I actually have been working since 2016, full time for now for about 18 months so no real gaps. but in general your suggestion is less jarring and seems like the right way to go

@chris If you worked throughout your masters then you might like to mention that employment and study were both part time. But, that isn't the case for you and it seems rather complicated to capture your precise scenario. So, I'd just list overlapping periods of study and employment, and explain if asked about them.

Don't do this! It's lying to indicate you had a degree before it was awarded. it is NOT standard practice for degrees. Employment periods are not at all like degrees. This could easily get you fired from a job.

"indeed, employment periods are listed in this way" What other way could employment periods possibly be listed? There's no equivalent to the conferral of a degree. It's certainly not unreasonable to list the period of studies, but if there's a discrepancy between those dates and the actual award of the degree that should be noted (especially if that discrepancy is several years, as here). While I don't imagine there's a serious risk of being fired as suggested above, you'd be inviting difficult questions which are much better answered before you've given anybody a reason to be suspicious.

@AnonymousPhysicist This is not fraud, periods of study are clearly listed. Administrative delays are irrelevant and it doesn't matter when a degree was conferred. Regardless, the date a degree was conferred will be clear from certificates.

@user2768 The way you have written it, only the dates and degrees are in the quote box. If you want to make it non-fraudulent, you need to clearly indicate inside the quote box (the part that goes on the CV) what the dates mean. See Peter Taylor's answer for an example that is not fraudulent.

@AnonymousPhysicist I disagree.

@user2768 “Administrative delays are irrelevant” — No, they are extremely relevant. For instance, there are funding sources for which eligibility is limited to X years after attaining a degree. The period of study is completely irrelevant for the funding bodies. All that matters is the date of being awarded the degree. In fact, delaying this date as much as possible is therefore desirable and commonly done. Listing the years of study is also not more common than listing the dates of the degrees, in my experience.

@KonradRudolph That (might be) a special case and may be considered as unethically gaming the funding system. (Whether it is a special case depends on the agency's definition of attaining a degree. Similarly, unethically gaming depends on the agency's intent.)

@KonradRudolph I assume someone applying for funding would need to take that into account, but it's not relevant for a CV

@JollyJoker As my comment shows, this clearly depends on what you use the CV for.

@JollyJoker No, applications for funding nearly always include the CV.

@AnonymousPhysicist Yes, but, this is a less common use of a CV and your CV should of course be tailored to the use.

The problem with this answer this that it isn't explicit enough about what the dates mean, and so most people will assume incorrect degree award dates from it. Incorrect info that can be easily refuted by getting transcripts from the university. So as written this is a very dangerous answer and could absolutely get OP fired. To be clear, this answer does not encourage deliberate fraud, but will result in fraud nonetheless. The correct answer is by Peter Taylor; it makes it clear the dates studied and the date the degree was avoided.

people will assume incorrect degree award dates from it @Bob I don't see how anyone can infer degree award dates: Everyone knows that degrees are awarded after study completes and the award can be one year later (e.g., when study completes just after a round of awards), two years later (e.g., the former case, plus the student delays because they cannot attend the award ceremony), ..., it follows that degree award dates cannot be inferred. I see no way for absolutely get[ting the] OP fired, I guess up-voters agree. Personally, I find Peter Taylor's advice adds unnecessary clutter.

At least in Finland, the recommended academic CV includes grades (and years when they were earned), but not periods of study.

"employment periods are listed in this way" If I have a contract until October but spend my remaining vacation days at the end of the employment and don't actually come to work in October, I will list October as the ending date of my employment in my CV, because it is the ending date of my employment.

@JiK What's the relevance?

@user2768 To counter the claim that employment periods are listed in some other way than the actual official employment.

@user2768 I would infer the graduation dates for the two degrees to be 2015 and 2017. I could assume they could be different, but having no reason to do so, I wouldn't. My argument is not that everyone will interpret it the way I am doing, but rather that some will, and that this set is uncontrollable and unknowable by OP, thus leaving OP open to accusations of CV fraud if they follow this advice. Whereas if OP follows Peter Taylor's advice, that's far less likely since it shows both the study dates and the date the degree was awarded.

That is why the advice contained in this answer is dangerous. If OP follows it and happens upon a hiring manager who thinks like I do (and based on the upvotes that Peter Taylor got, I'm guessing they'd be the majority), and gets hired, a review of OP's resume by HR later could provide grounds for dismissal based on fraud. Or OP may be rejected for the job if the hiring manager detects the anomaly during the interview phase. Either way OP loses out. By either following convention or deviating from it in a very explicit and precise way, OP can mitigate both risks.

To clarify on why I would assume degree award dates as I mentioned above, it's because in my own experience, in each case I was awarded the degree the same year as the end of my studies for that degree. So I would expect that to be the case for others in the absence of information to the contrary. Assuming this to be the most typical case (and I strongly suspect it is), and given that it's common to assume others will have the same experience and viewpoint as oneself (even if incorrect), this is why I think it's very likely that the majority of hiring managers will make the same assumption.