should your resume list the city/state for each job?

by Alison Green on February 10, 2025

A reader writes:

As resume advice continues to evolve with the times (e.g., not including your street address on your resume), I’m wondering how important the location of each job is. Do employers really care if I worked in San Francisco, California, or in Dayton, Ohio? Would it be better to include in-person, hybrid, or remote?

Yes, you should still list the city and state of each employer.

Including the employer’s location helps verify that those companies actually exist. That doesn’t matter so much when the company is nationally known or when all your employers are local to the area you’re applying in, but otherwise it matters and will signal “this company is real and verifiable.”

Also, the location of an employer can add useful context. For example, for some jobs it would be helpful to know that you’ve dealt with the issues of a large city versus a small community, or that you have experience with a particular market.

If you were working remotely from a different location, you should still list the location of the company but put “(remote)” next to it. You do not need to specify in-person or hybrid.

You can format it like this:

Llama Grooming Inc., Providence, RI        January 2018 – November 2022
Llama Midwife
* accomplishment
* accomplishment
* accomplishment

Or like this:

Llama Grooming Inc., Providence, RI
Llama Midwife, December 2022 – present
Llama Assistant Midwife, January 2018 – November 2022
* accomplishment
* accomplishment
* accomplishment

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{ 71 comments }

{ 71 comments… read them below or add one }

  2. CherryBlossom*

    Would this still be necessary if everything on my resume was in the same city? Let’s say I’ve lived in Seattle my whole life and have no interest in moving. Do I really need to put “Seattle, WA” on every job I had? I’m aware this is a niche example, but it feels redundant to me.

    Reply ↓
    2. Fluffy Fish*

      I would say yes. You know you’ve only ever worked in Seattle but the hiring manager doesn’t, nor are they necessarily going to be familiar with the names of where you have worked to know they are all in Seattle.

      There’s lots of places near Seattle that you could just as easily have worked.

      Reply ↓
      1. JustaTech*

        Also, if any of your past employers have had other sites then you’re going to want to clarify that you worked for Amgen (Seattle) and not Amgen (Bay Area).
        Or even that you worked at the Seattle site and not the Redmond or Bellevue or Renton or Everett or Bothell sites.
        (For people not in Seattle, all those are other towns/cities in the general Seattle metro area (ish for Everett), so you are clarifying that you mean, no really, in Seattle, not in “Seattle”.)

        Reply ↓
  3. ZSD*

    I guess I’ve always been getting this wrong! I thought you listed the city and state where you worked, not where the company was located. (Those have always been the same in my particular case, but this means I may have been misinterpreting others’ applications.)
    To avoid ambiguity, should you specify where you were working remotely from (if it’s far from where the employer is located)?
    Llama Grooming, Inc. Providence, RI (Remote from Dayton, OH)

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    1. Educator*

      I’ve been listing both company headquarters and where I worked remotely from parenthetically just like this as I have moved between in-person and remote jobs. It makes it clear to in-person companies that I have been based in my home city the whole time and am committed to staying here. Otherwise, I worry that it would look like I was moving across the country every few years to someone doing a quick skim! There are some businesses where that might not matter, but if you are in a line of work where it is valuable to know the local community, it feels really important.

      Reply ↓
  4. QuietBibliophile*

    So it sounds like remote employees should be using the company’s headquarters location rather than their actual physical locale? I started at a local office that later closed, so I’m not sure which city to use.

    Reply ↓
    1. Art3mis*

      I would like to expand on this too. With my current company I work remotely. We had an office in my midwestern city, but I never worked there and it’s since closed, we’re all fully remote, but the HQ is on the east coast. So do I put “Acme Inc., Smalleastcoastcity, NJ”?

      Reply ↓
    2. WellRed*

      My company is hq in the midwest, I’m in New England. I use their address. It doesn’t matter where I work but it matters if the recruiter wants to look up the company.

      Reply ↓
      2. Hiring Mgr*

        It can’t hurt to put the city, but I do think these days recruiters or anyone can find your company regardless of the address you put (LinkedIn,etc)

        Reply ↓
    3. Wellie*

      In general, put the address of which ever corporate location you are currently associated with by your company. So if your company has you working with the parade llamas branch headquartered in Pietown, NM, then you put Pietown, NM, even if Llamas Inc. has their main address in Intercourse, PA.
      In your case, I would list the location as intercourse, PA, and you can note during the interview that you started out working with the Pietown, MM, location, which is now closed.

      Reply ↓
      1. QuietBibliophile*

        That’s a great way to thread that needle, thanks! I like the idea of mentioning it during the interview.

        Reply ↓
    4. Exme*

      My guess would be go into incognito mode and try to google the company plus your city to see if the company is the first result. If they are not, putting the headquarter city is more critical for verification.

      Reply ↓
  5. Annie*

    What if you’ve worked at various locations, including on-site at one place, on-site at another location, then remote but you traveled to a place bi-weekly and worked remote the other week, and finally fully remote?
    Do you list all different locations? Specific functions may have been different depending if you were on-site in each location or traveling or remote.

    Reply ↓
    1. Caramel & Cheddar*

      If you were everywhere concurrently (e.g. one day at Site A, one day at Site B, remote on another day, all in the same week/month), I’d just list the HQ or your “home” site. If these were distinct depending on the job (e.g. Site A in 2014, Site B from 2015-2017, remote from 2023-current), I would list out your individual jobs and just list the locations per job.

      Reply ↓
  6. mango chiffon*

    Does anyone know how to handle a job family title change? Let’s say you were hired as a llama assistant and get promoted to senior llama assistant. After that, the job family is changed to llama coordinator but the job is the same and you are now a senior llama coordinator. Can you put that you were a llama coordinator and promoted to senior llama coordinator? Or do you have to put what you were initially titled as before that job family name change?

    Reply ↓
    1. Sneaky Squirrel*

      I’d just use Senior Llama Coordinator in a resume situation. In a lot of situations, a job family is retitled because it’s a better reflection of the work you’re doing.

      If the ask was to break out all titles you’ve ever held at this company, which I’ve seen for various background check forms, then you would want to break it down to show old and new title.

      Reply ↓
    2. Hlao-roo*

      I think you should put your actual job titles, in case it comes up during a reference or background check. If your duties/accomplishments are fairly similar under the two different “families” of job title, I think you can format it like the second example in the answer:

      ACME Corp., Providence, RI
      Senior Llama Coordinator, December 2022 – present
      Llama Assistant, January 2018 – November 2022
      * accomplishment
      * accomplishment
      * accomplishment

      You could also format it like this if you prefer:

      ACME Corp., Providence, RI
      Senior Llama Coordinator, December 2022 – present
      *accomplishment
      *accomplishment
      *accomplishment
      Llama Assistant, January 2018 – November 2022
      * accomplishment
      * accomplishment
      * accomplishment

      Reply ↓
      1. Good Man Hennerz*

        What is this…
        *accomplishment
        *accomplishment
        *accomplishment
        ???
        I was in a mainframe department, we… dunno ”ran stuff”. That was our job. We were caretakers of something ancient. I didn’t build the pyramids, the Nile rose and fell, and I read the nilometer… there are no ”accomplishments” in a job like that?!?!?! Except after 30 years service you get a gold watch and a pension…

        Reply ↓
  7. learnedthehardway*

    From a recruitment perspective, I think it is more important for people to describe the small or mid-size company. That could include location, but it’s honestly more important to me to know the industry and company size.

    I’d rather see “Finance Manager, XYZ Co.” with a short descriptor like “XYZ Co. is a niche manufacturer of widgets for the llama grooming industry, with 120 employees” than know that it is located in Chicago.

    Reply ↓
    1. S*

      Thank you for sharing this. I tend not to because of space considerations. Even going back only ten years is hard to fit on two pages. Any other suggestions?

      Reply ↓
    2. A. Lab Rabbit*

      Eh, I don’t think this is that important. Google is a thing if they are curious.

      I don’t think I’d be as interested in what the company does than what the applicant did while they were there. And what the company did will probably come through in describing what you did there. “Managed payroll for a staff of 120” tells you how much payroll they actually managed, which is the important bit. What those people were being paid to do isn’t nearly as important.

      Reply ↓
      1. fhqwhgads*

        Right, exactly. Including that it’s in Chicago is so that if they want to look the place up, they know they have the correct XYZ co.
        If I don’t know it’s the one in Chicago, they might land on “XYZ Co. is a niche manufacturer of restaurant equipment with 12 employees in Providence”, and unless the Chicago one is on the same page of search results, I’d have the totally wrong idea. Including the Chicago bit, now google returns the right company.

        Reply ↓
      2. Freya*

        This. Managing payroll for an IT company is different to managing payroll for a construction business, but in the end, they’re both _payroll_!

        Reply ↓
    3. Fluffy Fish*

      What the employer does/is kind of irrelevant. It’s what the employee has done that is pertinent.

      Any questions abotu employer like size that you think is important can be handled by reference checks.

      Reply ↓
  9. LoV...*

    It also helps to avoid confusion as to which company out of all the similarly named companies that you actually worked for.

    Reply ↓
    1. Kendall^2*

      List it as you would if it still existed. You worked there when it did, after all. And if the non-existence happened in the last couple of decades, there are likely still to be Internet traces of them, after all; it’s not like you’re trying to scam someone with a fake job.

      Reply ↓
    4. Pay no attention...*

      It could vary based on why the old company no longer exists; if it’s just gone then Wellie’s suggestion sounds good. If it was bought out by another business/owner or the name changed you could add that.

      Twitter (now doing business as X, 2023)
      Joe’s Llamas (purchased by Global Llamas & Camels, 2007)

      A new company/owner might retain documentation from the previous business for confirming employment dates.

      Reply ↓
  11. Criminally Competent*

    Side note: so many companies still have their application systems set up to require full addresses for both the applicant and the companies on the resume!

    Reply ↓
  12. Wallaby, Well I'll Be*

    Never done this, never had an issue. Every time I’ve had to fill in a form while applying for a job, the job location has always been optional. Anyone can add a location for a fake company, but honestly, how many people are really, truly putting fake companies on their resumes? I don’t know, seems like a solution to a problem that mostly doesn’t exist. I like to suggestion above to very briefly explain what your company does and what industry it’s in.

    Reply ↓
    1. Educator*

      When I am hiring, most of the places top candidates have worked are ones I have heard of because I know my industry pretty well. But if their last or most significant job was somewhere that is new to me, I am going to give it a quick Google before our interview. The address helps me figure out which of the many similarly named employers they actually mean. So many places have super similar names! I think it is overkill to describe the company in great detail, but giving me enough information that I can seek that out on my own if I want to is key.

      Reply ↓
    2. College Career Counselor*

      According to HR where I currently work, the most commonly mis-represented (or “fake” if you prefer) item on resumes they receive is the degree/school an applicant claims.

      I find this boggling, but I’m told it’s true.

      Reply ↓
      1. Good Man Hennerz*

        I need to elaborate on this, as I went to a ’polytechnic’ and have a degree from last century, but they merged with 3 others to form an ’university of applied sciences’… so ”my degree” is from an establishment that no longer exists by that name… and the ’college degree’ I have doesn’t exist any more as they revamped the education system. ”Those in the know” will know what it is/was ”back in the day”, but internationally… ha ha ha! Actually the grade school or high school I went to no longer exist as they were either…

        Reply ↓
      2. Escape from the Bay Area*

        I once found out a coworker made up his entire resume because he announced that he graduated from [prestigious engineering school] and hey, wow, what a coincidence, I went there too! I asked him a bunch of questions out of excitement and it appeared he’d never even resided in the state it was in. Couldn’t answer anything at all, it was like he hadn’t even bothered to google it. I started making up fake things to see if he’d remember them, which he confidently did. My bosses had me do some of his job for him because he didn’t know how to use a computer but was a “genius”. Spoilers: he was not a genius, he wasn’t even a good con artist. I casually mentioned all of the lying to my boss and they said they didn’t care because it “just showed he was a go-getter”. Then they let go of everyone in the company over 30 because we were too old. The tech industry was really fun.

        Reply ↓
  13. Hiring Mgr*

    Hmm personally I don’t think it really matters, especially if you’re currently working remotely. I think the most important thing is to make it clear to the hiring company that you are available in their city/or remote

    Reply ↓
  14. Spreadsheet Queen*

    I don’t recall if I have listed city/state of my jobs (and I just revamped my resume in the fall to apply for the job I have now!) But all the ones I still list on my resume have been where I live now. The bigger problem has been listing acquisitions that took place while I worked there and weird changes that resulted as part of being a larger, more siloed organization. (Basically, some of that looks like demotions, but the reality is more that the big company didn’t need me wearing 7 hats). I have NOT listed acquisitions that took place after I left those places, because boy, that gets complicated (and requires research because there’s a whole series of bigger and bigger fish gobbling up and why would I keep track of each fish?)
    The oldest employers, I just dropped off my resume. One no longer exists (got acquired and then went bankrupt) and was a different career field anyway, and the other was my first in this field, less than 2 years, and got gobbled and gobbled… I don’t need them so I don’t list them.
    My last 20 years of positions, I’ve been specifically sought out, so those nuances of a resume have not been super important. I have no idea if this data would be needed if I applied somewhere I didn’t already know people.

    Reply ↓
    1. Wellie*

      Do you have a résumé that combines freelance work with traditional employment? You could do it a couple ways.
      you could put freelancer or if you have a name that you incorporated under as the company name and use the city state where you were physically located. You would then list your client information under each project nested underneath the freelancer section.
      Or you could break all the freelance work into a separate section with the heading of freelance work and then list your clients with their location in that section the same way you would list and employer under your work experience section

      Reply ↓
      1. Lily Rowan*

        If you’re a full-time freelancer, you probably need a different kind of marketing document?

        I just freelanced for one chunk of time, but have mostly been an employee, so I just have one listing for “freelance work” and list the clients under there.

        Reply ↓
        1. Wellie*

          To get more freelance work, you are probably right. But if you are applying to regular employment, you need a resume format. I would advocate putting all your information, including location and company-name, if you have one, in a header. Then your client information would all be listed similar to how employer information is, and instead of Work Experience, I would call it Clients or Projects or something like that.

          Reply ↓
  16. the Viking Diva*

    Sometimes folks on this site want a hard and fast rule, or a perfect formula that adapts to every possible circumstance. I read Alison’s response as offering two key principles to apply in making the decision for oneself – the hiring manager’s ability to verify the company (call references etc.) and potential relevant knowledge about the local market or landscape. The third one (embedded in the last non-example paragraph) is “don’t be confusing.” If those principles aren’t relevant to the industry or type of job you are in, then ignore….

    Reply ↓
    1. Wellie*

      If all the work was the same, just put the current location. If it comes up, you can explain that they used to be at a different location.
      If the nature of the job changed, you can split it up:
      Llamas, Inc 2018-current
      Pietown, NM 2021-current
      blah blah
      Intercourse, PA 2018-2021
      different blah blah

      Reply ↓
    2. Good Man Hennerz*

      I worked ”in the same company” for 11 years, and we changed our name 3 times during that due to mergers etc… (some of my colleagues had already done 2-3 name changes before I joined) – It was the joke in the ’big staff meetings’ in the 00’s hot years ”…so what’s our name next week?”

      We were the ’mainframe department’, and you just don’t upset that in anywhichway unless you really have it in fora a serious career move to live your life as a goat in Nepal.

      Reply ↓
  18. Good Man Hennerz*

    What do you mean ”should I?” … OK, as you know ”all roads lead to Rome”. So if you give a CV that you worked in Naples and Rome… so y’all got 10 cities with the same name in a dozen states… I’ve got a CV with those cities in the actual country of Italy. So there.

    Reply ↓
  19. WillowSunstar*

    If your company sold your office building, but you were in that location previously, are we supposed to list the old address? I made it clear in the resume it was taken over by another company, and also in interviews when walking them through it, and that the previous office was sold. I do use the official address for my remote job in the application but workday generally has another field for location additionally, so I say Remote, My state, then put the official one for street/city/state.

    (The joys of working for a company that got bought out by another company.)

    Reply ↓
    1. Lily Rowan*

      Don’t put the street address on your resume. If you’re filling out an application that requires it, I’d probably put the address where I worked, but that’s so I don’t have to figure out the current status of the former employer all the time. Either that or just their headquarters address.

      Reply ↓
      1. WillowSunstar*

        Right, it’s not on my resume. But all these online sites want you to put it in anyway. So I have a cheat sheet that I copy/paste from.

        So for example. Say I currently live in Springfield, OR. My old company building was in Shelbyville, OR., but when the company got bought by one in New York, NY, the building in Shelbyville got sold and they made us all work from home.

        They still also own a property in Springfield that I worked at for several years, so I do list that one in the applications for the previous job. But for my remote job that I work at out of my Springfield home, I have to list the NY one as the official address. And I list the old Shelbyville address for the previous job, and the Springfield address for my other job where they still own it. If that makes sense.

        Reply ↓
  20. Piggy market*

    What do you all think about an exception for local government work, where the place name is part of the institution name? E.g. Seattle Public Library, Alameda County Parks and Recreation Department, Detroit Metropolitan Transit Authority. It feels redundant to say “Seattle, WA” when there’s no other place the Seattle Public Library could be.
    This is also assuming it’s not a common name like “Johnson County,” since you’d need to specify which one.

    Reply ↓
    1. Good Man Hennerz*

      Well… sometimes there *are* actually names that are confusing. Like you lived and worked in Kansas City all your life, but never lived or worked in Kansas? There’s a couple more of those, which ”unless you know” are totally confusing – and might make someone think your CV is made up fake, just because they failed geography class… doesn’t help ”everyone knows”, but that everyone is just the locals… not going into ”New Mexico is a foreign country”, but yeah, there is quite a few of these…

      Reply ↓
      1. Lady Lessa*

        Whenever I am programming my GPS, and I try to help it find the address by adding the city, I get amused by how many cities have the same name. For example, there are at least 4 Louisville’s.

        Reply ↓
    2. Pay no attention...*

      Sometimes though, a very large city may have locations that are part of their organization, but not in their city.
      Los Angeles Public Library, Canoga Park, CA
      New York Zoo, Bronx, NY

      Reply ↓
    3. Cedrus Libani*

      I will admit that I do this. All but one of my previous jobs, and both of my degrees, are from institutions named after the city and/or state where they are located…and they’re long names, so I’d have to add an extra line to confirm that, e.g. “University of California, Los Angeles” is located exactly where you think it is.

      Reply ↓
    4. Banana Pyjamas*

      Definitely still include it. One place I worked was Germannametown Township, Germannametown, Illinois. There 9 other Germannametowns in the U.S. Also place names can change over time. For example Homer Glen, IL used to be called Gooding’s Grove. Now Gooding’s Grove is just a subdivision in Homer Glen.

      Reply ↓
  21. Maxouillenet*

    In fact, I’d like to take this opportunity to point out that

    In my sheltered Workshop ,we have a few customers who outsource their responses to negative CVs to us (we have the templates, it’s just database creation and mailing) and among the customers we have a company that wants the responses to be sent by postal mail only.
    Personally, it’s the only company I know that does this (it’s a luxury company, let’s say a luxury tea company, that might explain it), but if you want to apply in France, give your full postal address, you never know, there are still a few old-fashioned companies out there.

    (After that, as I’m pretty much at the end of the recruitment chain ,with only administratives tasks, I don’t have a lot of recruitment advice for France, apart from the fact that photos are still almost compulsory on French CVs. Some associations have try to launche ideas of CV without photos, but since minorities were almost the only ones who tried it, it was the same result that CV with photos

    Reply ↓
  22. A Genuine Scientician*

    Interesting. Not something I’ve ever had to think of (academia; all of the schools I’ve worked at are nationally known ones), but I now better understand why this would be useful in other cases.

    Reply ↓
  23. I once ran a hiring program in tech*

    Wow, I was _positive_ you were going to reply that you could leave that off and nobody would notice or care. I guessed wrong this time!

    FWIW, at least in the tech industry, I can say that it’s very uncommon to include any physical locations other than your current city of residence.

    Reply ↓
    1. Sparrow*

      I was also surprised that the answer here was “you need to include it”! A while back, I asked a colleague of mine if I still needed cities on my resume, and he advised me to drop them. While the industry I work in is only tech-adjacent, the city I live in is a major tech hub, and that colleague is a manager at one of the big five tech companies. I hadn’t realized that was field-specific!

      Reply ↓
  24. Addison DeWitt*

    I think it’s weird how everybody wants to take stuff off of resumes—at a time when we’re all incredibly trackable online. I understand about taking the stuff that shows your age off, but it’s very odd to me to think of saying “Office Products Inc.” with no city—that just sounds like you’re faking or hiding something.

    Reply ↓
    1. ForgotMyName*

      We’re talking about a document that is ideally a single page and needs to be skimmed in less than 30 seconds. Add the context of a career that necessitates a job change every few years to keep up with pay and/or progression and that’s quite constraining. It’s not surprising people trying to keep a “clean” resume want to eliminate as much extraneous information as possible to save space.

      Reply ↓
  25. Audiophile*

    I’ve never listed the city of my employer unless it overlapped with the office I worked out of.

    Now that I’ve been remote for my last few roles, I list “remote” next to the job title. With the previous jobs where I was in office, I started listing only the state a few years ago. It hasn’t been an issue, thankfully.

    Reply ↓
  26. I didn't say banana*

    I’m a bit confused by the examples. It looks like the location formatting is the same in both, and the difference between them is demonstrating how to list job title changes?

    Reply ↓

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