What to Know About Putting an Address on Your Resume

When writing your resume, you need to include all the information necessary for a hiring manager to select you for an interview. However, adding your address to your resume can be a complicated task. Do you need to include your street address? Should you just include your city and state? Does including your address make you more likely to be a victim of identity theft? Here’s what you need to know about including or not including your address on a resume.

If you put your address on your resume, it will go at the top. A full home address will look like this:

#### N. Name St.
City, State, ZIP Code

If you’re only including a shortened form of your address, you’ll typically include your city and state, but nothing else. If you have a separate P.O. Box or mailing address, put it on your resume instead of your home address.

There are a few positive aspects to putting your address on your resume. Most importantly, it can indicate that you’re geographically close to a job. In the hiring process, it’s often important that a hiring manager is looking for local candidates. If you do live near the job posting, adding your address can showcase that you live nearby.

Another reason to add your address to your resume is that it may be important to the applicant tracking system (ATS) that an employer might use to scan your resume. The thought is that it helps recruiters file your resume, and if you don’t include your address in your contact section, you might not get a job offer. However, this argument likely traces back to a Time Magazine article from 2012, which is both out of date and doesn’t include any sources for this claim. It’s probably not an effective reason to put your full address when you’re job hunting.

What about the cons? There may actually be more cons than pros when it comes to putting your full address on a professional resume. First of all, it just takes up extra space. If you have a lot of work experience, adding your address to your contact information can make it more difficult to put everything on a one-page resume.

Next, if you’re willing to relocate, the address can show that you’re not close enough. Your job application shouldn’t include things that might negatively impact your job search, and if you live very far away, your address will showcase that. If you’re open to relocating, however, you should mention this in either your resume or your cover letter.

Some people also worry that adding your address can raise privacy concerns. You may say, “If I put my address on my resume along with things like my full name, email address, and phone number, anyone who gets that resume can steal my identity!” However, your home address is typically public information, and these things will show up during background checks. Typically, you don’t need to worry about putting contact information on your resume.

In general, it’s best to avoid putting your full mailing address on your resume, but it’s usually a good idea to include your city and state. By adding your city and state to the resume, you’re showing your location without including any extra detail. It can also go in your resume header so you’re using less space to do it.