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Should You Include Your Address On Your Resume

Theres One Potential Drawback With This Option

What Should You Include on a Resume?

Just;like Option #1, theres a chance that you could lose out on relocation assistance if you say youre moving to their city no matter what.

Its not very likely but its possible.

With most companies, theyll still offer to help if its a part of their benefits package though. Very;few companies will try to weasel out of paying relocation assistance. The ones that do, you probably dont want to work for.

So this method has a lot of potential and very little risk. I recommend giving it a try.

Distance Or Location Bias

Unfortunately, bias can happen as early as the initial screening process and unlike race, sex and disability discrimination, it’s not illegal to discriminate candidates based on socioeconomic status. Certain hiring managers may also consider commute as a deciding factor for moving forward, prioritizing closer candidates over candidates who would presumably have a more difficult time getting to work.

Option #2: Tell The Truth And Put Your Out

This option is simple, and chances are youve already tried it. Accept that some employers wont want to interview you, but continue to list your full out-of-state address on your resume.

Theres one big drawback, which you probably already know

Some companies only consider local candidates. This will limit the number of opportunities youre able to interview for. Not every company will be open to interviewing you, even on the phone.

Still, I would;try this option for a couple of weeks to start my job;search. Its a good place to start because its the safest, assuming you can get some companies willing to talk to you. The only risk is spending time applying for jobs;and finding out youre not getting enough responses or interviews.

If that happens, youll need to consider other options. Thats where option #3;comes in

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Case Study #2: Catch Their Attention

Over the past four years, Emily Sernaker applied for multiple positions at the International Rescue Committee . She never gave up. With each application, she sent a personalized cover letter. I wanted my cover letter to highlight my qualifications, creative thinking, and genuine respect for the organization, she says.

Sarah Vania, the organizations regional HR director, says that Emilys letters caught her attention, especially because they included several video links that showed the results of Emilys advocacy and fundraising work at other organizations. Emily explains, I had prior experience advocating for former child soldiers, human trafficking survivors, vulnerable women, and displaced persons. Its one thing to make statements in a cover letter, like I can make a pitch, I am a creative person, I am thoughtful, but showing these qualities seemed like a better way of convincing the recruiter that the statements were true.

This is what Emily wrote to Sarah about the video:

Here is a short video about my story with activism. The nonprofit organization Invisible Children made it for a youth conference I spoke at this year. It is about four minutes.

As youll see from the video, Ive had a lot of success as a student fundraiser, raising over $200,000 for Invisible Children. Ive since gone on to work as a consultant for Wellspring International and have recently concluded my studies as a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar.

Being Mindful Of Time Zones On A Resume

Should you include your address in your resume ...

If you are applying for a job in a different timezone than your own, this can be important information to relay.

It is of the utmost importance for you to respond quickly when an employer contacts you.

If you have not relayed that you live in a different time zone, an employer may end up contacting you when you are unavailable!

Making yourself available throughout the hiring process is key.

To do so, you need to be clear about what time zone you are in.

You can also bring this up once you have reached the interview stage as well.

It is crucial to be ready and willing to talk with employers once they have decided to put you through to the next phase of hiring.

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If You Have Found A Job Posting On A Third

A safer option would be to find the same posting on a secure site or the companys direct website. If you suspect a fraudulent or otherwise suspicious job posting on Indeed, please contact Indeed immediately. You can visit our Guidelines for Safe Job Search for additional information.

Another way to mitigate applying to fraudulent posts is to look at company reviews on Indeed Company Pages or do a web search on the company along with search terms like scam to see if job seekers have experienced issues in their applications.

Related: The Complete Guide to Researching a Company

If you dont live in the same city as the job youre applying for, listing your current address can get your resume quickly rejected. Especially if the employer is looking for a local candidate. Instead, consider adding a line notating your intent to relocate, like this:

Relocating to Tampa, FL in Fall 2018

It is important to be honest with employers about your current physical location if they indicate wanting a local candidate, but adding your willingness and desire to relocate to the employers area can give your application a better chance.

Why Employers May Want To See An Address On Your Resume

Employers may seekout a physical address on your resume for a few reasons. Having this piece of information can be helpful to them during the hiring process in the following ways:

  • They expect to see it. Because a physical address has historically been part of a standard resume, some employers will expect to see one on your application. As the landscape of communication changes, employers are becoming more flexible with expectations around this sensitive information.
  • Theyre creating an applicant profile for you. Some employers use profile systems to move you through the hiring process. If they dont offer you the job youve applied for, they may use your profile to consider you for future opportunities. Often, a physical address is one piece of information they might include.
  • To understand how your location may change the job offer. Depending on your location, the employer might want to change certain stipulations in your offer. For example, they may want to include language about working remote or details about commuting if you live far away.

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Employers Know How Long Your Commute Will Be

When employers do some further digging into the location of your address, they could also be doing a quick calculation of how long your daily commute would be. This can work against you if your daily commute is long. Employers know that people who travel a significant distance to work are often tired and stressed, which are two factors that can cause employees to quit early. Obviously, this potential problem can throw up a red flag for employers.

Missing Information Can Make Employers Cautious

Should I Put My Home Address on My Resume

Addresses are one of the traditional standard resume featuresyou won’t find a resume template that doesn’t include space for an address. So omitting yours could send off alarm bells to some conservative employers. For these hirers, your resume will seem incomplete, and they may wonder if you’re trying to hide something or just lacking attention to detail.

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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:

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.

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Background Checks Are Dependent On It

A whopping 96% of employers use background checks to screen candidates, according to Global HR Research and these background checks are dependent on jurisdictions pulled from your current records. So, leaving it off entirely can hinder the screening process, which could make employers less likely to move forward with your application.

It Opens You Up For Discrimination

32 Luxury Should You Put Your Address On Your Resume in ...

Though itâs illegal, discrimination still occurs at every stage of the job search process. Similar to why you shouldÂ;never include your photoÂ;on a resume, your address can potentially be used to draw conclusions about you and your lifestyle. These conjectures are mitigated by using simply your city, state, and zip code.

Again, this is illegal. However, some neighborhoods do come with assumptions about the people who live there. Avoid the risk by omitting your exact street address.

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How Did You Enhance Performance In Your Team

Did you implement a change that helped the team increase their productivity or improve deadline times? Great! Include information about this on your resume and use percentages and figures where you can. You dont have to include this for every position on your resume, just try and add it in where you can especially on your most recent positions.

Example:

  • Implemented new CRM system allowing the team to increase productivity by 50%

Case Study: Adams It Resume

Moving into sales in IT, Adam included a general location when applying to Software AG. This showed the recruiter he was within vicinity of their offices and that his commute would be minimal; much like in Ramseys case.

With the Enhancv resume builder, you can craft a resume that blows all other applicants out of the water. From design options to bullet and section suggestions and content writing tips, were here to help you land your dream job!

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Why Location Still Matters

Even if the company in question doesnt use applicant tracking software, its usually still in the candidates best interest to make their location known on a resume. Despite the fact that many employers are becoming more open to remote work situations these days, Thompson stresses that at the end of the day, location and proximity are critical to landing a job.

Its all about location, location, location, she stresses. Where you are is key to being able to do work for people more than 70 percent of the time. There are remote work opportunities as well, but the majority of jobs still require you to be located in or near the actual work location.;

Thompson also reasons that different locations might need different types of skillsets. Houston, for example, is a city known for attracting and grooming oil and gas professionals, whereas a place like Minneapolis might not be in the eyes of the recruiter. Including a location on your resume might work in your favor in this instance, especially if the city is a mecca for the sort of job youre looking to land.

The same sentiment holds true for cultural fits, too. While it might be an unfair judgment to make, someone from a rural area code might have a tough time fitting into the pace of an urban mecca .

When To Exclude Your Address Altogether

Do Not Put Your Home Address On Your Resume! says Rick Gillis

There are some instances when you shouldnât include any address at all. Some remote positions will not require an address from you during the application process, so there is often no need to include it. Look to the job description for requirements, such as preferred time zones or locations. Use that information to judge how specific you should be on your resume. For example:

  • Eastern time zone

  • Located in New York

  • US-based

You should also exclude your address when youâre not sure who will be looking at your resume; for example, when youÂ;post a resume onlineÂ;or submit it to any forum where people may pass it around. Even your city and zip code can be dangerous in the wrong hands, and you never know who will come across it online! Remove that information from your contact section, especially if youâre just looking for general feedback.

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Your Employer Might Need It For Their Records

When you apply for a job, a company often starts compiling a record with your files in it. An important piece of information for these files would be your contact information, which includes your mailing address.

If you choose to not include your address on your resume, you could unwittingly cause your employer to reject your application because its incomplete.

Elaborate Formats And Designs

When it comes to selecting a design for your resume, less is more. Not only do elaborate designs and unconventional formats confuse most applicant tracking systems, but they also annoy recruiters who are accustomed to quickly scanning a resume for specific information they expect to find in particular spots within the document. Don’t make recruiters hunt for the information they care about. Play it safe and stick to a clean resume design with a clear hierarchy. Not sure what works? Check out TopResume’s library of free resume samples.

Beautiful Resume Templates To Land Your Dream Job

Adding your address to a resume is a traditional expectation from hiring managers.

But what is the expectation for more modern resumes?

The answer ultimately depends on several factors, including:

  • The location of the job
  • Whether the job description specifically asks for an address
  • How relevant the address is to the job

A hiring manager is unlikely to communicate via physical mail, so they are also unlikely to use your address as a method for contacting you.

Instead, employers will likely use addresses as a point of reference for:

  • Where an applicant lives
  • The applicantâs proximity to the job
  • Whether or not the applicant will need to relocate

Things You Should Remove From Your Resume

32 Luxury Should You Put Your Address On Your Resume in ...

Putting your address on your resume may actually be distracting to a recruiter. To ensure that your resume gets the attention it deserves, you should only include what recruiters and hiring managers are interested in and leave extraneous information, like your address, out.

An eye-tracking study by Ladders found that the average recruiter spends only six seconds reviewing a resume before deciding if its worth a closer inspection. When you only have six seconds to make the right impression, you have to make every word on your resume count.

Follow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and more!

Below Ive compiled a list of 16 items you can remove from your resume right away that will help your job application avoid the hiring managers trash pile.

Irrelevant Social Media Accounts

Not only is this information a waste of resume space, but including personal social media accounts that arent aligned with your professional brand can derail your job search. If youre applying for a job at TikTok;or Facebook, it might be acceptable to leave your social media accounts on your professional resume, otherwise remove these links from your resume and take steps to safeguard your brand.

Flesh out at least one professional profile on sites like LinkedIn, GitHub, or About.Me, depending upon your line of work, and include the link at the top of your resume. If you work in a creative field, consider creating a personal site that has a mobile-responsive design so you can share your portfolio from any device.

How To Format Your Resume Contact Information

Place your contact information at the very top of your resume so recruiters can’t miss it. If you’re using Word, be sure to not place these important details in the header section of the document, as not all applicant tracking systems are able to properly read and parse information stored in this section of a Word document.

Place your name at the top of this section, using a larger font size than the other pieces of contact information so that it stands out. Depending on how much space you have to work with, you can place the rest of your contact details in one or two lines, located just below your name. Below are a few examples of how you can format the contact information on your resume.

It Looks Less Suspicious If You Include It

Since its common practice to write your address on your resume, hiring managers expect to see it.

Therefore, if you dont include your address, it immediately triggers red flags in hiring managers heads, and makes them question why you left it off. This could cause hiring managers to disregard your resume, ending the bid for your target job before it really began.

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