Resume Header: What to Include, Address, Photo and Headline Examples

Your header answers two questions: who you are and how to reach you. Career centers agree on the core set. Penn Career Services says to include your name, email address and phone number, and Texas A&M's career center lists name, city, state, phone, email and a LinkedIn URL, with room for a GitHub, ResearchGate or portfolio link when it relates to your career.

Put your name on the first line, larger than anything else on the page (roughly 16 to 22 points). Contact details go on one or two lines beneath it, separated by a dot or a vertical bar. If the job requires a license, add the letters after your name, for example "Dana Whitfield, RN, BSN" or "Marcus Lee, CPA", so the credential is visible before anyone reads further.

• Full name, using the name you go by (a preferred first name is fine)
• One phone number, with a voicemail greeting that states your name
• A professional personal email address
• City and state, or city and country outside the U.S.
• LinkedIn URL, shortened to linkedin.com/in/yourname
• Optional: portfolio, GitHub, personal website, or a license number when the posting asks for it
• Optional: a one-line headline with your target title

For most U.S. jobs, no. List your city and state and stop there. Penn Career Services says you do not need your full street address, and Pittsburg State University's career office says city and state are plenty, and that even including them is optional. Resumes get forwarded, uploaded to job boards and stored in databases you do not control, so a street address is personal data you give away for nothing.

Location still matters, which is why you should not drop it without a reason. Recruiters often search by location, many remote roles can only hire in certain states for payroll and tax reasons, and hourly employers care about commute distance. City and state answers all of that.

There are exceptions. Some traditional employers still expect a full mailing address: Harvard Law School's public interest advising office tells students to list a present address, and Georgetown's career center asks for a current mailing address. If an online application has an address field, fill it in there and keep the resume itself at city and state.

If you are moving, show the move instead of hiding your location. The University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education career center notes you can leave your address off entirely when applying out of state. A line such as "Relocating to Denver, CO (June 2027)" is usually better, because it answers the question before anyone asks.

Not for jobs in the U.S. Harvard College's career office lists "include a picture" among its resume don'ts, alongside age and gender, and Georgetown tells students not to include personal data such as a birth date, marital status or photograph. The reason is partly legal: the EEOC says employers should not ask for a photograph of an applicant, and that one may be obtained for identification after a job offer is made and accepted. A photo hands the employer exactly what it is told not to collect.

A photo also does nothing for software. Penn Career Services warns that not all applicant tracking systems can read decorative formatting such as tables, shapes, graphics and images. A photo adds nothing a system can use and usually forces a two-column header that is harder to parse.

Some countries do expect one. EURES, the European Commission's job mobility portal, says a friendly application photograph with a neutral background remains part of a job application in Germany, attached to the cover sheet or the top right of the CV. A "resume template with photo" is the right choice only for markets like that; for U.S. applications, use a template without one. Actors and models are the other exception: their headshot travels as a separate page, following casting conventions.

A headline is a short line under your name that states what you do. Pittsburg State's career office describes it as a succinct, often single-sentence description that introduces you, built from common job titles, key skills or a notable achievement. It is optional, but it earns its line when your current title does not match the job you want, or when your title is internal jargon such as "Associate II, Client Solutions".

Build it from the posting: the target title first, then two or three qualifiers the employer screens for, such as a specialty, a license, core tools or an industry. Keep it under about 10 words and write it as a label, not a sentence. Do not repeat the same words as the first line of your summary.

A resume headline is not your LinkedIn headline. The resume version is one tight line; the LinkedIn version can be longer and more conversational. In both, the job title should come first.

Use a personal email address you check every day, never your current work account: your employer can read it, and you lose access the day you leave. Firstname.lastname at a mainstream provider is the safe pattern. Skip numbers that look like a birth year, since they hint at your age.

List one phone number and record a voicemail greeting with your full name. Format it the way local readers expect, such as (555) 013-4471 in the U.S., and add the country code when you apply abroad. Harvard College's career office counts missing email and phone information among the most common resume mistakes, so check both on every version you send.

Customize your LinkedIn URL so it reads linkedin.com/in/yourname, drop the "https://www." on the page and keep the link clickable in the PDF. The University of Wisconsin-Madison education career center suggests adding LinkedIn as a hyperlink with your contact information. Make sure the profile matches the resume: same titles, same dates. Developers add GitHub; designers, writers and architects add a portfolio; researchers add ORCID or Google Scholar.

For U.S. jobs, leave out anything an employer should not weigh: date of birth or age, marital status, children, gender, religion, nationality and a photo. The EEOC says pre-employment questions that could reveal age should generally be avoided, so there is no reason to volunteer it.

Also skip the word "Resume" as a title, your full street address, a second phone number, your Social Security number and salary expectations. Type your name and contact lines in the main body of the page rather than in Word's header and footer area, so every system that reads the file sees them on the first line.

1. 1

   Type your name on line one

   Use the name you go by, in bold and larger than the body text. Add required credentials after it.

2. 2

   Add an optional headline

   Target job title plus two or three qualifiers from the posting, under 10 words.

3. 3

   Add contact details

   One phone number, a personal email, city and state, and a shortened LinkedIn URL on one or two lines.

4. 4

   Add a work-sample link if relevant

   GitHub for developers, a portfolio for designers and writers, ORCID for researchers.

5. 5

   Check what is missing and what is extra

   Confirm the phone and email work, and remove any photo, birth date, street address or "Resume" title.

Headers for fictional people. Copy the layout, not the details.

One line under the name. Each names the target role first, then what the employer screens for.

• Resume Format Guide: How to Choose One
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• Resume Summary Examples and How to Write a Professional Summary
• What is an ATS resume?
• German CV format (Lebenslauf) for Indian applicants
• What should a resume look like?

We opened every page below on that date. Pay, rules and requirements change, so check the source before you rely on a detail.

1. Penn Career Services, University of Pennsylvania: Write a Resume/CV (name, email and phone; city and state instead of street address; LinkedIn; ATS and graphics)
2. Texas A&M University Career Center: Resume (graduate students) (header items: name, city, state, phone, email, LinkedIn, GitHub or portfolio)
3. Pittsburg State University Career Development: The Most Important Parts of a Resume, Explained (headline definition; city and state are plenty; include LinkedIn)
4. University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education Career Center: Writing a Resume (address can be left off when applying out of state; LinkedIn as a hyperlink)
5. Harvard College Office of Career Services: Harvard College Guide to Creating a Strong Resume (do not include a picture, age or gender; missing email and phone is a common mistake)
6. Georgetown University Cawley Career Education Center: Resume Content & Formatting (mailing address; no birth date, marital status or photograph)
7. Harvard Law School, Bernard Koteen Office of Public Interest Advising: Resume Layout Guidance (legal employers: list a present address)
8. U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: Prohibited Employment Policies/Practices (employers should not ask for applicant photographs; avoid questions that reveal age)
9. EURES (European Commission): Living and working conditions: Germany (application photo remains part of a job application in Germany)