Is the content of your resume putting your identity at risk?

A co-worker provided my team with this advice: Don't provide your full street address and real email address on your resume. Hiding these two bits of information protects them from being one more nail in the identity theft coffin and reduces the risk of having your email address added to more spam lists.

This advice is especially recommended if you are posting your resume online. Be thoughtful about the personal information that you are including in that document before sharing it electronically. 

Regarding your residential address, future employers don't need to see that on your resume; hiring companies may be interested in knowing the city you live in, but street address (and zip code, I would argue), are not necessary. Your zip code is commonly used by payment systems to validate your credit card number. Save that information for when you are invited to fill out a job application.

As for your email address, when you are seeking employment you can create a temporary email address that you throw away later. Configure it to forward to your real email address. When your job hunt is completed, you can disable the temporary email address.

For more tips, such as why you don't need to include your graduation dates on your resume, see the Identity Theft Resource Center article: Your Resume and Identity Theft.