What Image Does Your Email Address Say About You?
If you’re anything like me you probably have a minimum of 5 different email accounts that you maintain. With so many sites offering (even requiring if you want to view their content) free accounts, it can be pretty tempting to come up with some cutesy address. If you are one of those people who tend to use the cutesy email addresses, be sure to maintain at least one with a regular, professional sounding email address. You’ll need it for the job search.
I can’t really give you any real good reason why it is but using an unprofessional email account to correspond with potential employers is bad news. It’s like the perfume or the jewelry, only worse. It screams “I’m unprofessional and I am not taking this job opportunity seriously.”
So, if your name is Jane Doe and your email address is hotjane at gmail.com or contains the word sweet/sexy/sassy or anything of that nature, run right on over to gmail.com and get yourself a professional email account like janedoe at gmail.com.
All you managers out there, what’s the funniest email address you’ve ever seen on resume?
I just had this come up! I’m planning to write about it later this week, but I’ll scoop myself here because I have to share. I received an emailed application from an applicant whose email was set to display “Sexy Mama” as the name in the name field. Her application was otherwise fine, but this was so unprofessional that I can’t bring myself to move her forward in the process.
Over 10 yrs working in recruiting, I have seen a few interesting emails. But most recently here is a horror story. Client is working with us on report development and we have had a resource doing the work for weeks. About a month in, the professional responds to one of the managers and copies myself on the email discussing the status of the project. But they must have made a mistake from which email they sent it from as it came from sexcrazed something at some domain I was not familiar with. I could not believe it and the client needed some real explaining to get that under control.
Ask a Manager – thanks for visiting our blog! I love yours and try to read it regularly.
I know what you mean about not being able to move forward with an email like that. I’ve done that before myself.
Can’t wait to read your post about sexy email addresses!
Jason – thanks for stopping by. In the example you gave, are you saying that the content of the email was appropriate but the email address was unprofessional sounding, or that they sent the wrong email all together?
Each one has its own property that makes it interesting as a solution. ,