What does your email address say about you?
What does your email address say about you?
Posted: 2014-3-4
We recently reviewed an article titled "AOL Email Address Brands You As Technologically Obsolete." The article said that having an outdated email address from a company like AOL brands a person as being someone who is not willing to move forward with technology. The article specifically discussed people looking for a job and how an employer might question a candidate’s suitability for the job simply because of the email address he or she uses.
We were intrigued by how many applicants are using various “old” email addresses as their primary means of contact. We have a rather large database of applicant email addresses due to our weekly aviation jobs newsletter (AvjobsWeekly) that we send. So we did a simple search for some common email domains with the following results.
- AOL: 2464
- Yahoo: 13,056
- Hotmail: 7,511
- Earthlink: 143
- Roadrunner: 191
- Comcast: 634
- .edu: 492
- Gmail: 5359
Each of these email addresses are free. But in this case, "free" may be costing you a lot.
When we receive business email that is using one of these free services we (and every other recruiter and hiring manager) - correctly or not - make some basic assumptions. Our first assumption is this person is not really serious about building or marketing themselves as a serious applicant—at least not in the aviation sector. Second, while they may be serious, they just don’t understand how to keep up with today’s technology changes and improvements, or what that email address is really saying about them.
Every communication leaves an impression. Your email address is your online front door. Emails you send to employers and hiring managers invite them to come to your “office” (your online presence) to read your resume and learn more about what you have to offer as an employee.
You may question our inclusion of Gmail on this list. We have several Gmail addresses. But we don’t use them for business purposes or as our primary email address. Gmail works well as an email client to manage your incoming email. It works very well for lots of people. Just don’t send employers a message from your Gmail account if you want them to really pay attention to it.
Setting up an Avjobs hosted email account with your own name is easy and included with every applicant account.
There is simply no reason not to have a unique email address that reminds people about your interaction and commitment to the aviation industry. And every time you send an email from your myavjobs.com email account, you’re encouraging people to view your resume, accomplishments and value in the aviation industry.
If you are using an outdated email address for your job search, we encourage you to spend the small amount of money required to get a professional email address.
What do you think? Does an email address make an impression?
