Does Your Resume Need Your Address?

 The process of crafting a perfect resume can be a huge process. It’s important to make sure that the resume that you are sending out looks good and has the correct contact information on it. Otherwise no one will contact you about the job.

But does your resume need your address on it? Is that something that you need to list completely on your resume in order to find work?

It’s a good question and one that I’ve seen a lot of wrong answers to it online.

Since I’ve seen tens of thousands of resumes, and I’ve come across all different industry requirements, I wanted to set it straight and give a proper answer so that you can know how to craft a resume the right way.

Do Recruiters Care Where You Live?

Yes, recruiters absolutely care where you live. If a recruiter is working on a Marketing role for a client located in Chicago, and there is no option to work remotely, then they don’t want to deal with people who live in Florida or Maine.

While many people say that they will relocate for work, the reality is much different. Most recruiters know that people can’t move as easily as they think. There are a lot of issues involved with moving such as finding an apartment, family, and other things that complicate the matter.

So, recruiters do care where you live. Unless you work as a Nurse—where you are paid to travel and stay in hotels—it does matter where you live.

If a recruiter is working on a job that doesn’t happen to be remote, then they will focus their search on local candidates. It will be to their detriment to look at candidates that might be a good fit for the role, but who can’t commute to the office.

Is It Safe To Put Your Whole Address On Your Resume?

Yes, it’s relatively safe to put your whole address on your resume. However, it’s not necessary to do so. You do not have to list your complete home address because it isn’t really needed.

Unless you are someone who has pre-existing issues and already have yourself hidden from public address databases, then it’s not a huge issue.

However, while it might not be an issue of safety, it can still be an issue of professionalism. Some recruiters and many job hiring managers will think it odd if you list your complete address on your resume.

List Your City, Not Your Complete Address

The easiest way to list your address, but not give out too much information, is to list the city and not your complete home address. I've covered this before in a similar article.

The city is enough information for any recruiter or hiring manager to use. You do not have to be so specific to list the location of your house or apartment. That is simply too much information and not needed.

For instance, if you are applying for a job for a Boston Public Relations firm, as long as your resume lists a city near Boston—or Boston itself---then you are fine. There is no reason that you would have to list your exact apartment building number.

The reason why you want to list your city on your resume is because when recruiters are searching for resumes, they will refine their searches to certain locations.

Another reason is that your resume will often be scanned by a program that is designed to filter only for certain things. If you do not have a location on your resume, it might not even be sent to the recruiter and will be tossed into the virtual trash.

Do Your Resume Need a Physical Address or Can It Be Virtual?

Some people think that you need to have a real address on your resume. One way people try to have that physical address on their resume without listing their real address is to use a fake address or a virtual address.
These are common for businesses that do not have real office locations and are using a virtual address for legal reasons and business purposes.

However, as a job seeker it’s not advisable to use a virtual address. If you live in the city, simply list the city. If you don’t live in the city and are applying for a job using a virtual address, rest assured a recruiter or hiring manager will find it out and eliminate you from the process. You will then likely become blacklisted by most if not all major recruiting firms.

The Problems With Not Listing Your Address on Your Resume

If you don’t list your full address on your resume, it’s not much of a problem. However, if you don’t list any sort of address, then you might not have anyone read your resume.

As we have seen, if a recruiter isn’t sure where you’re located they might not want to waste their time calling you. It might be one of the reasons why recruiters don't call back. If you send them a resume and they

The worst thing a recruiter can do is waste their time on a candidate that is not going to be able to work the job.

It’s really a quite simple thing, if the recruitment agency is searching for a particular job, then they only want resumes of people who are local to the role.

If you try and trick a recruiter into thinking that you live locally, or that you’ll relocate for a job once you get it, then you’re going to be wasting their time and yours.

The only people who recruiters will deal with who need to relocate are nurses (who have everything paid for by the employer) or else high level executives who are headhunted off of LinkedIn.

If you see a job posted online to Indeed or some other regular job posting site, you should realize that it’s not a role where they will deal with relocation. That’s simply not in the recruiters budget or timeframe.

To avoid any of these problems simply list your city and zipcode. This way the recruiters will know if you are someone who can work at the job that they have posted.

If you don’t have any location on your resume, then many recruiters might never even see your resume. The ATS systems that many large databases use are set to screen out based on location. If you do not have a location on your resume, then the resume might just end up in a black hole.