How to write dates on a CV

Pick one date format, use it everywhere, and know when year-only is fine.

Dates are the part of a CV that readers check rather than read. They look for how long you stayed in each job, whether there are gaps, and how recent your experience is. Clear, consistent dates make that easy. Mixed formats make it slow and can look careless.

Common formats

All are acceptable. The rule that matters is: pick one and use it everywhere, in experience, education and anything else with dates. The builder flags inconsistent date formats and also catches end dates that come before start dates.

Avoid all-numeric full dates

Day-month-year dates (12/03/2021) are rarely needed for jobs and they are ambiguous: in the UK and most of Europe that is 12 March, in the US it is 3 December. Month and year is the usual level of detail. If you do need a full date (an exam you are about to sit, for example), write the month as a word: 12 March 2027.

Month and year, or year only?

Use month and year by default. Recruiters generally expect it, and it shows tenure accurately.

Year-only dates are reasonable when:

• the role is many years in the past and you list it only briefly;
• you are listing education that finished long ago;
• your field or region commonly uses year-only (check job ads and example CVs in your sector).

Be aware of what year-only dates do. “2021 – 2022” could mean 2 months (December 2021 to January 2022) or 2 years. Readers know this, and some will assume the shortest reading. Using year-only dates specifically to hide a gap tends to backfire if the question comes up at interview and you seem evasive. It is better to show the dates and explain the gap briefly; the career gaps guide shows how.

Watch out: Do not mix the two within one section. “Mar 2021 – Present” next to “2018 – 2020” looks like you are hiding something about the second job, even if you are not.

Current roles

Write Present (or “Now”, or “Current”; pick one). Avoid leaving the end date blank, which can look like a mistake, and avoid writing today’s date, which will be wrong next week.

If you have accepted a new job that has not started, you can list it with a future start date (“Starting Jan 2027”) in your most recent position, but only if the offer is confirmed.

The en dash

The correct character for a range is the en dash (–), not a hyphen (-) and not an em dash (—).

• Typed: on Windows, Alt+0150 on the numeric keypad; on a Mac, Option+Hyphen. Many word processors convert a spaced hyphen to an en dash automatically.
• Spacing: with dates that contain spaces, a spaced en dash reads best: “Mar 2021 – Jun 2023”. With single years, either “2021–2023” or “2021 – 2023” is fine. Again, choose one.
• “to” is fine too: “Mar 2021 to Jun 2023” is perfectly clear and avoids the character question entirely.

A plain hyphen will not cost you an interview, but mixed hyphens and dashes across the CV look untidy.

Where dates go

Three common layouts:

• Next to the job title, after the location (“Leeds | Mar 2021 – Present”). The Ledger, Meridian, Academic, Sidebar and Split templates put this on the line under the title; Clarity and Compact run it straight after the title on the same line.
• Right-aligned on the same line as the job title, with a wide gap between them. It looks tidy and is easy to scan down the right edge.
• In a left-hand date column before each entry, common in European CVs. The Continental template keeps that look, with the date leading the title line.

The right-aligned style has a catch we found when testing CV Once’s templates. When a PDF’s text is extracted (copy-paste, pdftotext, or a parser in an applicant tracking system), a date separated from the title by a wide gap can be read as a separate column. It then comes out of the PDF far from the job it belongs to, sometimes after the next section. A date column at the left edge has the same problem. We moved every template to a layout where the date stays next to its role in the extracted text; the test results are published. To check your own PDF, copy all its text into a plain text editor and see whether each date still sits next to its job. More in ATS formatting pitfalls.

Put the dates in the same position for every entry. Readers learn where to look after the first job.

Gaps

The builder gently flags gaps of more than 6 months between roles. That is a prompt, not a problem: gaps are common and have many good reasons (study, caring, health, redundancy, travel, a job search). The usual approach is to:

• leave short gaps (a few months) alone, since job searches take time;
• for longer gaps, add a one-line entry with dates and a plain reason, such as “Career break: caring for a family member, Jun 2022 – Apr 2023”;
• add anything relevant you did in that time (a course, volunteering, freelance work).

The career gaps guide and returning to work guide cover this in more detail.

Education dates

The same format rules apply. Conventions vary on whether to show start dates for education; many people show only the finishing year or month (“Jun 2020”), which is fine. Some people omit graduation years on long-career CVs to avoid drawing attention to age; whether that is wise depends on your field. See the education section guide.

Quick check

1. One format across the whole CV?
2. Every entry has a start and an end (or “Present”)?
3. No end date before a start date?
4. Ranges use the same separator (en dash or “to”) throughout?
5. Dates in the same position on every entry?

Next: deal with any gaps using the career gaps guide.