do you still need a mailing address on your resume?

by Alison Green on August 15, 2024

A reader writes:

I teach a course for adult learners on how to prepare for a job search, and I’d like to get your take on including addresses on resumes. Personally, I think it is unnecessary, particularly in our modern world of remote and hybrid jobs, and just introduces a potential safety issue. You had a different opinion when you answered this question in 2014, but I’m wondering if your advice has changed in the last 10 years!

Yes, this has completely changed in the last 10 years! It’s utterly normal now for resumes not to include full mailing addresses. Most people still include city and state, but a lot of people don’t even include that.

Not including an address used to be seen as a sign that the candidate was trying to hide their location (for example, because you didn’t want them to know yet that you weren’t local), but conventions have changed and it doesn’t read that way anymore.

Frankly, the convention had been outdated for a long time before it finally changed. The practice of including a full mailing address goes back to the time when employers might contact you by postal mail and that hasn’t been a thing in decades, so this evolution was long overdue.

This feels like a speed round question. Is it time for another speed round?

You may also like:
{ 168 comments }

{ 168 comments… read them below }

    1. Irish Teacher.*

      Same. I LOVE speed rounds. And if it was in the next week or two, I’d have loads of time to follow.

    3. English Teacher*

      Speed round! Speed round! Speed round!

      (I thought I would share my additional insight.)

  3. BellyButton*

    There is also bias around addresses. I have had hiring managers openly admit to looking on Google maps at the street view of the house and judging- it is too nice (so the person doesn’t need a job?? WTF) or it isn’t nice enough (so this person is messy and doesn’t care for their things) It is such nonsense.

    1. EarlGrey*

      Wow! I’ve heard of this as an unconscious bias issue (since addresses correlate so strongly with race and class) but not of hiring managers deciding to make it a*conscious* bias.

    2. Paint N Drip*

      I live in an area with lots of small cities that make up an urban/suburban area – there are DEFINITELY the nicer cities within the area, and if you live in one of the ‘worse’ cities (like me) there is definitely judgment!
      I recall a VP being hired at an old job and they mentioned closing on a house recently. Someone looked up the house and it was nicer than some people thought it should be, less nice than other people thought it should be… there just IS judgment about that stuff!!

    3. Lola*

      During my first internship, my advisor admitted she considered not even calling me in for an interview because she thought my address was “”posh”” and that meant I wouldn’t be as dedicated (I lived with my parents through college, as I studied in the same city we already lived in).

    6. François Caron*

      Yep. Just another version of red-lining. That very likely has always been the case whenever employers asked for an address before presenting a job offer.

      1. Mail*

        No, back in the day we needed the address so we could mail the job offer to the successful applicant.

        1. MassMatt*

          Even back in the day, IME job offers generally came by phone and a mailed letter came later, if at all.

          Resumes and application materials get circulated to lots of people you don’t know, IMO it’s not a good idea to have your address out there for anyone to see, there are too many creeps and stalkers to risk it with little if any payoff.

      2. Nancy*

        It was because email didn’t always exist and companies needed a way to send offers and benefits info.

        Most job applications now still ask for it, even the online ones, so it’s still being sent with the resume.

    7. Surrogate Tongue Pop*

      Total WTF, but also the street address is more often than not a required field on job apps (iCIMS, Workday). So, while my resume doesn’t have it, I’ve had to list it on the application. Also WTF-y. City and state should be enough until offer time or offer accepted.

      1. Audiophile*

        Workday and iCIMS making it required fields drive me crazy. I haven’t had my address on my resume in years.

      2. Anon in Canada*

        This. Whether you put it on your resume or not doesn’t change the fact that ATSs make it a requirement, therefore the employer will have it no matter what. And in my industry, Workday is ubiquitous.

    8. Kuddel Daddeldu*

      There are jobs where short-notice emergency coverage may be a thing, but they are few and far between. Years ago, we had on-call duties every few weeks and required the on-call tech to be able to reach the site within 30 minutes (no remote support capabilities; this was the early 90s). There may be similar jobs now, maybe rural nurse practitioners, EMTs, or vets for livestock?
      But yes, for 99% of the jobs out there the applicant’s address is totally irrelevant.

      1. anonprofit*

        Yes, at one job I worked at just a few years ago we required that applicants for a certain position live within a half hour drive. This was because they had to be at work very early in the morning and the company had found that people who lived more than half an hour away just couldn’t make it work.
        Of course, this dramatically limited the applicant pool and they were always short on people to do the job…

    9. Irish Teacher.*

      Yup, and there are areas with bad reputations that some employers are reluctant to employ people from. Just from seeing the address.

    1. Anonys*

      think a speed round would be great but I would also love a general post or series where alison goes back to old posts (maybe ones suggested by readers) and explains how her answers would be different today. Or maybe Alison could even “blindly” look at some older reader questions without her original the answer, write a new response and then we can all see what has changed?

      Been in the archives a bit recently and have definetely wondered sometimes how a question would be answered in 2024.

      1. Persephone Mulberry*

        Agreed! I know one of the sites that Alison has contracted with only does reprints of old letters, and Alison’s post here always says “sometimes updating” the answer, but I would love some direct “then vs now” revisits.

      2. Silver Robin*

        Alison regularly does those for some of the articles she writes for Inc etc.!

        and definitely; I have noticed a shift and some answers I expect would be different today

        1. Dawn*

          I’m currently in 2012 in the archives and it’s amazing to see how some of Alison’s advice, and the tone of it, has changed over more than a decade. There’s a lot of stuff I see that I have to stop a moment and think, “Well, she wouldn’t have told them that now.”

          1. MsSolo (UK)*

            I do love when “Random Post” spits out something from the really early days. Definitely a lot of changes around when it’s worth banding together (and a lot of advice that would probably switch from ‘band together’ to ‘straight up unionise’ these days) and what’s worth spending capital one. I’d also love to see some updates from people over a decade later in their career – do they even remember the thing that was the Great Big Deal They Had To Write In About

      4. Antilles*

        I know years ago, she wrote a couple posts on “advice I’ve changed on over the years”, but it’s been a long time and I think it’d be cool to see another post like that.

  6. RCB*

    I just have my city and state listed to show that I am local, and it has never been an issue. I also spent 10 years in hiring and I honestly couldn’t tell you if people put their full addresses on their resumes or not, it made ZERO impact on how we viewed their candidacy, so leave it off, it’s not helping or hurting you.

  7. LBD*

    Putting an address on a resume also disadvantaged people who are homeless or have ‘No Fixed Address’. It is very easy to have a phone number now, while some face huge struggles to get an address, including the lack of a job, which can end up being a rather circular problem.

  8. pally*

    My experience is that recruiters want to be sure you are local. As my resume indicates “city, state” they ask to verify if this is current.

    Many recruiters I encounter are located out of state. They go further and ask me if I am local to where the job is located. And some even want reassurance if the commute is reasonable. Even if I tell them I’m located just 5 miles away from the job.

    1. Nacho Mama*

      I will say for my fed job our hiring people will call local resumes as top picks over non-local unless the non-local stands out significantly more. Usually bc we are desperate for people

      1. Busted Intentions*

        Yes, and there’s a difference for us feds between telework and remote. Relocation pay may come into it. If the budget it tight and two people are equal, the local person may have the boost for reason alone.

        Or, on the private side the company knows you’re an an area you can telework from.

        I only put City, State.

    2. sparkle emoji*

      I’ve lived places where 5 miles could be a 10 minute drive and places where it could be 30 minutes, or 1 hour+ if someone only uses public transit. It’s probably better those recruiters ask than try to push you to take a job that less commutable than it seems on paper.

      1. pally*

        I think you are right!
        They want the candidate to make the “is it a reasonable commute?” call. Props for that!

      2. Kuddel Daddeldu*

        Yeah, my commute is 7 miles – the fastest is by bicycle (30 minutes), car takes slighly more with traffic, and public transport takes 50 minutes due to subway construction. All doable but I prefer to bike (good bikepaths, safe and free exercise – even though the company subsidizes the transit pass and I’d have to pay for parking).

  9. Aunt Vixen*

    I have my city, state, phone number, and email address on my resume, and in a recent reorg where I was being shifted from one to another subsidiary of the same umbrella company for Reasons they insisted on having one with my full mailing address. (me to my manager, who was not the one who asked for the extra information: What is this, 1998?)

    1. DJ Abbott*

      I moved last year and had to update my full mailing address my employer’s system. I assume it’s in case they need to mail me a tax form or something at some point.
      Come to think of it, W-2s always have an address.

      1. asbanks*

        LW here! I definitely see full addresses being needed in employee systems all the time, but I feel like that’s different than being ON a resume, you know? Especially on job listing aggregate websites.

  10. Anon in Canada*

    This has been an irrelevant question for a long time, because ATSs require a full mailing address in order to submit an application. I have applied to lots of jobs and 100% of companies used an ATS (to be fair, I did not apply to mom-and-pop organizations or nonprofits!) and 100% of ATSs required a full mailing address.

    So put it on your resume or not, the employer will still have it because the ATS asks for it.

    And if you’re a distance candidate thinking of being “sneaky” and hiding their location: if you are currently employed in a non-remote job, you’re not hiding anything by not putting your address on your resume, because your current job gives away where you are. Absolutely nothing can be done to hide that.

      1. Anon in Canada*

        The last time I emailed a resume was in 2014.

        I’m sure some small mom-and-pop orgs still operate that way, but large and medium companies have had ATSs for a very long time.

        1. McS*

          A lot of people still get jobs at big companies by recommendation, being recruited, or otherwise e-mailing a resume. I did. There’s also a huge gap between Mom and pop and big company and a lot of those places take application in a variety of formats that don’t require an address. For reference, I work in hard tech startups. My current company is 800 people and the org I run is 20. I definitely didn’t give them my mailing address until my onboarding paperwork.

        2. sparkle emoji*

          Maybe it’s different in Canada, but I’ve used ATS that didn’t require that. I’ve also applied with Indeed and other job sites that don’t require a full mailing address. Either way, LW doesn’t need to feel obligated to put their full address on a resume that could end up in a database for anyone with a recruiting subscription to view.

          1. Anon in Canada*

            All large financial-related companies (banking, insurance) in Canada use an ATS, usually Workday, sometimes Taleo. A full mailing address is required, no ifs or buts about it.

            Therefore, the debate of whether to put it on your resume or not is irrelevant. Don’t put it on your resume if you don’t want to, but you will still have no choice but to provide it in the ATS.

            1. Apex Mountain*

              I think what you may be missing is that not every ATS requires an address. Or at least that’s a feature that can be turned on or off by the ATS admin or whoever would do that. You do sometimes need to put your city and state but that’s not all of the time, and you definitely don’t need to put your street address

              1. Anon in Canada*

                Maybe the US is a little ahead of Canada, then. I’ve never seen this – in 100% of cases, a full mailing address was required, with 4 mandatory fields: address, postal code, city, and province. There was no option to withhold any of those pieces of data.

                2. LJ*

                  I suspect it’s also industry dependent. Financial services firms would probably be more likely to stick to a long-established provider like Workday and maybe all those fields come by default, whereas new startups might be more incentivized to use something like Greenhouse, which tends to default to a simple resume upload and few form fields.

          2. Dawn*

            It’s not different in Canada. If anything, we have less exposure of our PII than America does.

            1. Anon in Canada*

              Someone else commented that their voter registration – including address – is available online. That’s not a thing in Canada.

              Property tax rolls are also not public here.

              However, most Canadians had landlines (and therefore were in the phone book) in a more recent past than Americans did. Americans were massively cutting landlines in the late 2000s. Canadians (born before 1980) did not begin cutting their landlines until approximately 2014, and plenty still have them (especially on the east coast and in rural areas). So being in the phone book is a more recent memory (or is still a thing).

              1. Dawn*

                Right, yes, the fact that there is more privacy in Canada is a thing that’s different, but not less as you are suggesting (vis a vis your suggestion that you cannot hide your address if applying for jobs in Canada.)

                Source: Am Also Canadian, Just Don’t Put It In My Display Name, and up until recently I worked for Bell so I do know the statistics on landlines (and that most landline customers in the 21st century requested a blocked number.)

          3. Non non non all the way home*

            It isn’t different in Canada. My Canadian-based company hires workers in the U.S. as well as Canada, typically through Indeed, and we don’t require a full mailing address.

        3. fhqwhgads*

          What you’ve described in both posts is not a universal experience. I’ve worked for companies that use ATS and do not require full mailing address just to apply. Or do still take emailed resumes as applications. Not mom and pops. Medium sized companies.

        4. Antilles*

          Do you not have recruiters at all in your industry? Networking at conferences? Job fairs?
          There’s all sorts of ways to get your foot in the door with a company that doesn’t start off with filling out the detailed application in the ATS. Yes, when you get to that stage, you might need to fill out an official application, but there’s a tons of potential steps before that where you’d be emailing a resume or having someone pass your resume along or etc.

  12. Nicosloanica*

    The annoying thing to me is that most job portals, which are the sole method for a pretty big percentage of open jobs, require much more information than merely an address they don’t need anyway – and I’m pretty sure they are not particularly secure with their information, either. Third party data sites probably already have permission to use the data (who created the database and maintains it? Not the person with the open job) plus everyone and their mother gets hacked now. On most pointless data grabs I use fake info if it’s truly required to submit, but obviously I don’t like to do that in applications – which is exactly why it’s desirable to the kind of entity who wants to hoover up data.

    1. Not a Real Giraffe*

      What if you put a fake address? “123 Main Street, Local City, State, Local Zip”? That would get it through the ATS, no? As a hiring manager, I’ve only ever been sent the resume/cover letter documents and never even looked at what the candidate entered on the ATS.

      1. Anon in Canada*

        ATSs have a clause saying that “you attest that all information provided is true…” (blah blah). Putting a fake address would go directly against that, as you’d be lying on an application.

        Usually, getting caught having lied on the application means having the job offer pulled (if you got an offer), and could mean getting banned from the company.

        1. Dawn*

          Last time I filled out out in an ATS I just wrote “Decline To Provide” for the street address and it went through fine.

          That’s not a lie, it’s just… declining to provide.

          1. Anon in Canada*

            Did you hear back from that employer?

            I’m sure this would vary from one recruiter/hiring manager to another, but many would see that and think, “this person is refusing to fill out the form that we ask all candidates to fill, and that almost everyone fills… let’s look at other applicants who actually filled the form properly”.

            Just because the software did not block it doesn’t mean that a human looking at it will be okay with it. And I’d assume you’d have had to put something for postal code (which is a separate field from street address in the ATS).

              1. Orv*

                Interesting! I’d have expected them to throw that in the “can’t follow directions” pile.

                1. Dawn*

                  I don’t want to toot my own horn overmuch, but you don’t end up in that pile especially often when you have desirable qualifications… and on the occasions that you do, well, you’re allowed to decide you don’t want to work for an employer who demands your home address before they’ll give you a phone call, imo.

                2. asbanks*

                  (LW here)

                  I don’t know, I feel like there’s a big difference between “can’t” follow directions and “is clearly making a conscious choice not to provide this information”, you know? Of course if they decline something that I absolutely need to be able to move forward (like an email or phone number so I can actually contact them), that’s on them.

                3. Dawn*

                  @asbanks Right, yes, exactly, and a good employer recognizes the difference between those two things.

                  I’m not “not following directions” I’m pretty explicitly saying “I don’t give this information out,” and there could be all sorts of reasons for that when I don’t ultimately know whom the application is landing with.

          2. Educator*

            I’m sure every company handles this differently, but our ATS would automatically toss you out of the candidate pool for not being in one of our approved locations (and those approved locations include all but a handful of states and cities where the legal criteria for remote hiring is different). A risk to keep in mind if you are applying for remote roles.

    2. Anon in Canada*

      This. ATSs are so ubiquitous now, they are completely and utterly unavoidable.

      And they ALL require a full mailing address, full stop. (And sometimes far more data than that.)

      Put it on your resume or not, but if you think you can apply for jobs in 2024 without supplying your full mailing address, you have your head in the sand.

      1. Dawn*

        I apply for jobs all the time in 2024 without providing my full mailing address.

        Perhaps this has to do with the kinds of jobs you’re applying for?

        1. Anon in Canada*

          Company size is probably the most important variable… but I recently applied at a fairly small org (around 100 employees) and there was an ATS requiring an address.

          1. CompanySize*

            For the. record, 100 employees is large enough that most folks I know would not consider it a large company.

            My personal experience is the working experience usually changes and gets more formalized (things like real HR staff/processes, more siloed responsibilities, etc) around 50-60 employees.

            Carry on…

      2. Carol the happy*

        Will provide (local) address as required, upon hiring.

        My sister-in-law was interviewing for jobs about 20 years ago; one person (not the hiring manager) started talking with her. He told her that he needed her address in order to send company logo wear. She thought it was a bit odd to have him talk with her in the waiting room- it was only the second interview, but he assured her that she practically had it “in the bag”.

        He noted the new address, asked if she was married/kids, and if she liked her roommates. (No roommates….) She said it felt odd, but he was very insistent. So she GAVE HIM ALL THE INFORMATION HE ASKED FOR. The interview started a few minutes later with a team of 3, but not him. They told her not to worry about Nosyguy, he was harmless and liked to get to know the new employees.

        But that weekend, he showed up at her apartment, insisting that she needed help moving in. She was offered that job and one other, and she took the one with $5k lower salary, to avoid the creep.

        Email only.

      3. I Have RBF*

        And they ALL require a full mailing address, full stop.

        No, they don’t.

        It’s configurable in the ATS. Therefore, some companies require it, some don’t. Most companies only require it at the offer stage.

        Not every company in North America is a large Canadian financial institution or a “mom and pop”. There is a huge space between those, and financial institutions are their own brand of weird.

        In general, when you make a blanket declaration and multiple people tell you that their experience is different, it is foolish to double down and say they are wrong. It just makes you look like an ignoramus who can’t bear to be wrong.

  15. Seashell*

    Many decades ago, when I was applying for jobs after graduating, I had to move back in with my parents due to a fun combination of a natural disaster and being unemployed. My parents were in a different state than where I went to school and where I was applying for many jobs, but it was within driving distance.

    I had one employer call and ask if I really wanted that job, because it wasn’t near where I lived, and I said I planned to move as soon as I got a job. Maybe I should have dealt with that issue in my cover letter, but being a twentysomething adult, saying I had to live with my parents seemed awfully embarrassing.

    As time went on, I decided to use my then-boyfriend/now-husband’s address and phone number on my resume. He was only about 1/2 hour away from my parents, but he lived in the same state where I was applying for most of my jobs. My success rate on getting interviews improved after that, and eventually, I got a job. It was a lousy job, but at least I could move out of my parents’ house.

    1. Orv*

      I think this is good cover letter material. I usually indicate that I’m willing to relocate, and if there’s a particular reason I want to move to their city, I’ll sometimes throw in a reference to that. If it seems like the kind of place that might not have the budget for relocation expenses, I’ll add that I’m willing to do it at my own expense.

      1. Seashell*

        Specifying about relocation would make sense today, when people can apply for jobs with a touch of a button and many want to work remotely. In the above story, I was printing out resumes on fancy paper and putting a stamp on the envelope. Between that degree of effort and my resume making it obvious that I was an unemployed recent grad, I would have thought it was clear that I wasn’t just applying for fun and really needed a job anywhere. Guess not!

    2. Freya*

      There’s a few towns and paired towns in Australia which lie across state borders, like Albury-Wodonga (New South Wales and Victoria), Coolangatta-Tweed Heads (Queensland and New South Wales), and Canberra-Queanbeyan (the nation’s capital in the ACT and New South Wales). Covid lockdown border closures were ‘fun’ – at one point, the instructions I had to follow said to fill out a form every time I crossed the border but not more than once every three days, which was annoying because the border crosses the only one of our daily dog walking routes that doesn’t involve stopping at a cafe and getting a coffee.

      Usually these things assume you’re all the way into one state or another, not just over the border.

      If I remember correctly, Tweed Heads has daylight savings, along with the rest of NSW, and Coolangatta, like the rest of Queensland, does not. So for half the year, there’s an hour time difference when you cross Boundary Street.

  16. Timothy*

    The last time I had to submit a resume, it did include my mailing address, but that was in 2015. I guess now all that’s necessary is city and state/province, if only for HR to understand where you’re a resident, so that they can make the appropriate tax deductions.

    And if it’s a contract, that may matter less.

  17. Alexis Moira Rose*

    Speed round would be great! Maybe give us a 24 hour heads up on when it will be for those who want to be prepared and jump in early? Lol!

  18. Dovasary Balitang*

    I only include the city and province on my CV because I moved across the country a few years ago and haven’t changed my phone number to have a local area code. It saves time having to tell hiring managers, “yes, I’m local.”

  19. Dawn*

    I think it is time for another speed round, but I also wanted to say, I applied for a job with a major apparel company last week (you’d probably all recognize it) and their application form asked for a postal address and I just put “Decline to Provide” and it seems to have been fine.

    In this day and age I think it’s just not safe to give anyone your physical address until you know something about them. It’s been demonstrated time and again that in the internet age, bad actors can do some hideous damage with it.

    1. Seashell*

      Physical addresses can often be found with a quick Google search. I can’t see worrying about it unless you’re famous or have a stalker.

      2. Dawn*

        Please trust that if I know enough not to put my street address into a company’s recruiting system, I know enough to keep it off of a Google search.

        Also, guessing you’re probably not a trans woman. I am, so I’m a little more worried about having my address out there than the average person.

        1. Seashell*

          I’ve been on this planet for roughly a half a century with my address readily available in phone books and now the internet, and I haven’t spent a second worrying about it. I doubt that will change.

          2. Broadway Duchess*

            I’m glad that you have not worried about your exposure online, however, that’s not a universal experience, no matter your age or how many methods of PII you’ve ignored. Your personal tolerance is different from others’ but certainly isn’t the default position on this.

            FWIW, I just had a months-long experience of stalking by the family member of an employee I terminated back in February. It was an awful experience, I felt violated for doing my job, and I am certain it was because the employee was able to piece together the scant information she had about me to threaten me/family.

            If other people take the protection of their home’s location seriously, there are all sorts of reasons why that’s the case.

            1. Dawn*

              I live about one town over from the trans YouTuber who got swatted in 2022, and ultimately had to flee the country after they identified her hotel location from the background of another video.

              It’s really something I prefer not to take chances with when I can simply exercise a modicum of discretion.

      4. Irish Teacher.*

        It can be a problem if you live in an area with a bad reputation, say one that often appears on the news because of crimes taking place there. As some employers will worry you might bevone of the criminals. This is not reasonable. I know the police here in Ireland said of one of those estates that the crimes were committed by a group of 20-30 people. It had a population of 5,000! But because the criminals are the ones that make the news, there is a perception that EVERYBODY living there is a criminal.

  20. UnfortunateHick*

    I stopped including my location on my resume when I was fresh to the job market in 2010 or so. I lived in a rural town at the time and had a couple employers tell me that they rejected me as soon as they saw where I was from. And this was for normal jobs with 30-40 minute commutes, which was normal for the area. People have weird preconceived ideas about all kinds of stuff, so don’t give them more ammo than you have to.

    1. Daughter of Ada and Grace*

      I once got rejected at the phone screen stage because the hiring manager decided my commute would be too long. It was a 15-20 minute commute with no highways, in a part of town I went to reasonably often to go shopping. I sometimes wonder where the person she eventually hired lived?

      (The thing about that job’s location? It’s in a part of town I have been known to describe as “You can’t get there from here” no matter where “here” is, which suggests the only people whose commute she wouldn’t have objected to live in that same neighborhood.)

      2. Cookies For Breakfast*

        I have worked in one such location. CV screening was part of my job, and one of the managers was adamant that I should automatically reject any candidates who had 1 hour commute or more. His reasoning was they’d be more likely to be late for work on a regular basis. He absolutely loved local candidates who could walk to work; too bad the office was in a huge wasteland of parking lots and industrial buildings.

        I used to push back on that big time. At the time, my commute was 1.5 hours, and his wasn’t much shorter. I even asked, once, why on earth did he even hire me if my postcode was such a dealbreaker? I don’t remember what answer he mumbled sheepishly, but I do recall that he was asking very insistently about my commute during the interview.

        Anyway, this is when I learned to leave my address off my CV, and recommend the same to any friends asking for advice.

  21. Educator*

    As a hiring manager in the US, I do need to know your time zone! I am sure no one on the West Coast wants us to call them at 6am because it is 9am here and I did not know where they were.

    Also, our addresses are one of the most publicly available things about us. Ever buy something online? That company almost definitely sold your address and it can be found through a quick Google. Unless you are really off the grid, there is not much point in trying to keep it secret.

    1. Who knows*

      Yeah, I’m a bit baffled by all the “you MUST keep it a secret!!” responses here. It’s not a secret. If you Google my name, you get my voter registration information, which – guess what – includes my address. -_-

      1. Dawn*

        Wow, that is….

        I won’t say what I’m thinking exactly because we’re asked not to bash America here, but that is rather ridiculous. It’s not like that in other countries.

      2. Antilles*

        If you own a house and someone knows (or can reasonably guess) the county you live in, you can also go to the county’s Tax Assessor website and find out not only your address, but *also* how much you paid for your home, the assessed value for tax purposes and all sorts of details about your house (possibly even a floor plan sketch!).

      3. allathian*

        This isn’t universally true. I’m in Finland, and every citizen of voting age is automatically registered to vote in parliamentary and presidential elections. In municipal and regional elections you don’t even have to be a citizen, a permanent residence permit in the area concerned is sufficient. In EU elections any EU citizen can vote, as long as they’ve registered to vote here rather than in their home country.

        It’s also not true that every online shop sells their address lists. I’m in the EU, and that’s banned in the GDPR. The online shop can only sell your contact info if you give explicit, opt-in consent, and they can’t make it impossible to access the service without giving that consent. They also can’t sell the address list randomly to the highest bidder. Partnerships do exist, in which a shop will give a partner your contact info and you’ll get a discount in return. But you can decline this and pay more instead.

        That said, the standard here is to give your potential employer your address, either in the ATS or on your resume.

        That said, employee personal data is covered by the GDPR, which means that only the people who need access to that information gets access to it. Generally this is the HR rep handling this specific case, not the whole HR department in a large org, and the hiring manager/panel.

    2. asbanks*

      (LW here)

      Sure, but there’s a difference between information being available if it’s specifically sought, and actively handing the information over. Particularly for aggregator job sites – I signed up for a few of those in my early career and I still get emails that are incredibly spammy from recruiters trying to hire “somebody with [my] experience” for completely unrelated jobs.

      1. I Have RBF*

        I still get that crap, based on a very old resume. I live in California and work as a Linux sysadmin. I regularly get emails about data entry and file clerk, on-site, temporary, in New Jersey, for $15/hr. Hard no.

        1. asbanks*

          Exactly. These people are willing to spam me for jobs that even my many-years-old resume wouldn’t have been a fit for — I’m certainly not interested in them having my home address as well!

  22. I'm just here for the cats!!*

    If you put your full mailing address it is going to come off odd and old school. You would be dating yourself.

  24. Pair of Does*

    Come to think of it, I’d love an article on top 10 (or however many) pieces of advice that were true when AAM first began but have completely changed now!

    2. Orv*

      Seconding this one. I bet it would turn up some stuff I’m still doing that’s now seen as obsolete.

  25. hypoglycemic rage*

    when I was job searching, I listed the specific chicago neighborhood I live in, but I did not list my address. nobody cared. if I had an interview, they might ask where I lived so they’d know if I could commute in, but that was it.

  28. Hedgehug*

    Addresses lead to discrimination. They comes from a bad neighbourhood. Their neighbourhood is too nice. Oh they live so far away, they won’t be able to do the commute, etc.

  30. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain*

    Yes, please another speed round!

    I definitely lost out on a job once because they saw my address was and thought there wouldn’t be any way I could commute on a daily basis. It was a little bit further than I was already commuting — 10 miles — but I was very used to it because I live in the Los Angeles area. The interviewer remarked about it 3-4 times. Why they called me for an interview I have no idea because it was right on there.

  31. CubeFarmer*

    I have no problem if someone puts just their city/state on the resume. I hadn’t considered the safety issue being a factor, but that’s a very good point.

    Just a note: if you’re applying for an in-person or hybrid job, and your resume indicates that you’re from a different geographical area from where you’re applying, it would be helpful to the people reviewing your resume if you indicated why you wanted to relocate in your cover letter, or just some acknowledgement that you have to move. The last time I relocated I put, “I am choosing to relocate to the Big City for personal reasons, and I am available to travel for an interview.” (This was before Zoom was a thing.)

  32. Ellen N.*

    I used to work in entertainment business management.

    Several firms where I worked and where I applied required applicants’ full address. This was because they didn’t want to hire employees who would have long commutes.

    I had one manager who said that we should pass on applicants who would have a commute of more than fifteen minutes.

    I pointed out that as we were in West Los Angeles, only very high earners could meet his criteria. His view remained unchanged.

    1. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

      15 minutes! That is insane. I currently have a job that is under 15, but that is the only one in my entire life that was that close. Including most of my babysitting jobs in high-school.

      1. allathian*

        Yes, the only time I’ve ever had a commute this short was when I worked at the corner store when I was in high school. A ten-minute walk.

  33. Cedrus Libani*

    I don’t list my address, but I do list the city and state for my current job. Before that, it was undergrad at Coffee State, then a few years working at Coffee General Hospital, then grad school at University of Tea, Pottsville…I trusted that people could figure it out, and they did. Now there’s also an entry for Very Large Company (Pottsville, Tea).

  34. Don*

    How do we all feel about phone numbers? Having a public resume on Indeed with my cell number has opened me up to so many security breaches and I feel like an email is just as good as long as you stay on top of it but I also understand why employers would prefer to have more immediacy.

    2. asbanks*

      LW here! I have my phone number on my “real” resume but leave it off for things like Indeed.

  35. Industry Behemoth*

    A recruiter told me not to include my mailing address, to prevent it from falling into wrong hands and possibly being misused.

  36. Former Retail Lifer*

    I only put a city and state on my resume these days. They can see I’m local, but they don’t need my address. When I was casually job searching recently, I did most of my applications through LinkedIn, which just shared my profile.

    I know everyone is saying that an ATS requires your full address, but some job sites just share your profile instead of making you fill out an app. Since I’m not urgently job hunting, I’ll skip anything which requires a full application.

  39. Bookworm*

    I just have city and state on my resume. Remote positions are not that plentiful for my industry in my area. Postings actually mention that only local candidates will be hired.

  40. Helewise*

    When I’m hiring I want to know that candidates are local because we get so many wildly off-base applications (if it’s addressed in a cover letter that can be different, but not always). If I were on the fence about an application it could knock them off my shortlist for phone interviews.

    1. Real McCoy*

      But why? If someone applies for a job, isn’t it reasonable to assume that they would be willing to accept it and turn up when required if offered the role? And if not, what would be the harm in offering an otherwise qualified candidate an interview—particularly if it’s conducted by phone—and just *asking* them?

      1. Dawn*

        Right, like, I don’t think most people are going to go through the whole interview process with a job application that they initiated and then go, “Oh, no, that’s too far away, sorry.”

        I’m certain you get the occasional applicant who is going to try to convince you to make the position remote once they have an offer, but I can’t imagine it happens so often that it’s worth screening out anyone who you can’t reach out and touch.

      2. Skippy*

        It’s a numbers game. If I’m hiring for a in-person position and I don’t have a lot of good choices, sure, I’ll invite them for an interview and ask about their situation. But if I have quite a few good candidates who are also local, they may not make the shortlist.

    2. Orv*

      Do you by any chance work in a place with a confusing name, like Ontario, California?

      I used to work for University of Washington and we’d get applications from people who thought they were applying for a job in the D.C. area. (UW is located in Seattle, in Washington *State*.)

    3. asbanks*

      LW here!

      I understand wanting to avoid off-base applications, but I’m a little unclear on your meaning. Are you saying that having an address listed that is not local would knock somebody off the short-list, or that not having an address listed at all would knock them off?

      If the former, isn’t that all the more reason for people to leave their addresses off? Especially, as some other commenters mentioned, situations where “what my current address is” and “where I’ll live when I’m working” can be pretty common for any number of reasons.

  42. Prudence and Wakeen Snooter Theatre for the Performing Oats*

    I was so weirded out to get a rejection letter in the mail in 2013… Definitely don’t include my mailing address these days!

  43. TheBunny*

    15 minutes in West Hollywood would require that you live in the same building as where the office is located.

  44. Dood*

    I was reading the 2014 letter literally yesterday and thinking “yeah, I’m sure that convention has changed but I wonder if I should ask Alison about it before I have to write my new CV?” Amazing!

    And yes please to another speed round!

  45. ContactInfoOrNoContactInfo*

    I have two versions of my resume, one with contact info and one without. The one without us for recruiters as they won’t send companies any direct contact method for contacts.

    This means they edit/change my resume less frequently so it retains the format I like. There are still recruiters that make changes.

    That said, I don’t think I’ve ever included address on my resume, just phone and email and (more recently) Twitter handle (which I used for professional posting). I would probably omit Twitter/X now given how polarizing it can be.

  46. Amphian*

    I work in tech. I went remote in 2012. My 2016 resume had a full address. My 2018 had nothing related to location, including a phone number from a previous state that I never changed.

    At my current job, we spent the last year interviewing a lot of people for multiple jobs. Most of our candidates didn’t have even a city and state. If their jobs all list the company locations as state XX, that’s a decent sign they live there, but we also had a lot that had been remote for a while and their companies were all over.

  47. Thomas*

    I can’t speak for other jurisdictions but in the UK judging a candidate by their address could be unlawful ‘indirect discrimination’. Think company never hires people in X neighbourhood and X neighbourhood has a higher percentage of residents following religion Y than the region as a whole.

    So on the general principle of don’t give an employer information they can’t legally use, the advice of omitting the full address is good.

  48. Rosacolleti*

    I only ask for it when I’m preparing the contract if they’ve accepted our offer. The general area they live in normally comes up in interview.

  49. Sangamo Girl*

    And I’m here with the obligatory, “I work for government” addition. Our state requires them. Your app won’t get through the ATS without it.

      1. Anon in Canada*

        Question: what’s stopping you from simply borrowing the address of a friend or relative (in the same city) to put on job applications? They, shortly after hire, you announce that you’ve moved (which you may not have to “announce” at all, in most cases you just change it in the HR software).

        This would also look much better that putting “decline to provide” to a mandatory question, and the odds of getting caught are next to zero.

        Requiring a full address in an ATS is extremely normal and common. People with a good reason to hide their address at all costs need a plan B, and it can’t be “not applying to those jobs”.

        1. Dawn*

          My own personal objections to providing a completely unnecessary street address, and the fact that I’m far enough along in my career that I can comfortably decline things that they have no business knowing anyway.

          If I miss out on a few “opportunities” because of highly unreasonable employers that is fine with me.

        2. Dawn*

          Seriously starting to wonder if you work for an ATS company or something because I maintain that this is far less common than you think it is and you seem awfully fixated on it.

          1. Anon in Canada*

            No, I don’t work for Workday or any other ATS company, but more than 3/4 of companies in my industry use Workday as an ATS, and it has mandatory address fields. Other companies use other ATSs that also require it. It’s just how it is in my industry, and I’ve never viewed this as a problem.

            I don’t understand how someone can be that resistant to providing their address in an ATS… or AN address that doesn’t even need to be yours… to the extent that you would be willing to walk away from great opportunities over this. Just because an employer uses Workday doesn’t mean they’re a bad employer.

            1. Dawn*

              We could probably disagree over that last sentence.

              But the point is that… well, first, I’m pretty rarely applying to positions that use an ATS to begin with. This might be different in your particular industry, but generally an ATS is only used for lower-end positions. In most industries, once one is past a certain point in their career, they apply more directly.

              But also, on the rare occasion I am applying to a position that uses an ATS and it asks for something I don’t want t provide, I just indicate that I don’t want to provide it – or if it demands, put in obvious dummy information (like A1A 1A1) and most actual hiring managers are perfectly understanding of that. The best ones remove the requirement from the ATS to begin with, but the rest completely sympathize with the fact that I don’t want to share my home address with people I haven’t even met.

              And it’s not a “great opportunity” if the company insists on knowing information they have no business knowing. If your company insists on having a street address just to look at my company, then your company is unreasonable and out of sync with modern norms – and because I am at the point in my career that I can exercise that kind of discretion, it is (in my opinion) something absolutely worth taking a stand over, and letting companies know that they are losing good candidates over, just like a company that demands to know your last salary, or asks what medications you’re on, or my SIN (I’ve seen that one before) or any other unreasonable question to ask at the very start of the hiring process.

              I’m very glad for you that you don’t view it as a problem, but you are not everyone by a long shot, and I am not at all alone in being tired of providing information to complete unknown quantities which they have no business requesting.

              1. Dawn*

                If I said to you, “Hey, I’ve got a great opportunity for you as an Account Manager, just give me your SIN and we can get started,” you’d rightfully tell me to get bent.

                I don’t see a home address as any less private a piece of information. I understand that we are out of sync on that, but it’s a choice I’m allowed to make for myself.

                1. Anon in Canada*

                  I have a landline and am in the phone book. So are my parents, and a large percentage of households in the town I grew up in. The vast majority of people who still have landlines in the 2020s are people who never viewed this as an issue at all.

                  I understand that some people have specific reasons for keeping their address out of public view (DV victims, lawyers, schoolteachers, etc.) but information put in an ATS is not public. And as I said, you can borrow someone else’s address in the same city and have about a 0% chance of getting caught if you do that.

                  I’m pretty sure asking for SIN before hire is illegal (even though some companies still do it… none in my industry do though). Asking for address is not illegal. Big difference.

                  We’ll just have to agree to disagree.

                2. Dawn*

                  @Anon where in the phone book does it print your home address? Why do you keep circling back to that?

                  I don’t care if I can “borrow” someone else’s address and “not be caught” – for one thing that’s dishonest and I’m not, for another I think it’s worth taking a stand about this.

                  Again, you’re welcome to feel how you like about this, but people who don’t care about their PII are increasingly in the minority. “The vast majority of people who have landlines in the 2020s” is less than 1% of the population. I worked for Bell; I know. And if you think the problem with asking for a SIN is that it’s illegal, you’re deliberately being obtuse about my point.

                  And it’s not that the information is public – it’s that it’s going to people whom I don’t know who they are.

                  I definitely disagree with you. You remain wrong about this.

                  Good day to you.

    2. asbanks*

      (LW here!)

      But presumably the ATS involves a form field requesting it, right? So even then, having it on the resume itself would be unnecessary.

  50. daffodil*

    At my college we discourage it, so I’m glad to see Allison agree. Especially in US cities where residence is highly correlated with race/class, it can create opportunities for discrimination, in addition to security concerns.

  51. Mel*

    I hire for part time positions in a large county and I find it helpful to have a city listed. Often people will apply to every location that has the position listed, but I find most want actually accept the job if they live 45+ miles from my location. Which makes complete sense. I do not need full addresses, just the city. And we do discuss location when we do phone screenings as well. It’s just a helpful indicator for me on how likely someone will accept the job if offered.

Comments are closed.