Personal Details on a CV: What to Include and What to Delete

The top of a CV is the most contested few centimetres of the whole document. It is also the part most people copy from a template they downloaded years ago, which is why so many CVs still open with a date of birth, a marital status and a full street address.

None of those help you. Two of them can actively hurt you. This article covers what belongs there, what to delete, and the country differences that make blanket advice unreliable.

The short answer

Six lines, at most, and usually five.

Your name. As you want to be called, in the largest text on the page. No need to write "Curriculum Vitae" above it, which tells the reader something they already know.

Your phone number. One number, the one you will actually answer. Include the country code if you are applying abroad.

Your email address. A professional one, discussed below.

Your city and country. Not your street address.

Your LinkedIn URL, if the profile is current and matches your CV.

One portfolio or professional link, if it is relevant to the work: GitHub for developers, a portfolio site for designers and writers, a publication list for researchers.

That is everything. Anything else you are considering is probably in the next section.

What to delete

Your full street address. This was standard when applications were posted, and it survives out of habit. Today it gives away more than it gains. It is personal data sitting in a database you do not control, and it invites a judgement about your commute that you never get to explain. Your city is enough for the only legitimate question, which is whether you are within reach of the workplace.

Your date of birth. In the UK, Ireland, the US, Canada, Australia and increasingly across Europe, this is not expected and many employers would rather not have it, since knowing a candidate's age creates an unnecessary discrimination risk for them. There are countries where it remains conventional, covered below.

Your marital status and whether you have children. Not relevant to any job, and in many jurisdictions employers are not permitted to ask.

Your nationality, unless it establishes your right to work where you are applying, in which case a short factual line is useful: "Right to work in the UK, no sponsorship required". That sentence answers a real question and saves everyone a round trip.

Your national insurance, social security or ID number. Never on a CV. These belong in onboarding paperwork after an offer, and nowhere else.

Your gender, religion, political affiliation and health status. Not relevant, and their presence can make an employer uncomfortable for legal reasons that have nothing to do with you.

Your full postal address's postcode alone, offered as a compromise. It is still a precise location.

Multiple phone numbers. Two numbers means the reader has to choose, and half the time they choose the one you never answer.

"References available on request". It occupies a line and conveys nothing. Everyone knows references are available on request, and how to handle them is a separate matter.

The name line, and the things people add to it

The name line looks like the one part that cannot go wrong, and yet a few habits are worth examining.

Post-nominal letters. ACCA, CIPD, PMP, MSc, PhD and their equivalents. In professions where the qualification is the licence to practise, putting it after your name is normal and informative. In professions where it is not, it reads as trying slightly too hard, and the qualification is better placed in the education or certifications section. If you are unsure, look at how people already doing the job present themselves.

Titles. Dr is used where it is professionally relevant. Mr, Ms and Mrs are not, and adding them tells the reader something about your marital status you probably meant to leave out.

A job title under your name. "Senior Data Analyst" as a subtitle is genuinely useful, because it tells a reader in one glance what you are, and it makes you findable when someone searches that phrase. Use the title you are targeting where it is honest, not an invented seniority.

Nicknames and shortened forms. Use the name you want to be called. There is no requirement to lead with a full legal name, and the legal version can appear later in the process where it is actually needed.

What to avoid is the small taglines that sometimes appear here: "Turning data into decisions", "Passionate problem solver". They occupy the most valuable line on the page and they are unverifiable claims about character rather than facts, which is the same problem discussed in common CV mistakes to avoid.

The email address question

This is worth its own section because it is the single most common self inflicted wound on the top of a CV.

Use something built from your name: firstname.lastname@ or an initial and surname. If your name is common and everything is taken, add a number that is not your birth year.

Delete the address you made when you were fifteen. Delete anything with a nickname, a band name, a joke, or a year that dates you. Delete your current work email, which signals that you are job hunting on your employer's time and system.

There is a small, real risk in using an address at a very old provider. Nobody will reject you for it, but it sits alongside your name as a small signal, and it is free to fix.

Whichever you use, check it works and check the spam folder while you are applying. A surprising number of interview invitations are found there weeks late.

Where it goes on the page

In the body of the document, in the first two or three lines. Not in the header or footer area.

This matters more than it sounds. Content in a Word header or footer is frequently dropped when your CV is parsed, and the field it usually takes with it is your phone number. The result is a candidate record that can be shortlisted and never contacted, which is the most frustrating way to lose an application. The mechanics are in the formatting that actually breaks an ATS.

Two related traps. A contact block designed as a single image loses everything inside it, because parsers read text and not pictures. And icons for phone and email are harmless in themselves, as long as the text beside them is real text rather than part of the graphic.

Formatting wise, a single line separated by a bullet or a vertical bar works well and saves space: `Manchester, UK · 07700 900000 · [email protected] · linkedin.com/in/janesmith`.

Country by country

This is where blanket advice falls apart, and applying abroad without checking is how good candidates lose out on formality.

UK and Ireland. No photo, no date of birth, no marital status. City and country only. This is the most stripped back convention.

United States and Canada. The same, and more strictly. Employers often actively prefer no photo and no age indicators, because the information creates legal exposure for them.

Germany, Austria, Switzerland. A photo is still widely expected, and a date of birth is common though no longer required. The application often includes certificates and references as attachments. Conventions here are more formal than in the English speaking world.

France, Spain, Italy. A photo is common but declining, particularly at larger companies with international processes. Age and marital status are increasingly omitted.

Turkey. A photo is expected. Military service status is commonly asked for male candidates and is often a filter field in application forms, so answer it in the form even if you leave it off the document.

Netherlands and Scandinavia. Photos are optional and increasingly uncommon. Personal details are minimal.

The general direction of travel everywhere is toward less personal information, driven by anti discrimination practice and data protection rules. When in doubt, follow the convention of the country you are applying to, not your own.

Two lines that are worth adding

Most of this article is about deletion, so here are the additions that genuinely earn their space.

Right to work, when it is in question. If you are applying across a border, one factual line prevents your application being set aside as too complicated. State the position plainly, without apology.

Availability, when it is unusual. If you can start immediately or you have a long notice period, one short line at the top saves a conversation. Leave it out if your notice is standard for your market.

Neither of these belongs in a summary paragraph. They are facts, and facts read better as a line.

Location, remote work and the honest version

The city line has become more complicated since remote and hybrid work became normal, and it is worth handling deliberately rather than fudging it.

If you live near the workplace, write your city and stop. Nothing else is needed.

If you live somewhere else and the role is remote, say so plainly: "Bristol, UK. Remote, aligned to UK hours." This answers the question before it becomes a doubt. Leaving your location off entirely is the worst option, because it reads as concealment and the reader assumes the answer is inconvenient.

If you live somewhere else and intend to relocate, be specific. "Relocating to Amsterdam, available from March" is a fact a reader can plan around. "Willing to relocate" is a sentiment they cannot, and it appears on so many CVs that it carries almost no weight.

If you are applying across a time zone, the overlap is the real question, not the distance. One clause covers it.

The pattern in all four is the same: a precise fact costs you one line and removes a doubt, while vagueness costs you nothing on the page and everything in the reader's mind. Location is now one of the most common silent reasons an otherwise good application is set aside, and it is one of the easiest to fix.

What about a photo

Technically irrelevant. A parser ignores images entirely, so this is purely a question of local convention, covered above.

Two practical notes if you are including one. It should be a plain headshot against a neutral background, taken in the last few years, and it should be an image placed in the document rather than a design element with text baked into it. And if you have one CV for a country where photos are expected and another for a country where they are not, keep them as two files rather than trying to compromise.

A common mistake worth naming

People often try to make the top of the CV work harder than it should, adding a tagline, a set of icons, a bar of social links, and a coloured banner.

The top of the page has one job before the summary starts: tell the reader who you are and how to reach you, in under two seconds. Every element you add competes with your professional summary, which is the part that actually makes your case and is discussed in professional summary examples.

If you want the top of your CV to work harder, put a stronger summary there, not more decoration around your name.

Where your data actually goes

One reason to be sparing here that rarely gets mentioned: everything you put at the top of your CV ends up in a database you have no control over, often several.

Apply to thirty companies and your address, phone number and any other personal data sit in thirty systems, each with its own retention period, its own access rules and its own security posture. Recruitment agencies add another layer, since they frequently copy candidate data into their own systems and share reformatted CVs with clients.

None of that is a reason to hide your phone number, which is the entire point of the exercise. It is a reason not to include your street address, your date of birth and your identification numbers, because those add risk without adding any chance of being hired.

Under European data protection rules you can ask a company what it holds about you and request deletion, and most systems purge records automatically after a set period. That is a useful backstop rather than a plan. The better plan is not to hand over what was never needed.

Frequently asked questions

Should I put my full address on a CV?

No. City and country is enough. A full address is unnecessary personal data and can invite assumptions about your commute before you have had a chance to address them.

Do I need to include my date of birth?

Not in most markets, and in several it is actively discouraged. It remains conventional in parts of Central Europe. Follow the destination country's practice.

Can leaving out my age look like I am hiding something?

No, because it is now the norm in most places. Your career history gives an approximate sense anyway, and no recruiter treats its absence as suspicious.

Should my LinkedIn profile be on my CV?

Yes if it is up to date and consistent with the document. A neglected profile with an old job title does more harm than no link at all, which is why keeping the two aligned matters, as covered in optimising your LinkedIn profile.

What if a job application form asks for details I left off my CV?

Answer the form. Forms often ask for information that is legitimate at that stage or required for compliance reporting. Leaving a required field blank can genuinely remove you from consideration.

Is it a problem if my name is hard to spell or pronounce?

No, and you do not owe anyone a simplification. If you commonly go by a shorter form, use the form you want to be called by and let the full legal name appear later in the process.

Check that your details survived the upload

Contact details are the one part of a CV where a parsing failure has an immediate and total cost: you can be shortlisted and never reached. CvLaunch reads your file and shows you the extracted record, including whether your name, phone and email were picked up at all. It takes a few seconds, it is free, and there is no sign up.