering and are now applying for a technical role again — that role should be written out in full, regardless of the year.

Don't put your education at the top

For a school leaver, education does the heavy lifting. Not for you anymore. Your diploma from 1991 says less about what you can do today than what you've done over the last five years — and it immediately puts a date at the top of the page.

Put your work experience at the top and your education at the bottom, without a graduation year if you'd rather not mention it. That's not concealment; it's simply the order in which an employer reads.

Show that you've kept learning

The concern an employer sometimes has with an older candidate is rarely about experience and often about keeping up. You take that concern away by demonstrably showing that you do.

A course from last year. A system you mastered when the company switched over. A new working method you introduced. This doesn't need a separate section — it's strongest listed as a result under the role where you achieved it.

Leave out the photo and date of birth

On a British CV, neither is required. A date of birth puts age front and centre before anyone has read your experience, and a photo does the same. Leaving them out is fine, and isn't seen as unusual here.

What you should always include: your phone number, your email address and the town or city where you live. A full home address isn't necessary.

Two pages, even with thirty years of experience

This is the hardest part. Fitting thirty years onto two pages feels like throwing away half your career.

But the omission is exactly what makes it strong: by showing only what matters now, you demonstrate that you can separate the essential from the trivial. That's a quality in itself that suits a senior role.

In short

• Write your last two or three roles out in full; condense the rest to one line each.
• Put work experience at the top and education at the bottom, without a graduation year.
• Show that you've kept learning, ideally as a result listed under a role.
• A photo and date of birth aren't required — leaving them out is fine.
• Two pages, even after thirty years. That's a choice, not a loss.

Want your existing CV checked against these points? With CV-Refresher, you upload what you have and get back a version that puts your experience front and centre.

Refresh your CV →