Is it acceptable to leave early career jobs off CV?

[MyCViswaytoolong]

And if so, what time period can I cut to?

I'm a solicitor with 12 years of work experience in my field, and I've done a lot of things during this time including side roles that are relevant for the advisory position I'm going for now (think trustee type stuff). I'd always been told to keep my CV to no more than 2 sides of A4 in no smaller than perhaps an 11 font. But I'm now getting to the stage where there's not much room.

My early career jobs I got qualified and just did bog standard work in that field, there's nothing particularly remarkable or relevant about them. It's only really in the past 5 years that I have started doing more senior roles and also developing the sideline stuff. I'd like to be able to say more about my most recent, relevant roles but I'm taking up quite a bit of space just listing my early career jobs.

Would it be ok then to say 2006 to 2013: worked for various companies as trainee solicitor and solicitor, specialism was this? Rather than listing each in turn. It's not a legal role I'm going for so PQE isn't relevant. Then saying what I've been doing more recently, in more detail.

I'm assuming there's some rule about this, as there must come a stage when most people haven't got enough space to list all their jobs even leaving out obviously irrelevant stuff. But found very different views when googling. What do people do when they're no longer young enough for everything to fit?

I would cover that period with a sentence as you have done above. If they want to know more then they can ask at the interview

I recently did my CV, listed my previous 3 roles, and put previous job history available on request. It was fine.

Your suggestion is grand, a brief line and obviously willing to discuss at interview if required.
Good luck with your job search!

I think that is absolutely fine unless the job you are applying for explicitly asks for a full 10 year plus work history (and in this case they will usually have their own application form rather than asking for a CV).

I would have thought if they are really interested in what you were doing in 2006 or where/how you qualified then they can ask at interview...

Thanks all. They don't specify a full history for any set period, though interestingly I have done applications in the past that only wanted the last 5 or 10 years and nothing before that. It may be getting more common to narrow the window as people tend to job hop more.

So I think I'll take the tip about saying information on request and just focus on the last 5 years. Might do that for everything going forward, as I dance ever closer to 40!