PO Boxes (house, location, phone, to live)

[Sonnenwende]

To PO box addresses look flakey to potential employers?

[ontheroad]

I hope not because that's all that is available to me in rural America.

However, some organisations--even paypal don't accept PO addresses alone.

[seashelly]

To me they look temporary. I'd have to take it a step further and check your job application to see how long you've lived in your current and prior addresses to see if there's a pattern.

[GoPadge]

I'd list both addresses on a resume or an application. And if possible I'd label them as "mailing" for the PO Box and "shipping" for the permenant.

[square peg]

We have lived in our present home for 20 yrs. We originally had a p.o. box (1), then put up a mailbox and were issued an RFD address (2) but the snowplow kept clobbering it, so we got another p.o. box (3). After a while that got to be expensive, so we put up our second mailbox. That one used the street address (4), and then a few years ago the town changed the name of our street (5).

For future resumes, I'll attach a copy of our deed, along with photos of my wife and I looking much younger standing in front of our house and have all documentation hand-delivered by our attorney.

[christina0001]

IMO, it doesn't look as good as a regular address.
You can put whatever you want on a resume. When you fill out a job application, and all the hiring paperwork, that is when you will have to specify that you have a different mailing address. But I would use your regular address on the resume.
My husband and I live in an apartment. We've been here for almost 4 years. Last year he stopped putting the apartment number on his resume, so it just looked like an ordinary street address. Might be a coincidence, but he did get more calls for interviews after that. Getting your foot in the door for an interview is key, and that resume has to make a good impression.

[recycled]

Maybe think about a private mailbox place if you are wanting to set up an "address" in a new city. Many private mailbox places use a "regular looking" street address. I have used these before as part of a relocation process, if I needed a "forwarding address" but had not found a permanent place to live in the new city I was moving before. Pretty easy actually.

Most employers would not recognize such an address as a private mail drop. On top of that, the private mailbox places (good, honest ones) might operate a mail forwarding service for you that would forward your incoming mail to somewhere else until you actually moved to the new place.

Other people that use private mailbox and mail forwarding places are US citizens who live in other countries but want to maintain a US address for bank accounts, taxes, etc or people that have multiple homes (summer, winter) who don't want to hassle with post office address changes, or full time RV dwellers who need mail forwarded to different places all year round.

[jetsjoe]

I currently have a PO box. When I moved from my house I rented a condo on the beach for 3 months and had to get one. I still have it two years later because it is a pain to change all my addresses again and when I go out of town I do not have to worry about it.

Several financial instutions do not accept them. It is a pain.

[Sonnenwende]

Hmm, maybe I will consider the private mailbox idea. It is hard with the addresses because I don't know anyone anywhere I want to move to. :/

Thanks everyone for your help!

[Lannie]

I've used a P.O. Box for years without any problems. (A U.S. Postal Box - not a mailing store).

It began after a failed attempt of identity theft, so I started using the P.O. Box and loved the ease of it, especially receiving boxes from online orders. I use it for tax returns, Visa statement, bank statements, etc. Not a single company (Paypal, included) have ever questioned it. I have NEVER been asked about it by an employer. I don't list my street address or P.O. box on a resume. I have my name and telephone number. If they want me it will be for my qualifications, not my address. And I've always been employed :-)