Your Resume Contact Information

Your personal contact information should be at the top of your resume. Whether it's centered or placed on one of the margins will depend upon your resume format.

Your Resume Contact Information

• Your name
  Use your legal name here. If you go by a nick name in 'real life' you can clue the potential employer in on that fact during the interview.
  
  
• Your address
  Your address can work for you or against you. Potential employers know that the distance involved in a commute is a factor in retaining good employees. (You might know people who had jobs they loved but who eventually looked for and found work closer to home.)

  Local candidates will be perceived as being more immediately available.

  This can be problematic if you're looking to relocate to a new city. You can address this issue with your cover letter, but cover letters (or emails) don't necessarily get read before resumes.

  To help you get past the initial resume screen having a temporary local address may also be advisable. If you know someone who lives in your target city perhaps they would be open to letting you use their address. The other alternative would be to rent a P.O. Box or similar mail box in your target city.

  This resume tip is not to say you want to lie to people. You definitely want to make the potential employer aware of your plans to relocate but you want to do this after she’s interested in your candidacy.

• At least one phone number
  Use a number where you can be easily reached. That means if you are not able to answer the phone there's a way for the caller to leave you a message that you will actually get. Voice mail or an answering machine is better than having a person take a message. There’s less room for error.

  In addition, you should make sure any outgoing message on voice mail is short and business like. There are few things more irritating for a busy recruiter than sitting through an overly long or joke message before she can leave you a message.

  Whether or not to include your current work number is a personal decision. If you include your work number you run the risk of potential employers reading into this that you are willing to conduct personal business on company time.

  On the other hand being immediately accessible can be an advantage. So if you’re in a situation where taking personal calls is not an issue you may want to include it.

  A better option would be to include your mobile phone number. But here again do not answer it during business hours. Let the caller leave a message. When you check the message and call back on your work break you'll be better prepared for the call. And you will have demonstrated your sense of responsibility.

• Your email address
  Your email address should be business appropriate. If your email address is not business like (e.g. SexyKitten@DomainName.com) open a new account with a more appropriate address.

  Hotmail and Yahoo are just two of the numerous places at which you can open free email accounts. Then be sure to check it regularly!

This guidance for resume contact information comes from my 17+ years of experience in recruiting and hiring. For more help and tips on how to write a resume go here.