Mary just read my previous piece CV Advice and mailed me with this question:
why not just advise people with a non-Anglo surname to list their visa status? Is there some reason why "Mohammed al-Rashid, 42 Waratah Way, Sydney" is more reassuring that "Mohammed al-Rashid, present location: Sydney, visa status: Australian citizen"?
I must confess that that particular piece of advice didn't come from my own reading of CVs; I make a point of leaving aside such considerations of "are they legally allowed to work for me?" until my second pass, because I realise that it can be a somewhat difficult question. No, that piece of advice came from watching more than one of my superiors over the years discard CVs after reading only the name of the applicant. I've been shocked and appalled at this practice, but as an author of a CV, you can't lecture the reader on their unreasonable prejudices unless you get the interview, so you deal with that problem first.
To address the first part of the question -- why not just list your visa status -- don't get me wrong; if it's relevant, you must list your visa status. But that's trying to achieve a separate goal -- in stage two when the reader is considering interviewing you, they'll need to work out the implications of your visa status and make sure you'll actually be able to work under the necessary conditions.
But listing your address is about beating the possible prejudices of your reader, who will no doubt have reviewed a significant minority of CVs from people outside the country, who claim to be able to work in Australia immediately, only to discover after some closer inspection that actually they're eligible for a visa, haven't got it yet, and will need 3 months to relocate before being able to start in your organisation. I know I've read CVs like that. I understand what might motivate someone to do that in a CV, but the bottom line is that I need someone now, and as the author of your CV you have 30 seconds to make sure that your honesty in the matter of your visa status and availability is understood and appreciated. You need to give your reader all the help that you can.
Just to clarify, I think everyone should put their whole address in, because it adds to your credibility no matter what your name is. But, if your name "sounds foreign" (I'll leave it to you to decide if your name does), the benefit is multiplied because there's a possible fear, which might not be justified, but is probably with precedent, that they'll be wasting their time on you. No-one wants to waste time, it's as simple as that.
As for the second part -- why not just list a present location and visa status -- that's probably an ok way of going about it. My preference for listing an actual address is that the more detail you give, the more you sound like a real person. You need to consider that if you omit a piece of information from your CV, there's a good chance your reader will pick up on that and wonder why it was omitted. Personally, that's not a risk I like to run, so for anything that I think is important enough for my CV, I ensure that it's documented as completely as could be considered relevant, in the concise fashion that I outlined in the previous article.
But, as Mary has put it, I think I'd read that and feel relatively safe about giving Mohammed an interview, so that's another way to approach the problem, should you not wish to list your address (useful I guess in the case of a "web CV").
Thanks Mary for picking up on that.