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.
All your reasoning supports is asking for the city the person lives in.
Also, why is it your business if the candidate has a physical address or not? Making an effort to discover that looks very unethical to me.
addresses are wonky and non-uniform. You can get pretty close with ZIP codes since they were part of a larger standardization push for addresses nation-wide but there’s still corner- and edge-cases for every assumption you can make about addresses in this country