Should You Put Your Address on Your Resume?

Every year, the “new normal” for resumes changes. In the past few years, the important key word changed from “team-player” to “passion”, and putting “References provided upon request” at the bottom was eliminated in favor of putting a link to your LinkedIn profile at the top.

More recently, the big questions seems to be “Should I put my mailing address on my resume?”

You may wonder, why wouldn’t I? Some people are afraid of identity theft, while others are concerned about economic profiling, assumptions being made about you based on where you live. Either of these could happen.

On the other hand:

Recruiters and hiring managers want to know that you’re local so that you’ll be able to come in for an in-person interview.

They also want to have an idea of what your commute will be like. People whose commutes are too long are more likely to quit, which costs the company time and money.

Oh, and in some cases, if the resumes are being read electronically, the program may consider a resume without an address “incomplete” in which case it will be eliminated before a hiring manager ever sees it.

So what’s a candidate to do?

The hiring managers/recruiters I spoke to suggested putting just a town and city, so that the hiring managers have the information they really need:

Valentina Daniels
vdaniels@email.com | 123.456.7890
Glendale, NY 11385

If you plan to relocate put something like “Relocating to New York, NY, spring 2018,” instead of your current town and city, to let hiring managers know you already intend to move, so there’s no concern about potential interviewing or relocation costs.

Valentina Daniels
vdaniels@email.com | 123.456.7890
Relocating to New York, NY area spring 2018