The contact information appears at the top of your application. Your full name is at the top, followed by your phone, email, address, and other contact information—all squeezed into two to three lines to save space. Right?
You may be surprised to find that including a complete address on resume isn’t a standard practice anymore now that applications aren’t sent via snail mail.
Including phone and email on your resume is still required. But having your address on a resume isn't always the best idea.
Does that mean you shouldn’t include your home address anymore? It’s not so simple. Read on to learn some guidelines for when to have a home address on a resume and when to leave it off. We'll also share some sample resumes without addresses.
Security and Privacy Concerns About Including Your Address on Resume
Should you put your address on your resume or not? There are pros and cons, and it depends on the situation.
It depends on the job you’re applying for, how you’re sending your application, and where you live.
Factors to Consider When Deciding to Include Your Address on Resume
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Here are some factors to consider when deciding whether you should put your address on your resume:
1. Jobs That Require a Listed Home Address
Why would a recruiter want your home address? Some jobs require this because they prefer local applicants, or they want to do a background check. Below are different scenarios that'll require a home address on resume.
- Federal and civil service jobs require a permanent address for background checks.
- Jobs for retail and restaurant industries may request an address because companies prefer applicants who can get to work within a few minutes due to shift changes and overtime.
- Delivery jobs prefer local applicants who are familiar with the area.
- Banking and other jobs that handle sensitive information may request an address so they can run a background check.
- Sales jobs that require knowledge of community residents and hotspots to better perform the job.
Jobs that only accept local residents usually specify which location they prefer, so you’ll see requirements like “Must live in South Dakota” or “Applicants must live in Boston.”
In some cases, a company may send you an interview invite or job offer via snail mail. Although this rarely happens now, some companies still do this, especially for jobs where sensitive information is involved.
2. Your Address May Affect Your Chances of Getting Hired
Your location may affect your salary and your chances of getting the job. For example, even if you’re in the same city as the company, they may prefer applicants within a specific neighborhood because they want people who can get to work without suffering a long commute.
Remote and telecommuting jobs may also have location restrictions. For example, some companies with remote employees hold in-person meetings from time to time, while others require local employees because of the health benefits and insurance they offer.
3. Relocating Applicants
Relocating applicants shouldn’t include their current address on their resume because the recruiter might automatically exclude them from their list of eligible applicants. It’s also best not to include any location details of previous employment to avoid suspicion that you’re not local.
If a job requires local applicants, but you don’t have an address where you’re relocating yet, see if you've got any friends or relatives living there who would be willing to allow you to use their address for your job search.
If using a friend’s address isn’t an option, just say that you’re relocating in the cover letter. You can also write “Relocating to (City and State where you’re moving)” on your resume’s contact information. The disadvantage of this strategy is that some companies may not entertain your application because they don’t want an employee who will need time adjusting due to relocation.
Also, this strategy may not apply to applicants relocating oversees, because aside from a home address, you'll need the proper visa and work permits.
4. Your Exact Home Address May Affect the Salary Offer
Some companies offer car, transportation, or fuel allowance. Your eligibility for these benefits may depend on your exact home address. For instance, fuel allowance may only be given to applicants with cars or those living outside a specified kilometer radius from the company’s location.
The factors above aren’t the only ones you should consider though, as those only apply to legitimate jobs. Your resume, since it'll be submitted online, might be exposed to much more than that.
Security Concerns of Including Your Personal Address on Resume
Aside from job scams, or people pretending to be recruiters to harvest personal information, you might also be concerned with who else can access or share the personal information included on your resume.
Resumes available on online job sites and resume databases, for example, can be viewed by just about anyone—even if they have no intention of hiring.
There are faster and more convenient ways to get personal information though, so your resume isn’t likely the number one thing people check.
Still, it pays to be vigilant so be careful where you include your home address and contact information. Be careful when including your address on your resume in the following scenarios:
1. Job Listings Where the Listed Contact Information is a Personal Email
Recruiters, whether they work for an agency or in-house for a specific company, usually have a work email address. They won’t use a personal email for hiring purposes.
Don’t include personal details on your resume when the job poster’s email isn’t a professional work email, especially if you found the job on free ad sites like Craigslist. Sites that don’t require payment for listing attract a lot of scammers, because you don’t have to pay or provide a lot of information to create a posting.
You should also be careful if the job ad doesn’t list a company or location on the job ad. What could they be hiding?
2. Applying on Third-Party Sites
Does the job ad or company sound suspicious? Search for the company name and job title on review sites like Glassdoor.
If the company is small, just starting out, or there’s nothing about them on Glassdoor, try finding them on Better Business Bureau’s (BBB) website. While BBB isn’t specifically used for job reviews, they often have information about a company’s financial standing and legitimacy. If a company has several bad reviews on BBB saying they’re a scam, then chances are you may find that they’re an unstable source of income or that you don’t like their business practices.
Jobs that sound too good to be true probably are.
Still not sure whether you should include your home address on resume? Consider the pros and cons below.
Advantages of Including Your Home Address on a Resume
- Increase your chances of getting interviewed for jobs requiring local applicants
- If you leave nearby, including your address shows that you live within a respectable commuting distance
- Including your address suggests you have nothing to hide
Disadvantages of Not Including a Home Address
- Your desire for privacy might make recruiters think you’re hiding something, or they may not call you at all
- Your application looks suspicious because the recruiter doesn’t know where you live or if you have the proper work permit
- You may receive a lower salary offer because the recruiter can’t determine the travel expenses you’ll incur or the cost of living in your area
All that said, the pros and cons, along with the factors listed above are only applicable to your home address and contact information. There will never be a situation where you should include your driver’s license, social security number, or age in your resume. This information isn’t relevant to recruiters.
Alternatives to Including a Complete Address
Do I have to put my address on my resume? If you really don’t want to, or if the cons listed above outweigh the advantages for you, try the options below.
Here’s how to hide your home address on resume:
- city, state (e.g. Daily City, California)
- city, state, zip code (e.g. Albany, New York, 12214)
- region (Derwent Valley, Tasmania)
- relocating to city, state (e.g. Relocating to Tampa, Florida)
- PO box
What to Include in Your Contact Information
By now you’ve probably decided whether or not you’re going to include your complete address on your resume.
So now it’s time to learn how to write an address on a resume, and all the other contact information.
Here are the basics everyone should include:
- complete name
- address
- phone number
Below is additional information you may include, depending on your professional situation:
- job title: IT Lead, Executive Vice President, Director, etc.
- license, certificate, or degree: MBA, CPA, RN, PhD, etc.
- LinkedIn and social media
- your website or portfolio
It’s not required to give your LinkedIn profile URL but in today’s digital age, everyone from the recruiter to the hiring manager will probably look you up online, so it’s easier to include it and just make it easy for everyone.
Here’s how the above information would be formatted on a typical resume:
Name, License/Degree
job title
street address, city, state, zip code, | phone number
email | LinkedIn | other social media or website
The contact information doesn’t always have to be on the top of the resume though. In some templates, it’s at the right-hand or left-hand side.
Best Formatting Practices for Including Your Contact Information
Below are some formatting pointers for the contact information plus some examples using resume templates to give you a visual of how it looks like.
1. Name, Job Title & Other Professional Designations
The name is often a few font sizes bigger than the rest of the information on the resume, or in a header format. It could be above your contact information or beside it.
Make sure your name is the exact name that appears on your email address, cover letter, and the file name of your resume. Don’t use a nickname or you might end up confusing the recruiter.
Including a job title and your professional designations below your name alerts the recruiter of what you do, and your qualifications immediately before they even read the rest of your resume. It’s a great practice and it adds extra keywords on your resume.
2. Address
You can either write your complete address or any of the variations suggested above. If it’s more than three lines long, it won’t fit in the allotted space, or it adds an extra word or dangling line on your resume, try shortening it by using abbreviations or using a smaller font.
3. Phone Number
Each country has their own way of listing phone numbers, so make sure yours is listed in the right format especially if you’re applying for a job overseas. Don’t forget to include your country and area code, too.
If you’re applying in the same country, there’s no need to include a country code.
4. Email
Type your email as is and then turn it into an email hyperlink so the recruiter can easily contact you without having to type or copy and paste your email address.
5. Social Media & Other Links
Make sure you add the right URL. It should be the URL of your profile, and not the one that appears when you log-in or scroll through your newsfeed.
For example, the LinkedIn URL when I log-in is:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/?trk=guest_homepage-basic_sign-in-submit
But my profile URL is actually:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/copywritingbycha/
There’s no need to include the entire URL, linkedin.com/in/copywritingbycha works.
You may have noticed that your profile URL is a bunch of numbers. You will need to change it if that’s the case. Here’s a guide from LinkedIn on how to edit your profile URL.
Like with the email address, it’s better if you hyperlink the profile URL to make it easier for the recruiter to check your profile.
If you’re including a portfolio, make sure it’s labeled properly as “portfolio” or the name of the website so the recruiter knows which site they will be redirected to, and you don’t need to include the entire URL. Some of these sites don’t allow custom URLs, so it’s easier to just label them.
Below are examples of portfolio sites:
- Muck Rack and Contently for journalists and content marketers
- Github for coders
- Behance and Dribble for creatives
Here’s an example that includes a website and Skype information from Envato Elements:
Using Resume Templates with Professional Formatting
As you may have noticed, there are many ways to include your contact details on the resume. You can put it at the center, on the left- or right-hand side, or even the headers and footer.
Using a professionally designed resume template will help you create a well-formatted and easy to read resume without having to spend time designing it yourself.
Templates also help you save space on your resume because of the layout and the way the text boxes are organized.
Here are different examples of the contact information is displayed on different formats.
1. Minimalist CV
This minimalist CV shows the basic contact information at the top right corner, while the social links are at the bottom left corner below the “follow me” header.
Similar to conversion-optimized websites, you can put your social media links towards the bottom of your resume so whoever reads it focuses on what’s on the page, instead of getting distracted by your social profile and what’s on them.
2. Clean Cut Resume Template
This simple resume template also divides the contact information into two sections, but the main information is at the header.
3. Colorful Resume
If you don’t want your contact details at the top, this template has the contact details at the left-hand side of the page.
Didn’t find anything you liked? You can find more resume templates by checking this article:
Learn How to Make a Great Resume
I hope this post answered your question, “Should I include my address on my resume?”
Now that you have the contact information down pat, it’s time to learn how to write the rest of your resume.
This comprehensive guide should help you get started. Check out the other articles below for help on writing specific sections of your resume:
ResumesHow to Effectively List Professional Skills on Your Resume
ResumesHow to Structure Your Resume to Use in 2019 (Organize it Right)
ResumesHow to Make a Great Professional Resume (For Top 2020 Jobs)
Easy, But Catastrophic If Done Wrong
I know most applicants don’t pay attention to this part of their resume. It’s just the name and contact details, right? The recruiter wants to know your qualifications first.
While that’s true, it would be devastating to impress them with your qualifications only to end up not getting an interview because your address on resume and contact details were wrong. Tiny details like these are still important.
Make your life easier by using an attractive resume template that has the proper labels and allotment for your contact details. You can easily find a sample resume without address on Envato or GraphicRiver. Why not download one today?
Editorial Note: This content was originally published on July 6, 2019. We're sharing it again because our editors have determined that this information is still accurate and relevant.
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