How to Write 学歴・職歴 (Education & Work History) on a Rirekisho
The education and work-history table has strict conventions — order, official names, entrance and exit lines, and how foreigners should list overseas schools and jobs. A field-by-field guide.
The 学歴・職歴 table is the spine of the rirekisho, and it follows conventions that Japanese applicants learn in school. Get the order and phrasing right and you look careful; get them wrong and you look unfamiliar with the basics. Here is exactly how it works.
Order and layout
Everything is chronological, oldest first. Write 学歴 (education) centred on its own line, then list schools; skip a line, write 職歴 (work history) centred, then list jobs. Use the same date system (Western 西暦 or Japanese era 令和) throughout the whole resume.
Education (学歴)
- Start from junior-high graduation or high-school entrance — you do not need primary school.
- Each school usually takes two lines: 入学 (entrance) and 卒業 (graduation), e.g. 「○○高等学校 入学」 then 「○○高等学校 卒業」.
- Write the official, full name — no abbreviations, no ㈱-style symbols.
- For a foreign school, write the country and the school name (in katakana or as-is), and add the faculty/major for university.
Work history (職歴)
- For each employer, write 「株式会社○○ 入社」 when you joined and the reason line when you left.
- The standard leaving line is 「一身上の都合により退社」 (left for personal reasons).
- If you currently work there, write 「現在に至る」 on the next line.
- After the last entry, write 「以上」 right-aligned on its own line to close the table.
How foreigners should handle overseas jobs
List overseas employers the same way, writing the company name and a short note of the country and your role if the name alone is not clear, for example 「ABC Company（ネパール）入社」. You do not need to translate the company into Japanese, but adding the industry in parentheses helps a Japanese reader place it. For part-time arubaito applications, brief or unrelated past jobs are often omitted — keep the table focused.
Common mistakes
- Mixing 西暦 and 令和 dates — pick one system everywhere.
- Abbreviating 株式会社 to ㈱, or shortening school names.
- Forgetting 現在に至る or the closing 以上.
- Listing jobs newest-first (it should be oldest-first).
ResumeJP lays the table out for you and keeps the date format consistent automatically, so you fill in the facts and it handles the formatting. Open the editor to start, or read the full step-by-step guide. If you also need a detailed career sheet, see rirekisho vs 職務経歴書.