Should mailing address go on resume? [duplicate]

Question

I know it's similar to this question, but should a mail address (i.e. where you live) be included on a resume? In other words is there any down side to this?

Answer 1

You don't want to give the recruiter or hiring manager any reasons to quick scan your resume and put it in the "No" pile. Including your address probably won't trigger a "no", not including it might. So you should include it. If you're concerned about personal privacy, renting a post office box or signing up with a redelivery service might be an option.

Answer 2

The one downside here is that if you are targeting a city you don't currently reside in. If you are willing to cover the cost of traveling for interviews and relocating, then leaving it off will be a benefit. Many companies don't have a budget for a relocation and will skip over a resume if it is not local.

I had this problem when trying to relocate to northern Virginia from the midwest and I got no traction with my resume until I took the address off. Then I started getting all kinds of calls. I was honest with recruiters that I was currently in the midwest, but was willing to pay my own relocation. I did get a job there and did have to pay hotel/airfare for what amounted to a 30 minute interview as well as my own relocation.

In the United States anyway these expenses are tax deductible, both the job hunting expenses and the relocation (if over 50 miles).

Answer 3

Recruiters and initial screening HR people don't really need to know your mailing address to review your qualifications, and aren't likely to need to send you any mail correspondence. Chances are you didn't mail them your resume either. If you submitted it online, or via email, you can likely just use an email address for point of contact.

Phone number is optional, depending on how you expect to communicate with them. If they want to set up a phone screen though, they will often just request the best number to reach you at via email.

You probably also want to include your region/city of residence though. For instance, just "New York, NY", or "Mountain View, CA", as many places want a local candidate, but they don't need to know which neighborhood you live in.

At some point later if the process proceeds, they may request your full mailing address as part of a formal job application form they might use. Or they'll just request it along with other info for the legal/internal parts of the hiring process.

Answer 4

There is a potential downside to it, particularly if you put your resume out on a job site or farm it out into recruiters. Much like listing your phone number or email address, it gives people (possibly people well removed from those you originally submitted this to) the ability to contact you at will, and ties your name to that address, often in databases that will last a long time.

That said, there are upsides to it. Although, as I commented to @jwenting above, I've never received anything via mail from a company until the offer the letter, and generally not even that these days, there probably are still companies out there that do such things. And, as jwenting points out, it does establish where you live, which may influence hiring decisions. Lastly, you may just run into anal-retentive HR people who insist that there must be an address and reject any resume that doesn't have one.

Overall, I'd say it's a wash. The benefits are minor. The downsides are minor.

Answer 5

How else are people going to get back to you? Consider the opposite, your resume contains no contact information whatsoever. HR reads it, thinks "wow, we'd like to talk to that bloke", then find they can't contact you. Missed opportunity.
Or more likely they'll just throw it away because they think you've something to hide about your condition, like maybe you're in prison or living in a homeless shelter while applying for a responsible position where you have to have a clean record.