What do I put on a résumé instead of my address?

What to put there instead

City and state, or city and country, on the contact line beside your email and phone. That satisfies every legitimate use: it answers the commute question, it matches the location filter, and it gives the reader nothing they could use to form an opinion about your postcode.

When the usual advice is wrong

Put the full address in when a form or a sector demands it. Government and federal applications, security-clearance roles, and some licensed professions ask for it as a required field, and leaving it blank there is a defect rather than a stylistic choice. If you are applying to a role that requires local residency and your address proves it, that is also a reason to include it.

A worked example

One line instead of two, every filter still satisfied, and nothing on the page a reader could weigh except how far away the city is.

Common questions

What do I put on a résumé instead of my address?

City and state, yes. Street address, almost never. City and state, or city and country, on the contact line beside your email and phone. That satisfies every legitimate use: it answers the commute question, it matches the location filter, and it gives the reader nothing they could use to form an opinion about your postcode.

Why does "your street address" weaken a résumé?

The full street address is a leftover from paper applications that were physically posted back to you. Nobody mails you now, so the line buys you nothing and costs three things: it is personal data sitting in systems you cannot audit, it takes a line of the densest part of the page, and it invites a distance judgement before anyone has read your work. Location itself still matters. Employers filter on it, and an application with no location at all reads as evasive or as an overseas applicant who will need sponsorship.

When is it right to keep it?

Put the full address in when a form or a sector demands it. Government and federal applications, security-clearance roles, and some licensed professions ask for it as a required field, and leaving it blank there is a defect rather than a stylistic choice. If you are applying to a role that requires local residency and your address proves it, that is also a reason to include it.

Where this is corroborated

These career services publish guidance on this section. Each was read and checked to actually address it. They establish that the question is taken seriously; the argument above is ours.

• Harvard UniversityCreate a strong résumé, Harvard FAS Office of Career Services
• Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyRésumés, MIT Career Advising & Professional Development
• Yale UniversityRésumé advice and samples, Yale Law School Career DevelopmentLaw school guidance; legal hiring has conventions of its own.