Most recruiters say candidates should include address on resume

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“I am a hiring manager at a local company, and I’m noticing more and more resumes coming in without street addresses on them. I know the likelihood of us using something other than email to talk to a candidate is remote. However, I want to know where my job candidates are coming from. Some people have told me that I’m old-fashioned, that many experts recommend removing addresses on resumes these days. I don’t want to miss out on good, qualified candidates but I don’t feel that I have the full picture on a job candidate unless I see a physical address. What do you think?”

Until a few years ago, including a street address on a resume was an ironclad principle. Job candidates always put street addresses on resumes and hiring managers and recruiters always looked for them. But with electronic job applications, concerns about long commute times to and from work and privacy issues, the long-held belief about including street addresses is being questioned.

Should you include your street address on your resume?

“It depends,” writes Amy Wolfgang, an Austin, Texas, career management coach. “There is no physical address rule you must follow on your resume (except for federal jobs). Resume formats change with the times, and whether or not to include physical addresses is one of those questions that would not have been asked even a few years ago.”

Robin Reshwan, founder of Collegial Services, a consulting firm connecting college students and grads with companies, agrees that the home address is no longer required.

“These days, including your physical address is preferred but no longer a must, particularly if you’re running low on space (in your resume),” she writes. “If you still live on campus, but you’re looking to work in a neighboring city or back home, try to include the address closest to the work location.”

While acknowledging the debate, many recruiters insist that a street address is absolutely necessary on a resume.

Leaving the address off is just not worth the risk, says David Call, senior vice president at Rochester’s Cochran, Cochran & Yale recruiting firm.

“You never want to do anything that could eliminate you from consideration for a job,” he says. “If you do not have the address on the form, you might not get that call. They might not take the time to find out if you’re local or not.”

Of the 60 to 80 resumes that he sees per week, Call estimates that maybe 10 percent don’t have addresses. The candidates that don’t include them are not discounted, he says, but that may not be the case everywhere. In some company applicant tracking systems, street address might be a required field that is automatically populated when a resume comes in.

“If it was required, and you didn’t have it, you wouldn’t want to be discounted,” he says.

John Challenger, chief executive officer of the Chicago-based outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., was adamant about keeping physical addresses on resumes.

“We advise our clients to include street addresses on their resumes,” he says. “Even in situations where the job opening is for a remote worker or involves telecommuting, hiring managers may still want to see a home address.”

The firm conducted a survey of 150 recruiters last April and found that 90 percent feel that physical addresses must be included, he says. Many recruiters cited the fact that addresses help to assess the viability of a commute and see if the candidate is local.

“Some commented that they wouldn’t even review a resume without an address,” Challenger says.

But some argue that candidates are unfairly discriminated against on the basis of their location. “When recruiters know exactly where you live, they take your commute time into consideration,” writes Donna Svei, an executive resume writer and search consultant with AvidCareerist.com.

“You might not have thought about it, but in-house recruiters know that people with long commutes have more stress and often eventually quit ‘because of the commute.’ If you quit, they don’t look good and they have to replace you. That’s more work, with no more money, for them,” she writes.

Call acknowledged that commute times can be an issue occasionally. If the company is posting for a job in Clifton Springs, for example, and a candidate living in Hamlin applies for it, “that’s not a realistic commute,” he says.

In many cases, however, there are good reasons someone applies for a job that is a significant distance away, perhaps to return to family or to follow a partner or spouse, Call says, noting that is where the cover letter comes in. “We look for some form of communication that speaks to their intent.”

But in an era where telecommuting has gained more popularity, job applicants and career coaches insist that it is unreasonable to discount candidates on the basis of location, even though they know that recruiters are evaluating it to reduce the risk of a bad hire.

“More and more jobs allow telecommuting. Why does it matter where someone lives?” says Hannah Morgan, author and career strategist at CareerSherpa.net. “Recruiters need to focus on getting the best person for the position. Geography shouldn’t be a discriminating factor.”

If the commute time is a significant concern, many career counselors are telling candidates to just include the city and state on their resumes.

“Neither you nor the hiring manager want to have several interviews only to find out that the commute is a deal breaker,” Wolfgang writes.

Managers at Work is a monthly column exploring the issues and challenges facing managers. Contact Kathleen Driscoll with questions or comments by phone at (585)249-9295 or by e-mail at [email protected].

10/2/15 (c) 2015 Rochester Business Journal. To obtain permission to reprint this article, call 585-546-8303 or email [email protected].