Addresses Are Preferred By Applicant Tracking Systems
Applicant tracking system software is used by large companies to sort through all of the resumes sent in by applicants.
Essentially, ATS software scans your resume for important information and industry-specific keywords to determine if youre qualified or not. If the ATS cant find what its looking for on your resume, your application could be rejected.
Many career experts believe that including an address makes your resume ATS friendly, and reduces the risk that your application will be unnecessarily disqualified.
However, ATS software has come a long way since it entered the mainstream over 20 years ago, and is now highly efficient at scanning different types of resumes. Theres no evidence that any modern ATS system would reject your resume just because there isnt an address listed on the page.
An Employer Will Need Your Address If They Want To Provide You A Job Offer
If youre offered a job by a company, their HR department will eventually need your full address to complete payroll documents, run background checks, and verify your identity.
Listing your address on your resume simply makes it easier for your future employer to find the information they need and get you started at your new job, which theyll probably appreciate.
However, most HR departments reach out after youve been offered a position to verify your full address anyway, so its unlikely any employer would reject your initial application for not having an address listed.
City And Province Or Territory
This is the most common format for including your address on your resume. This method is ideal for candidates who want to include their location but are uncomfortable disclosing their exact address. You can separate the city and province or territory with a comma to make it organized.
Example:Regina, Saskatchewan
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Should You Include An Address On Your Resume
How you include your address on your resume can influence the recruiters perception of you as a worker, your value proposition, and your job offer. With this in mind, theres a lot to consider before you decide whether or not to put your address in your resume header. Some questions you may ask yourself are:
- Why would a recruiter want an address on your resume?
- Why would I consider not including my address on my resume?
- What are advantages and drawbacks of either including or not including my address on my resume?
- Are there any scenarios where I need to include my address on my resume?
- What should I do if I dont want to include my address on my resume?
- What should I do if Im relocating?
- Where should I put my address on my resume?
- What have others who have gotten hired done?
All of these questions and more are answered in the following post.
Providing Irrelevant Personal Information
The personal details you are expected to include on your CV will vary in different countries. It is important to consider what information you are sharing with employers. In the UK, avoid a CV with a photograph, date of birth, nationality and marital status. Similarly, if you have social media accounts on Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook for personal use, you do not need to share these. This is another opportunity to make a positive impression.
Think about the position you are applying for and how your interests and achievements relate to it. An interest in the exhibitions would be useful to mention if you want to work in the arts sector community engagement activities would be suitable if you want to work in the charity sector involvement in sport activities would be advantageous if you want a career in the sports sector. You can highlight other activities that demonstrate transferable skills and your values.
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What Should My Resume Include
- Personal details Start by listing your full name and contact information, including your phone number and email address.
- Career objective or summary These are short statements to help you pitch yourself. If youve recently left school or university and dont have much professional experience yet, begin your resume with a career objective a sentence or two outlining your skills and your work ambitions. If you have experience in the workforce, you might want to include a short career summary instead, describing your experience and where youre aiming to go next in your career.
Next, include your education or work experience start with whichever is more recent.
After this, its a good idea to add some more information to reinforce or add to the picture of what youve got to offer.
- Skills, strengths or interests You could create headings for these topics and list information thats relevant to the job youre applying for. Highlight any relevant professional memberships, too.
- References Most employers will require references from people you know professionally who can vouch for your skills and abilities. You could include contact and company details for a former employer, manager, or an academic advisor if they agree to be your referee, or you might wish to write references available on request.
What To Include In Your Resume
Now that you know what not to include in your resume, take a second look at your resume to make sure it includes all the right elements to effectively tell your story and market your qualifications and work experience. Click on the following link to learn what 11 pieces of information every professional should include in a resume.
Not sure if your resume includes any of these mistakes? Let us help! Take advantage of TopResume’s free critique today!
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Applying For Jobs Out Of State This Resume Tip Can Help
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Your resume is extremely important in finding a job and is the biggest factor in whether you get the interview or not. Living in one state and applying for jobs out of state makes it even more vital.
And one of the biggest hurdles is how to list your location on your resume when applying for jobs in a different state.
A question on this topic was emailed to me by a reader last week:
Hi Biron. Im living in San Francisco and trying to move to Denver. The problem Im running into is that Im not receiving any interviews and Im guessing its because there are local applicants that are equally qualified. I believe I can interview better than them and prove myself but I need to get into the interviews. My address and phone number on my resume are a dead giveaway that Im living in the Bay Area. Do you recommend that I lie on my resume to get a job interview?
Should You Include Your Address If Youre Relocating
You should still include your current city, state, and zip code even if youâre relocating. If you have a place secured and are absolutely certain about moving, you can include your new city, state, and zip code.
You can also include the city youâre relocating to along with the month and year.
Example:
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Can Clog Up Your Resumes Visual Flow
Depending on how much information is already on your resume, the addition of an address may result in a flawed or unsightly design.
If your resume is already packed with information but you know you are going to need to include an address, it may be time to edit.
The ideal length for a standard resume is one page. If including your address pushes your resume outside of this limit, you will need to find a way to whittle it down more.
The truth is that your layout does matter. It can affect everything from employer first impressions to how well an ATS can read and categorize your resume.
Paying close attention to the visual flow of your resume is key!
The Main Reason To Put An Address On Your Resume
The strongest argument for including your address is so that you will show up in location-specific recruiter searches.
Recruiters want to know where youre located. Why? Because they often search for local candidates first. If youve made your resume searchable on job sites but have not included your location, its likely you havent been contacted by recruiters.
The second reason to include your address is so that employers will know whether or not youll need to relocate for the job.
Tip: If you are searching for a job outside of your current area, put Relocating to City, State in place of your address, so that you appear in recruiter searches and communicate to employers that you are already moving to the area. Heres what that looks like:
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Putting Your Address Creates Unnecessary Risk
If youre applying for your job through a third party, like a job search board, you may feel anxious about writing your address because youre not sure who will have access to the information you list on your resume.
In this situation, its perfectly acceptable to remove your address from your resume to protect your privacy.
If You Are Relocating Should You Put Your Real Address On Your Resume
Now for the more complicated question about addresses on resumes when youre moving. As discussed, there can be a bias in favor of local candidates and against out of state ones.
This makes people wonder if they should lie about their location, put a friends address on the resume, etc.
I definitely do not recommend this approach. If you land an interview, the best case scenario, youre going to either have to explain that you lied on your resume about your address or somehow keep up the charade that you actually live in the area, which can be extremely costly and inconvenient.
I have a simple fix for this that will get you the best of both worlds: the ability to be honest while still giving your reader the indication that youll be just as convenient to hire as a local candidate.
youre letting them know that this is part of your plan. Keep in mind that the timeframe you choose should be in the coming months and not too far away. I like using seasons because they allow for a level of vagueness that still sounds like its coming up quickly.
Companies arent going to wait 6 months or more for you to move. Most are looking to hire ASAP.
Just to clarify, putting this on your resume doesnt mean you have to move without a job but it does show a level of commitment to getting to that area that recruiters will be happy to see.
Important note: If you take this approach and your job search takes a few months, remember to adjust the time period!
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Should You Remove Your Physical Address From Your Resume
Executive Coach helping individuals take ownership of their leadership, business and life.
Dear Coach Wolfgang, a friend of mine told me to take off my physical address from my resume. Should I?
A very timely question! The answer is… it depends. There is no physical address rule you must follow on your resume . Resume formats change with the times and whether or not to include physical address is one of those questions that would not have been asked even a few years ago. The mailing address used to be necessary for companies to send you an interview request or a No Thank You letter. Those practices no longer exist. Now this type of correspondence is completed via the phone or electronic communication.
There are some reasons to consider including your physical address on your resume and other reasons to leave it off. I also posed this question to fellow resume experts and career coaches and have summarized their opinions below.
Yes Include Physical Address On Your Resume
- Shows the employer that you reside in the area and will not require relocation.
- Full street address is required for Federal Resumes.
- Removing it looks like you might be hiding something.
- For large cities, include at least City, State or City, State, Zip to address any commuting issues. Neither you nor the hiring manager want to have several interviews only to find out that the commute is a deal breaker.
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Here Is A Quick Example Of A Contact Information Section:
Incorrect:
Why Itâs Wrong: When writing out your address, you want to keep your contact information looking as neat as possible. By combining too much information onto one line, it ends up looking jumbled and hard to read.â
Correct:
Some important notes from the correct example include:
- The address has the same alignment as the name and the rest of the information
- The address is on two separate lines
- The address is a smaller font than the name, allowing the name to stand out more effectively
Reasons You Might Leave Your Address Off A Resume
Because your address is sensitive information, managers often understand why you prefer to exclude it. Fortunately, you have complete control over your resume, allowing you to minimise the details you provide. You may include information that shows your residency without revealing too many private details like house number and street. Here are some reasons you can leave your address off a resume:
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Your Exact Home Address May Affect The Salary Offer
Some companies offer car, transportation, or fuel allowance. Your eligibility for these benefits may depend on your exact home address. For instance, fuel allowance may only be given to applicants with cars or those living outside a specified kilometer radius from the companys location.
The factors above arent the only ones you should consider though, as those only apply to legitimate jobs. Your resume, since it’ll be submitted online, might be exposed to much more than that.
Knowledge Of The Area
There are some jobs that require in-depth knowledge of the locality. For example, if youre applying for a delivery service, it would make sense for you to know about the area youll be delivering in. Recruiters may look for your address to assess your knowledge of the area for this reason. This also comes into play for sales, too. In door-to-door sales, its important to understand the dynamics of communities. A candidate that has grown up in an area and currently resides in the area will understand this better than someone from out-of-town.
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Why Should You Include Your General Region On Your Resume
While you no longer need to add your full address, a general location is still necessary. Here are a few reasons why you should add it.
- Its the workplace standard. Hiring managers expect it. If left off, it risks raising red flags.
- Its needed for ATS filters. ATS filters use the listed location to filter out non-local applicants.
- It affects the company. With remote work, some companies still desire applicants in certain areas. This centers around different employment laws in different states.
- Companies want local employees. Even if a job is remote, some companies may still want employees to be available for in-person meetings or events.
If Youre Not Relocating Do You Need Your Address On Your Resume
Technically, no. Its not like anyone ever sends written correspondence by mail anymore so there is no actual need for someone to have your full address sitting on your resume.
That being said, recruiters do want to know where you are and they often want to make sure youre local. That means youll be able to make it into the office for in-person interviews and that they wont have to pay to relocate you if you get an offer.
If youre not relocating, you should be indicating your location on your resume header in some way, even if its not a complete address. Two examples are below.
As you can see you can either put your full address or you can just put your city and state. As a local candidate, I do recommend one of these options.
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Helping Yourself Get Hired
When youre making decisions about what to include on your resumewhether its your address, some of the positions youve held in the past, or information that may be considered extraneousits important to keep in mind that your goal in writing your resume is to get hired.
You want to make it as easy as possible for an employer to decide to schedule an interview and, eventually, offer you the job.
Focus on highlighting your most relevant attributes for each job that you are pursuing, taking the time to match your qualifications to the position and tweaking your resume so it gets past the screening systems and noticed by recruiters.
Jobs That Require A Listed Home Address
Why would a recruiter want your home address? Some jobs require this because they prefer local applicants, or they want to do a background check. Below are different scenarios that’ll require a home address on resume.
- Federal and civil service jobs require a permanent address for background checks.
- Jobs for retail and restaurant industries may request an address because companies prefer applicants who can get to work within a few minutes due to shift changes and overtime.
- Delivery jobs prefer local applicants who are familiar with the area.
- Banking and other jobs that handle sensitive information may request an address so they can run a background check.
- Sales jobs that require knowledge of community residents and hotspots to better perform the job.
Jobs that only accept local residents usually specify which location they prefer, so youll see requirements like Must live in South Dakota or Applicants must live in Boston.
In some cases, a company may send you an interview invite or job offer via snail mail. Although this rarely happens now, some companies still do this, especially for jobs where sensitive information is involved.
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