On Email Addresses

Email addresses. Not a novel concept anymore. I remember getting my first email address, in fact. As a teenager, a username needed to be an expression of personality, of uniqueness, of… whatever the special sauce was that made me, ME, and not anyone else. You know, like “RunnerGurl4Life” or some such thing.

Hey. I run. Don’t judge.

However, it is well into the 21st century as I type this post. [Sidebar: The 80’s are not 20 years ago. Shocking to many of you, I know.] You know what should not be a novel concept in the 21st century? Professional email addresses. For when you're applying for EMPLOYMENT. Email addresses are free. I have many. You should have many. I have an email address for when you need to enter an email address on a website to get the twenty percent off promo code and everyone understands that is tantamount to giving permission for at least three dozen spam emails a day. I have an email address for communications with my friends. I have an email address for communications with various contractors. I have an email address that I quite literally never log in to check for throwaway times when you need an email address. This blog has an email address. They take less than five minutes to get.

Email addresses are many things these days, but if you are not fourteen and signing up for your first email address, do you know what they should not be? They should not be an expression of personality, of uniqueness, of whatever the special sauce is that makes you, YOU.

Email addresses should be…clean underwear. Yes. Clean Underwear. Remember the old axiom attributed to grandmothers (I say “attributed” because my grandmother never said this) that goes something like: “Make sure you always have clean underwear on so that you aren’t embarrassed if you get in a car accident and the EMTs end up seeing your underwear.” Email addresses should be exactly like that.

To be fair, there are many different types of underwear for many different occasions, especially for us ladies. And, ok, yes, there is an ability to build some personality into one’s own underwear wardrobe. This blog is intended to be family friendly, though, so we won’t delve too deep into that wormhole. Ultimately, what an email address (and underwear!) should never be is…dirty. Or trashy. [Sidebar: If you had a brief moment in college with a Naughty Nurse costume, take that business out to the curb right now and get rid of it. Anyone over the age of 25 should not be a Naughty Nurse.]

It never ceases to amaze me some of the email addresses I come across on applications and resumes on an almost daily basis. I started keeping a list quite some time ago of the most ridiculous email addresses I've seen and pulled it out as part of writing this post. In order to protect the Future Embarassed, I have tweaked each of the email address usernames referenced in this post, but rest assured the spirit has been maintained.

If you are applying for a job, I highly recommend spending the five minutes to make up a new, professional email address if you do not already have one. I’ll even provide some guidance for those of you who need to dial down that touch of creativity you feel compelled to work into your underwear drawer. Try: Firstname.Lastname@hostsite.com. Feel free to augment with a couple of numbers or a middle initial if your name is John Smith. I won’t judge.

What I will do is guarantee you that your "noluvforthesemen" and "babythatsnotmyname" and "handsomelover69" will be sent around the office for laughs as soon as we see it come through on your application. Trust me on this.

Frankly, I think it is reasonable for me to assume you are not taking your employment search seriously if you didn’t take the time to make up a professional email address instead of using the one you created when you logged in to AOL Instant Messenger for the first time to chat with your friends. I mean, come on:

"spazzedtoomuch" applied for a role as supervisory team lead who [would have] been in charge of ten different employees. Maybe not the personality trait you want to advertise.

"2hot2handle" applied for a role as a diversity coordinator. I [perhaps wrongly? Let me know.] decided he/she maybe hadn’t gotten rid of all of the necessary biases required for such a position.

Once you’ve led with “needawitness”, you're going to need to put forth some serious effort to get yourself out of that hole you dug with that email address as a shovel. Since I’m a runner, I’ll use a running analogy: a poor email address drops you squarely at the back of the pack and on a five-minute timeout after the race has already started. Not great.

To be fair, I'm not saying it'll be impossible to climb out of the hole. I recently hired a very nice gentleman with an email address along the lines of "shortbaldwhiteguy". In his defense, he hadn’t applied for a position that required hair, so I cut him some slack and was appropriately impressed at the interview stage.

Let’s recap. What did we learn? Email addresses are important. Really. It's the second thing a recruiter looks at when reviewing your application after your name. Fair or not, "Chilloutgoku" and "slimeytrey" are auto-booted to the "Candidate is not a Serious Job Seeker" list.

Be an adult and make yourself a professional email address.

Or, if you absolutely, positively cannot let go of your inner Creative Director, at least make one that doesn't declare you a "hotyummymommy" unless you are looking for fame on my personal list. Then, by all means, send me your resume.