Here at GreenJobs.com one of the questions I get asked a lot is, "Do I need my full address on my resume?"
The answer I give job seekers these days, "Nope!"
Do I Need My Address on My Resume?
Look resume wizards, you do not need to put your full address at the top of resumes anymore. Why?
Well, for starters, it's a privacy and security issue for you as an individual. I have seen bots that scrape resumes and use your address and other contact info for spamming purposes. You just don't want your personal info out there to be misused.
Since resumes are meant to be in the public domain too, do you really want everyone to know where you live? Let that soak in... I can already heat the answer in your head.
Most folks in recruiting, myself included, ditched including a full address on resumes years ago.
City, State, and Zip Code
So, what should you put instead of your full address? Just the city and state is fine. Actually a lot of recruiters and human resources pros do this nowadays. If you take a look at public resumes on LinkedIn for those that work in recruiting and HR, they don't include an address. Most of the time they will just have city and state on a personal resume.
I used to include a zip code as well, but not anymore. Some organizations might discriminate based on where you live (boo!), so it's better not to give them that chance. You will likely get asked for it when filling out applications in Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) though. So to make it easier including is up to you. You could have a different version of your resume for applying vs what you post publicly.
What if a job application asks for your address? Just put "not applicable" or "NA" for the full address. City and state are fine, but save the rest until they make an offer and absolutely need it for background checks.
Contact Info
Do include your email and phone number so recruiters can easily contact you. They don't want to play hide-and-seek with that info and you want to make that easy to find. Recruiters hate when it's hard to find contact info for a potential candidate. You would be surprised how often I have seen this.
Recruiters are extremely busy... at least they claim to be. They sift through numerous resumes, applications, and interviews all day. When they come across a candidate who readily presents their contact details, it saves them time and effort.
When they come across a candidate that doesn't easily present contact info, they move on. Keep in mind it's estimated that recruiters, sourcers, hiring managers, etc. spend about 7 seconds reviewing a resume. Yes, you read that right. Only 7 seconds.
So make that contact info easy to find.
One thing I do when searching for a job is I have seperate email that I use for job hunting. This means that email address is only used for a resume, LinkedIn, Indeed, etc. It's great since this seperates out your personal and work life. In addition, all those rejection emails go to a different inbox. You will need to remember to check it though.
Does Your Address Need to be on Your Resume?
Next time you're sprucing up your resume, remember: full addresses are old school on resumes now. You can stick with city and state only if you prefer.
Got questions or thoughts about this? Reach out to us on social media – we'd love to hear from GreenJobs.com fans about how they handle this issue with companies asking for too much info up front. Thanks, and happy job hunting.