1y ago

Why does a prospective employer need my address?

This happens a lot: I apply for a job and they ask for my complete address. Why? I would understand if they just want to know what city/town I'm in: That has bearing on how easily I can get to the office.

But why do they need to know my street address?

The only thing I can think: Indeed/LinkedIn/take-your-pick is building a profile of me based on this info, using my street as a proxy for my income, credit score, or, ultimately, for my social class.

From now on, when they ask me, I'm just going to put a rich person's address. For this one I used a Brooklyn townhouse where Maggie Gyllenhaal and one of the Saarsgaards lives.

85 comments

- What did MIT tech review mean by this
  
  https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/04/02/144169/dna-tests-for-iq-are-coming-but-it-might-not-be-smart-to-take-one/
  basically warning of a possible Gattaca like scenario where your prospects are determined by the purity of your DNA
- I know. There is a reason after my eldest became 1 we moved to an area we can't afford.
The charitable explanation is HR knows they'd need it eventually if you do join up, so might as well as for everything now since they definitely need to know your state of residence. Also some companies send swag and other stuff to prospective hires.
Your explanation is more likely.
- need to read the terms of service of the application software. I am sure there was some sort of accept box to check.
- I mean, we all know even if that's true that HR's gonna ask you to fill out your address again multiple times when onboarding as a new hire.
Racism. They never have to ask if you're black but if you live in a predominantly black neighborhood they can decline to hire you without running afoul of anti-discrimination laws.
You'd be surprised how many things in America are just racism wearing a wig.
- also known as redlining – nominally illegal but almost impossible to enforce (assuming anyone in authority even tries to enforce) …
- That can be determined by Zip Code alone. Exact address isn't needed to determine which neighborhood an applicant is from in most major cities
  
  True, but asking for your ZIP code feels more nebulous and undefined as to WHY. Asking for your full address is "oh, I guess so they can mail me things if they need to" for most applicants, so it gets looked past a lot easier. One of the few times where specificity wins out.
To mail you shit...? Out of all the things an employer can ask, your address is one of the least shady. 🤨
- Address is verified during the I-9 process during onboarding.
- If I was employed by the employer, 100% they'll get the address. This is for an APPLICATION. That you don't even know for sure is the actual company. I hope people aren't just giving their address out to any faceless "person" on the Internet that asks.
- Some ask for your social security number, and j always nope right out.
  I'll give it to you after I sign the contact.
  
  I would assume they want the SS# to verify employment history, however IME nobody has ever actually checked my past history or at least didn't call me out on my lies.
- It's so they can weed out potential applicants that are experiencing homelessness.
  Same reason that so many jobs use algorithms to screen out applicants. They don't want to hire anyone outside of their current networks. Nepotism is totally legal, just look at Jared Kushner
I always put their address. I LIVE AT WORK HOMIE.
I think they're just trying to verify that you're from a country they want to hire from and that you have a physical address. I just give them City Hall's address because it's in my same zip code and I doubt anyone's going to verify that I physically live there.
- and that you have a physical address.
  Homeless people need not apply!
  Businesses are often required to do some things by mail, but also judge people's reliability based on where they live. Another atupid hurdle for people having housing issues trying to get a job so they can afford housing.
  
  100% agree, they don't want the filthy poors to be anything but filthy and poor.
  For verification purposes, a zipcode I understand but FULL ADDRESS? I think not.
  Edit: To clarify, I don't agree that homeless people should be excluded.
  
  Homeless people need not apply!
  PO boxes work
- But I do agree that it's a ridiculous thing to require. I also think it's just bots collecting data. Plenty of fake jobs on LinkedIn from my experience.
  
  I wouldn’t say that it’s ridiculous. I am involved in hiring and administration at our company. We hire where the talent is, but knowing how much work is associated with a candidate can influence how I plan my work load. If you hire in the US, you have to set up tax accounts with the state, and sometimes municipality, that remote employees are located in… if you hire internationally… same thing only you may have federal, state/provincial, municipality accounts that need to be set up… which you have to research since every place has a different interface and policies.
  Talent is talent, and we hire where we find good people, but hiring a candidate that is geographically located in a place we already have tax accounts set up is significantly easier and faster than having to set up accounts in new countries, states, or municipalities. Hiring remote can add days or weeks to the administrative lift associated with hiring and needs to be factored in or deadlines get missed and assignments drag.
  To be clear, I work at a small company and wear several hats… admin/HR being a small part of my duties.
It could be innocuous, but the paranoid brain I have leads me to believe it's so they can attampt a background check based on where you live.
"maybe we don't want to hire someone from that neighborhood"
- Could easily be both. I kinda feel like I ran into this once with a resume I saw that the person lived way too far away don't remember exactly.
I put up a job posting for my construction company last year and I had applicants from all over the world. Probably 60% from my city, 20% from my province but nowhere near me, and 20% from other countries.
I wouldn't want or expect anyone to move for this job, let alone from the other side of the world. I manually rejected people who were too far away, but I can definitely understand wanting to filter out people based on their home address
- I can see that being annoying, but it's also one of the things that makes you a better/worse candidate for certain jobs.
  Moving from out of country might mean you're unfamiliar with the rules/regulations for certain things (like building codes/OSHA type stuff) or if it involves lots of travel people want to hire those familiar with the city streets and traffic already.
From now on, when they ask me, I'm just going to put a rich person's address. For this one I used a Brooklyn townhouse where Maggie Gyllenhaal and one of the Saarsgaards lives.
Pull an Elwood Blues and write in the street address for Wrigley Field
- 1060 West Addison.
The easiest and most likely reason is that HR is lazy so when they need to update info on their side on hired they don't want to reach out. They can just have everything in one shot. I doubt it's anything objectifying or anything to raise eyebrows over.
- I've been looking for a job for 3 months and in that time came across at least 4 postings pretending to be a company for social engineering purposes. There are nefarious actors out there collecting information. My advice is to use a job board to find out who's hiring and then apply through THEIR website, not the job board. I've talked to 3 different HR departments saying that they're aware someone is posing as them on LinkedIn and no, they're not hiring.
  
  This is also a super likely case. The only time I have ever been scammed and had my identity stolen was because of trickery like this. I wish the worst for these assholes posing as companies
- I think this is the most likely reason
They need to know the state you live in for legal reasons. Some states create hiring problems since they can open the company up to liability by simply having a single employee in that state. Other reasons include ensuring they can actually get you on payroll in that state - as they’ll need to pay into state unemployment on your behalf.
The full address is likely just some default option that’s selected without much actual thought.
- It's not just state. There's ~11 cities in my state with income taxes.
When I was looking for jobs I realized that many employees asked this data to assess the distance from your home to the workplace and try to determine if you will be “happy “ on the long term or if you will quit for a job that was closer to your home. It was local jobs anyway.
- This is what I think it’s for as well because the recruiters always ask this question.
~~To mail you documents related/associated with your employment? Not really unheard of to receive 401k/insurance/other benefits mail. Also, taxes and tax documents like W2's~~
Potentially background checks? Maybe? Otherwise yeah it's a bit weird and more information than they really need.
Overreach in data collection is everywhere these days sadly... far too many things are not properly considered PII (personally identifiable information) even though multiple things in aggregate could completely doxx a person.
- Companies aren't mailing taxes, tax documents, or 401k/insurance/benefits docs to someone just because they applied for a job, though.
  
  Fair point! I misread this, I'll edit my comment.
- They can get your address after they hire you for that. They don't need the other 90 applicants addresses.
- I doubt it’s a background check. Those cost actual money, so why do one before you need to?
  
  Everyone and their mother in entry level job postings I can remember (2016-2020 ish range, so may have changed) had a caveat of passing a background check. This being in a relatively wealthy suburb, too. I imagine there's some sizeable kickbacks from the companies doing them.
- 401k letters? Either that's a typo, or that's a lot of letters.
  
  It's the name of the pension account
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/401(k)
  
  Whether a joke or not, I loved this comment. Sorry about the downvotes! Lol
To send you tax information, mostly. This is a stupid thing to be mad about.
- I feel like you missed that this is on a job application, not an offer letter. Unless I’m actually hired and get paid by you, you aren’t going to send me tax documents so you don’t need my address.
So they can mail you things? I understand that most things can and are done digitally, it's still very common to mail things to prospective employees. Contracts hiring them, for instance.
Or, in your case, if they're a classy employer, a letter denying your application.
Just put their office address in. If they query, just say "Yes, I'm already living there so you may as well give me a job while I'm there".
They may be checking to see which candidates live in a "hub zone" for certain credits through the SBA if you're in the US.
- Where on earth do you live?
  
  In the US this is a web search or two away. I’d assume a majority of other places have similar setups from phone companies, public records, and data brokers.
  
  I mean, phone books were a thing in the US until very recently and one had to pay to not be listed (at least where I lived)
Answer: taxes, actually. If you become an employee, your actual address is needed to ensure taxes are taken appropriately. This is true especially in work from home situations.
- That "if" at the beginning of your second sentence is doing a lot of heavy lifting. OPs whole point is why they need this before they hire them. Of course they'll need it after they're hired, no one is questioning that, so your comment is irrelevant
- But also because it's illegal to ask how much you're making now. Not not illegal to pull your place up on Zillow.
Background check?
- Don't need address.

85 comments