Should you Include your Date of Birth on your CV? (2024 Guide)

Sobhan Mohmand, Career Expert          1 Oct 2023

You were probably busy writing your CV and suddenly wondered,

“Do I need to put my date of birth on my CV?”

The short answer is, no, you should not put your date of birth or age on your CV.

New anti-discrimination laws mean that employers must consider your suitability for the job based on your skills and experience, not on how young or how old you are.

Including age-specific information will also take up precious space on your CV which could be utilised for more important information.

• Anti-discrimination laws
• Different CV rules for different countries
• Ageism in the recruitment process
• How to deal with being too young or too old for a job
• Benefits of omitting age-specific information from a CV
• When to include your date of birth on your CV
• Conclusion

Anti-discrimination laws

Several years ago, it used to be common practice to write your date of birth (DOB) on your CV, usually grouped together with other personal information such as name, address, marital status and nationality.

In recent years, however, this trend has changed due to the introduction of anti-discrimination legislation in the UK and many other Western countries.
Under the new age discrimination laws (i.e. The Employment Equality Regulations 2006, incorporated into the Equality Act 2010), it has become illegal for employers to discriminate against you on the grounds of age.

Consequences for recruitment

• Employers are not allowed to include age limits in job advertisements.
• Terms such as “enthusiastic young people”, “people with 15 years of experience” and “recent graduates” should be avoided as that may discourage people from other age groups to apply for the job.

For this reason, many career experts consider your DOB one of those irrelevant personal details that should be omitted from a CV.

Sue Tumelty, a senior HR executive, writes in CV and Interview Handbook (pg.67): “There are some things that you should never put on a CV. It used to be the norm to include your age, marital status or nationality on a CV. Today such details are regarded as obsolete. Part of the reason behind this is that such information could be used to discriminate against you on grounds of gender, age or ethnicity. It also means that CVs are shorter and more punchy.”

Lynn Williams, career counsellor and author of three careers books, states in her best-selling book Readymade CVs: Winning CVs for Every Type of Job (pg. 12): “Unnecessary personal details you can safely leave out include marital status, nationality, gender, age, previous salary, photograph and reason for leaving your last job.”

Different CV rules for different countries

It is important to remember that whether you should or shouldn’t include your date of birth on your CV also largely depends on the country in which you live.

In some countries, it is standard to include your date of birth on the CV while in others employers will strongly discourage and even ignore CVs with a date of birth on it, in case they are accused of ageism.

Standard CVs in the UK, USA, Ireland and Australia should not have the applicants’ dates of birth on them, contrary to countries such as Spain, Sweden, and Portugal where CVs are usually expected to have this information on them.

In certain other countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands, the inclusion of this information is entirely optional.

Ageism in the recruitment process

Ageism is prejudice or discrimination against people based on their age.
According to a recent survey by CV-Library, one-third (33%) of professionals revealed that they have been turned down for a job because of their age. This is particularly the case for people under 18 and over 45 years of age.

Recruiters are humans and are susceptible to personal biases and judgements. Some recruiters may, consciously or unconsciously, make the following assumptions about candidates:

Given these facts, what would be the benefit of providing these kinds of unnecessary information that could, potentially, negatively impact your chances of being invited for a job interview?

Your CV reveals your likely age

Does omitting your DOB/age from your CV provide 100% protection against age discrimination? Probably not, unfortunately. Your educational background and work experience usually contain clues to your likely age.

James Innes, a leading careers expert and author of several best-selling career help books, remarked, “Any recruiter worth his or her salt will be able to deduce pretty accurately exactly how old you are just by looking at your education, qualifications and experience.” (The CV Book, 2009, pg.53).

Hiding your age from employers

The older you are, the more you may feel the desire to avoid giving the employer an instant excuse to exclude you, and equally, if you are apparently very young for a particular role and feel that an employer may not take you seriously due to your young age.

Consequently, you may want to go to great lengths to hide any information that may reveal your age, for example, by removing dates, qualifications and even work experience entries!

This level of paranoia, however, is not useful or advisable as it will make your CV look odd and contrary to how a conventional CV should look like. It will most likely hamper your chances of being shortlisted for an interview.

How to deal with being too young or too old for a job

If you think you will be considered too old for the job

Generally speaking, most recruiters are not ageists but could be better described as “energists”, in other words, they may perceive younger candidates to have more energy, passion, excitement and ambition for the job compared to candidates in their 50s.

Tips

• Be proud of your experience and show it as a valuable asset.
• Show great enthusiasm for the role in your CV’s personal profile statement, cover letter and job application form.
• Remove outdated qualifications and work experience from decades ago.

If you think you will be considered too young for the job

You may feel that the employer might not take you too seriously when applying for well-paid, mid-level or senior positions if you are in your 20s or early 30s.
Tips

• Don’t allude to your age by adding your date of birth or age on your CV.
• Take up voluntary, unpaid and part-time jobs to build up experience.
• Write your application form application, CV and cover letter with a level of gravitas and seriousness.

Benefits of omitting age-specific information from a CV

It will prevent unconscious bias

Age discrimination is usually a form of unconscious bias which affects the way individuals feel and think about others without them realising it.

If you include your date of birth on your CV, you are basically telling the employer to judge you based on your age rather than your experience, skills and abilities.

Omitting your DOB from your CV enables the employer to judge your CV without taking into account your age.

It will not serve as a distraction to the employer

Putting your date of birth or age at the top of your CV will draw the attention of the employer to that, rather than to much more important information such as your personal profile, education and employment history sections.

Remember, research has shown that employers spend less than 30 seconds reading your CV so the last thing you would want to do is waste these precious few seconds of the employer’s time on trivial and unimportant personal information.

It frees up valuable space on your CV

A CV should be no longer than 2 A4 pages so you have very limited space to present all your important information to impress the employer and win a job interview.

Mentioning your DOB on your CV will take up valuable space that could be utilised for more important information such as your personal profile statement, achievements, employment history, educational background and skills.

It decreases the risk of identity fraud

Disclosing your date of birth on your CV exposes you to an increased risk of identity fraud. Should your CV fall into the wrong hands, this is precisely the sort of information an identity fraudster needs to clone your identity.

It has been reported that as many as 50 per cent of all CVs contain a sufficient quantity of personal data (e.g. name, address and DOB) to enable an identity fraudster to successfully apply for a credit card. (James Innes, The CV Book, 2009, pg.55).

Unless there is a very good reason to mention your date of birth on your CV (see below), it is highly advisable to exclude any age-related details from your CV.

When to include your date of birth on your CV

There are some limited and exceptional cases in which it may be useful to write your date of birth on your CV if you’re applying for jobs where age is an important consideration.

Examples include:

• A course only available to a certain age group
• An apprenticeship with a cut-off upper age
• Certain roles in the armed forces
• Modelling jobs for specific age groups (e.g. children, teenagers, adults, etc.)

Some career experts have also suggested that young people who have little or no work experience should their dates of birth on their CVs to put into context why they haven’t got much work experience yet.

This suggestion, however, seems unnecessary as young people usually apply for entry-level jobs and employers are fully aware that applicants for these positions are usually teenagers, students or recent graduates with limited work experience.

Conclusion

Your CV should only contain important information that will sell you to the employer and secure you a job interview.

It should not contain any irrelevant personal details such as your date of birth, age, gender, race or nationality (unless there is a good reason for their inclusion).

Your ability or inability to do a job well depends on your personal characteristics, educational background, employment history and skills and abilities rather than how old you are or what you look like.

Good luck with your job hunt!