Resume Header & Contact Info: What to Include and What to Skip

Recruiters spend 6-7 seconds on your resume (TheLadders eye-tracking study). Their eyes hit the top first: your name, title, and contact information. If any of that is missing, wrong, or buried in a design element the ATS can't read, the rest of the resume doesn't matter.

One person on r/resumes discovered they'd been sending out resumes with the wrong phone number for years. That's an extreme case, but small header mistakes are common: missing LinkedIn URLs, unprofessional email addresses, putting contact info in a header or footer that ATS systems skip entirely.

This part of the resume should take 5 minutes. And then you never think about it again.

What to Put in Your Resume Header

Keep it simple. One line or two lines max. No graphics, no icons, no colored bars. Just information.

That's it. Name on top, contact info below. Some people put it all on one line, some on two. Both work. What matters is that every piece of information is there and correct.

Resume Contact Information: What to Include

Full Name

Your legal name or the name you go by professionally. If you go by a nickname, use it: "Mike Johnson" not "Michael R. Johnson III" unless you're in law or academia where formality matters. Make it the largest text on the page. Not massive. Just clearly the name.

Phone Number

One phone number. The one you actually answer. Include the area code. Don't put your work phone. If you're job hunting while employed, an employer calling your work line is a problem.

Double-check it. Triple-check it. Typos in phone numbers are more common than people think, and unlike email, there's no bounce-back to tell you something is wrong. You just never get the call.

Email Address

A professional email. firstname.lastname@gmail.com works. partyanimal99@hotmail.com does not. If your name is common and the clean version is taken, add a middle initial or a number that doesn't look random: jane.m.smith@gmail.com is fine.

Don't use your current work email. The recruiter will wonder if you use company resources for personal business. They'll be right.

LinkedIn URL

71% of recruiters look at LinkedIn profiles (ResumeGo study). Include a cleaned-up URL: linkedin.com/in/yourname (not the default URL with random numbers). Customize it in LinkedIn settings. Takes 30 seconds.

If your LinkedIn profile is empty or outdated, either update it before applying or leave the URL off entirely. An empty profile is worse than no link at all.

City and State (Not Full Address)

"Austin, TX" is enough. Nobody needs your street address. Employers want to know your general location for two reasons: is the candidate local or will they need relocation, and which office would they work from.

If you're open to relocation or applying remotely, you can write "Austin, TX (open to relocation)" or "Remote" if the job is listed as remote. Don't leave location off completely. Some recruiters and ATS systems filter by geography, and a missing location can get you filtered out.

Portfolio or Website (If Relevant)

Designers, developers, writers, and other portfolio-based roles: include your portfolio URL. Everyone else: skip it unless you have a genuinely impressive personal site. An empty WordPress blog from 2019 hurts more than it helps.

What to Leave Off Your Resume Header

Everything below either wastes space, causes bias, or creates ATS problems.

We wrote a separate guide on why references don't belong on your resume and what to do instead.

Resume Header Examples

Standard (Most Jobs)

Tech / Developer (With Portfolio)

Remote Worker

Career Changer

Nothing changes for career changers. Your header is who you are and how to reach you. The career pivot shows up in the summary and experience, not the contact info.

FAQ

Get the header right, then build the rest. Mirrai's Resume Builder formats your contact info, summary, and experience into an ATS-compatible layout automatically.

Next section after the header is your summary. Examples: resume summary examples.