Your contact information is arguably the most important information on your resume. People always laugh when they read that. They say that their experience, accomplishments and/or education easily carries more weight than their contact information. But think about that statement: your contact information is arguably the most important information and section of your resume.
The fact is, the contact information on your resume is perhaps the least scrutinized area of your resume, that is, scrutinized by you. You may have experience unlike that of any other candidate as well as an education others truly envy. You could be a Masters or even a doctoral candidate. While those are important to your resume, your career and ultimately obtaining the employment that you seek, your contact information is still arguably more important.
You will examine every square inch of your resume for accuracy, grammar, syntax errors, and misrepresentation errors, but rarely is your contact information given this kind of importance or priority. Part of the reason is that you do not see the importance of your contact information when compared to the other sections of your resume and part of the reason is because you take that information for granted.
There are times when you will tailor your resume for a specific position and it is important to beef up certain sections of your resume to make you the best match possible for the position. This is an acceptable practice and one that is even expected. You will pour over every adjective, every accomplishment and every dotted I, every crossed T and every comma or period. But when it comes to your contact information, you will cut and paste instead of reading every character because you are so familiar with it. Never mind the fact that no one else is, least of all the people whom you send it to when you apply.
The reason your contact information is arguably the most important information is because if a hiring manager or recruiter proceeds to try and contact you and you have an erroneous digit in your phone number or email address, where one mistyped character will cause a major disconnect, you will be lost forever to them. A good recruiter most likely will go on to the next candidate and you will have lost your chance forever. If you typed an erroneous digit in your number, the odds are extremely stacked against your resume ever seeing the light of day.
Think back to how you scrutinized, even agonized over every word, every character of your resume, except for the contact information which you know all too well. You could be the perfect candidate for the position that you so desperately want. The hiring manager may really want you, but if they can’t reach you, they will be forced to move on. That is why your contact information is arguably the most important information on your resume.
