Long story short, you should include your city and state when writing your resume, even if you’re a remote candidate. Read on to find out why.
As we’ve learned from other resume traditions like objective statements, old resume writing habits die hard. We live in the digital age, so no one expects a snail mail response to their application. However, many job applications continue to ask for your address, and if you’re working from a resume template, there’s a good chance it, too, will include space for your home address.
But are addresses on resumes still necessary? And are there benefits to including your address on your resume?
In this article, we’ll cover the potential benefits of including an address on your resume, reasons to leave it off, and the best way to share your location while still keeping your street address private. Plus we’ll talk about what role addresses play on remote worker resumes.
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 you’re located. Why? Because they often search for local candidates first. If you’ve made your resume searchable on job sites but have not included your location, it’s likely you haven’t been contacted by recruiters.
The second reason to include your address is so that employers will know whether or not you’ll 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. Here’s what that looks like:
Joe Jobscan | Relocating to Seattle, WA | 555-555-5555 | joe@jobscan.co | linkedin.com/in/j-jobscan
Privacy concerns and the City, State solution
Now that snail mail has no part in the application process, your street address is not necessary. Employers will need your address in the onboarding stage for tax purposes, but not before then. That’s good news for applicants with privacy or discrimination concerns.
However, we do recommend including your city and state for the reasons described above.
Here’s what that looks like:
Joe Jobscan | Seattle, WA |555-555-5555 | joe@jobscan.co | linkedin.com/in/joe-jobscan
Should remote applicants include their locations on their resumes?
One of the big benefits of working remotely is that you can do it from anywhere. Perhaps you’re traveling the world or living in a rural area far from an office center. As long as you have the right tech, you’re good to go. So is there really a need to include your location on your resume?
Maybe. Many employers want to know which timezone you’re in to ensure your working hours are compatible with theirs. Including your city and state could qualify you as timezone-compatible and help you in the recruiting process.
It is worth noting that some remote workers don’t like to disclose their locations because they’re concerned employers, as in the case of Facebook, will want to adjust pay to the cost of living in their areas.
In this case, including your location on your resume is a personal decision, but do consider that you’ll be asked where you’re located during the interview process, anyway. Overall, it seems including your city and state on your resume can do more good than harm.
