A Word On Your Email Address

In Overcoming Gradversity I talk about the importance of having a professional email address. There are two key points that I focus on:

1. How professional your email address is
2. The importance of avoiding your school address

But I recently read What’s Your Email Address Prejudice? on Lifehacker and thought that they made an excellent point.

If you are a new grad or someone who is interested in landing with a technology firm of any kind, the domain portion of your email address (the part after the “@” sign) could be hurting your cause.

In the article, the author explained how she is still using an AOL email address and how her sister (an “in-the-know” publicist) had to tell her that her email address was outdated.

Here’s how this might work.

Let’s say that you apply to a large technology company straight out of school and the company has to choose between you (as a tech-savvy new grad) and another new grad (of equal skill, but less tech-savvy). Because you are more “up” on technology, you have a Gmail account.  However, your competition has an account from a “passé” email provider (like AOL).

Sadly, this just might subconsciously bias the recruiter. Many companies (especially tech companies) like candidates who are at least aware of the latest technology (with bonus points if you actually use it).

I’m not saying that an employer is ever going to base a hiring decision on an email address. This will most likely never happen. The point I’m trying to make is that you want to do your best to remove any possible point of subconscious bias that might exist. You don’t want to take the risk that you are passed over for something that you could potentially control.

Anyway, those are my two cents. Feel free to disagree on the comment board.