Really dumb CV question

[dancedementia]

Someone please answer this definitively for me once and for all. It's driving me nuts trying to search all the Internet forum and blogs trying to get a straight answer

I'm an early-career academic (currently in masters program, will be applying to PhD programs in Counseling Psychology next cycle). I have a sizable CV but it's mainly filled with research commitments and unpaid clinical internships. 

Do I put my dates on the left or the right?!

Lots of sites say it should definitely be on the right (even UC Berkeley and UW's graduate student career centers say so, specifically referring to academic CVs). But I've also heard firsthand from older professors that dates should always be on the left so one can see a clear "progression" of academic growth and development.

So which is it? I don't want to submit my CV for PhD applications and get laughed out of the consideration pile just because my dates were on the wrong side of the page, haha >___<

[TakeruK]

I put mine on the left. But I don't think this is something that will make your application get laughed out of the pile. 

[fuzzylogician]

I put mine on the left but I don't think there is a rule about this. What do your professors do? Or, the POIs at schools you might apply to for a PhD? How about students who are about to graduate or very young assistant professors? The best indication of how things are done in your field will come from just observing what people are already doing. One of two things will happen: either you discover that most/all profs do one thing, and then you can just go ahead and do that, or you'll discover that people do different things, and that would mean that you can just do whatever you want and you're not breaking any rules. 

[rising_star]

Mine are on the left. No one has ever said anything to me about it. 

[dancedementia]

Awesome. Thanks everyone. I find that the more clinically-oriented professors in my field tend to prefer dates on the right, while research-oriented ones like it on the left. I'll still with the left since that seems to still be the more common format in my field of academia.