Your resume contact information is the one section that has nothing to do with your skills, your experience, or your accomplishments — and it's the one section that can disqualify you before anyone reads a word of the rest.
A recruiter finds your resume compelling enough to reach out. They look at your header. The email address is a Hotmail account from 2009 with your birth year in it. The phone number listed is a landline that's been disconnected. There's no LinkedIn URL.
Interview that never happens.
This sounds extreme, but it's remarkably common. The contact section gets treated as an afterthought — something you fill in once and forget. In reality, it's the last line of your resume's job: converting a positive impression into an actual conversation.
Here's exactly what belongs in your header, what to cut, and why each decision matters more than most resume guides will tell you.
The Modern Resume Header: What Actually Belongs There
Your Name
Lead with your full professional name — the name you use in professional settings. That doesn't have to be your legal name.
If you go by "Jamie" but your legal name is "James," use Jamie. If you have a name that's frequently mispronounced and you've started going by an anglicized version for professional contexts, use that version. The goal is that when a recruiter says your name out loud to schedule your interview, they say the name you actually respond to.
One common question: should you include credentials after your name? For certain industries, yes. "Sarah Chen, PMP" or "Marcus Webb, CPA" signals your certification at a glance and is worth the space. For most other credentials, save them for the certifications section.
Phone Number
Include one phone number. One.
That number should be your mobile — the device you actually answer, check voicemails on, and have with you during business hours. Listing a home number, a work number, and a cell creates ambiguity and slows down recruiter accessibility. A recruiter who has to decide which number to call may just... not.
Make sure your voicemail greeting is professional. "Hey, it's Mike, leave a message" is acceptable. An eight-second musical intro or a greeting that's clearly meant for friends is not.
Professional Email Address
Your email address communicates more than you think. It's part of your digital footprint — one of the first data points a recruiter processes before even reading your first bullet point.
The format that works: firstname.lastname@gmail.com (or a reputable provider like Outlook). If that's taken, try a middle initial or a professional variation.
What doesn't work:
- SoccerDad1972@yahoo.com — shares personal details you didn't choose to share
- HotStuff_Becca@hotmail.com — no explanation needed
- becca_r@aol.com — the domain itself dates you in a way that may not be fair, but is real
- Rebecca.Rodriguez@currentemployer.com — signals you're job searching on company time and resources
If you're currently using an outdated or informal email for job applications, create a new one this week. It takes four minutes and it matters.
City and State (Not Your Full Address)
This is one of the most outdated practices still lingering on resumes in 2026: the full street address.
Drop it.
Listing your full home address — "4421 Elm Street, Columbus, OH 43201" — provides information recruiters don't need and that creates privacy-conscious formatting concerns you may not have considered. Your street address appearing on a document that gets forwarded to multiple people, stored in ATS databases, and occasionally printed and left on desks is a genuine privacy risk.
What recruiters actually need is simple: are you local, or would you need to relocate?
City, State answers that question. "Columbus, OH" tells a Columbus-based recruiter you're nearby. If you're open to relocation, you can add "Open to relocation" in your summary or cover letter. Done.
One exception: if you're applying for fully remote roles and you're deliberately not signaling your location because you know the company is open anywhere, some candidates omit location entirely. This is increasingly accepted, especially in tech.
LinkedIn URL
A LinkedIn URL on your resume is no longer optional — it's expected.
Here's the critical piece most people overlook: customize your LinkedIn URL before you put it on your resume. The default URL LinkedIn assigns looks like this: linkedin.com/in/sarah-chen-847392b4. The cleaned-up version looks like this: linkedin.com/in/sarahchen.
One takes three seconds to fix in your LinkedIn settings and immediately improves your professional presentation. The other looks like you haven't thought this through.
More importantly: make sure your LinkedIn profile is worth linking to. If your profile is half-filled out, has a photo from a decade ago, and your most recent position is listed as ending two years before what's on your resume, the link is working against you. Before your job search goes live, spend an hour making LinkedIn match your resume.
Portfolio, Personal Website, or GitHub
If your industry expects it, include it. If it doesn't, skip it.
Include a portfolio link if you're in:
- Design, UX, or creative fields (portfolio is mandatory)
- Software engineering (GitHub profile showing active, clean work)
- Writing, journalism, or content (clips or personal site)
- Marketing (campaign work, case studies)
- Architecture, photography, film (obviously)
Skip it if:
- Your "portfolio" is empty or hasn't been updated in two years
- You're in finance, operations, HR, or a field where portfolios aren't standard
- The site has personal content mixed in with professional work
A dead link or an embarrassing site is worse than no link at all. Only include what you're proud to have reviewed.
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A Photo
In the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, do not include a photo on your resume. Full stop.
This isn't just a stylistic preference — it's a legal and ethical issue. Photos introduce information about race, age, gender, and physical appearance that employers in these countries are explicitly not supposed to factor into hiring decisions. Many hiring managers are trained to immediately discard resumes that include photos precisely to protect their company from discrimination claims.
There are exceptions: if you're applying for roles where appearance is explicitly part of the job (acting, modeling, certain on-camera positions), a headshot is expected. But for the vast majority of professional roles in North America and the UK, leave it out.
Note: norms differ in parts of Europe, Asia, and Latin America. If you're applying internationally, research the conventions in the specific country.
Your Date of Birth
You are not required to share your age with a potential employer, and doing so creates unnecessary risk of age-based bias before you've had any chance to make an impression. Date of birth on a resume is outdated in virtually every professional context in North America and the UK.
Your Full Home Address
We covered this above, but it bears repeating: "123 Main Street, Apt 4B" is not doing any work for you. City and state is enough.
Multiple Phone Numbers
Pick the one you actually answer. List only that one.
Unprofessional or Outdated Email Domains
If your email address contains any of the following, fix it before your next application:
- Your birth year
- Nicknames or usernames from a different era of your life
- AOL, Hotmail, or other domains that signal the address is very old
- Your current employer's domain
Social Media That Isn't Professionally Oriented
Your Twitter/X handle, Instagram, Facebook profile, or TikTok account should not appear on your resume unless your social presence is directly relevant to the role (social media manager applying with a strong follower count, journalist with a substantial public following, etc.).
LinkedIn is the professional standard. A clean portfolio site is fair game. Everything else should be evaluated carefully — and when in doubt, left off.
A Headshot in the Header Graphic
This is different from the photo bullet above — this is about resume templates that include a shaded sidebar or design element with a circular photo placeholder. Some templates practically beg you to drop your photo in. For the reasons above, don't.
Header Optimization: Formatting Details That Actually Matter
Make Your Name Scannable
Your name should be the largest text on the page — typically 16-20pt font. This isn't vanity; it's function. ATS systems parse names more reliably when they're visually distinct from the rest of the content, and recruiters flipping through a stack of resumes need to anchor to your name quickly.
Format Contact Info on One or Two Lines
Don't stack your contact details vertically down the left margin. A compact horizontal format keeps your header clean and preserves vertical space for your actual experience:
Jamie Reyes | 614-555-0182 | jamie.reyes@gmail.com | Columbus, OH | linkedin.com/in/jamiereyes
Simple, clean, everything a recruiter needs at a glance.
Pipe Separators or Dots Work Better Than Slashes
Minor point, but pipes (|) and dots (·) scan more cleanly than slashes (/) in dense horizontal contact lines.
Check Every Link Before Submitting
Click your LinkedIn URL. Load your portfolio. Make sure they resolve. A broken link in your header tells a recruiter your attention to detail may be a concern.
The ATS Angle: Why Header Format Matters Beyond Aesthetics
ATS (applicant tracking systems) parse your resume before a human ever sees it. Headers that are built inside text boxes, tables, or design-heavy layouts can cause the system to misread or skip your contact information entirely.
This means a recruiter might find your resume, want to reach out, and discover the ATS pulled in a blank email field — because your contact info was formatted in a way the software couldn't read.
Plain text or simple formatting wins here. If you want to run your header through an ATS check before applying, try our free optimization tool to see how your resume parses in real systems.
A Quick Checklist: Your Resume Header in 2026
Before you submit another application, confirm you have all of these right:
Include:
- Full professional name (appropriately sized)
- One mobile phone number with a professional voicemail
- Professional email (firstname.lastname@gmail.com or similar)
- City and State only (no street address)
- Customized LinkedIn URL (linkedin.com/in/yourname)
- Portfolio or GitHub link (if relevant to your field)
Remove:
- Full street address
- Date of birth
- Headshot or photo
- Multiple phone numbers
- Unprofessional or outdated email
- Non-professional social media handles
- Current employer email address
Small Section, Real Stakes
The contact section of your resume is exactly seven lines of information, give or take. It takes twenty minutes to get right.
And yet it's the part of your resume that hiring managers interact with every time they find you worth pursuing. It's what they read when they're deciding whether to call or email. It's what the ATS captures and stores in the candidate database. It's what another recruiter at the same company may see six months from now when a new role opens up.
Header optimization isn't glamorous resume work. It's not as satisfying as nailing a bullet point that quantifies a major accomplishment. But a bad header can undo a great resume in ways that never get explained to you — you just don't hear back.
Get it clean, keep it current, and check it every time you refresh your resume for a new search.
If you want a complete review of your resume's structure, formatting, and content — header included — our team at RewriteMyResume works with professionals across every industry and career level. See what a full rewrite looks like and what's included.
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