Rounding employment years e.g. 2.5 years to 3 years?

Sometimes people ask me how long I've been working in X place and I just tell them, say, from 2009-2011. I'm not sure the exact duration so normally I round them to the closest year; can this be done for employment?

Really, some of my other employment history is so old or the appointed dates have been lost to history that I won't be able to exactly specify the date of appointment.

Reply 1

threeportdrift

Careers Forum Helper

Original post by kka25

If you are filling in paperwork, then you should know and give month and year. if you are having a conversation, then rounding to the nearest 6 months is OK, unless you were there for less than a couple of years, then you should be saying 'about 14 months' or 'about 16 months' etc

You've got to be honest, and if an employer is really trying to work out the chronology and depth of your experience, nothing sets them on edge about a candidates much more than someone who appears to be claiming to have done 4 different jobs for 2 years each, all in the last 5 years. It undermines the whole of an interview, because what else has the candidate exaggerated?