What is a professional email address? That is what I wanted to know when I first started looking up tips for making a resume and kept seeing that I needed a professional email address. Turns out it is actually very simple.
A professional email address has a variation of the person’s first and last name, such as [email protected], and is listed on resumes and used for job searches. It is a personal domain name or from a respected email provider, such as Gmail. Keep it simple, PG, and easy to read.
Let’s go over the do’s and don’ts of creating a professional email address for your resume.
Click hereto check out the most popular products for college students.
Do you need a professional email address for your resume?
Short answer, yes, you do.
You want an email address that makes the right impression. Nothing that is inappropriate or would negatively impact what a potential employer thinks of you.
You also want to make it as easy as possible for potential employers to contact you. A professional email address (especially your name) is easy to remember and pronounce.
If they do contact you, then you want to make sure that you will see their email.
That is why having your name as an email address that you use only for your job search is a great idea!
Check out all the benefits of Prime Student
Best email domain for resume
You want your email address to make the right impression, which is why it is best if you go with Gmail or your own domain (which you would need to buy) instead of a more outdated domain such as AOL.
I think the easiest way is to make an email account with Gmail.
This is super easy to set up.
Just fill in a few things:
and you are all set!
What to avoid in your professional email addresses
Anything that is not PG and PC
- Drinking/Drug reference
- Sexual reference
I would assume that this is obvious but seemed worth repeating.
Anything that could be a potential reason for discrimination
- Numbers that tell them your age (such as your birth year or graduation year)
- Ethnicity
- Religion
Anything that isn’t easily recognizable
When someone sees your email, you want them to look at it. That will be more likely if they can quickly know who it is from. Don’t make your email address something that could apply to a thousand other people.
Don’t include:
- Your profession instead of your name: there are far more people with the same profession than the same name
- Hobbies such as sports or favorite shows/music
- Your kids or pets name
- Shortened names or Nicknames: [email protected] or [email protected] are not going to help the employer know who you are
Anything that won’t stay relevant
Do not use your school email address!
Some schools only let you keep that email for a certain period of time after you graduate, and then they will deactivate it. You don’t want potential employers to not be able to contact you.
Don’t use your work email address! Once you leave that company, then that email address will no longer be relevant. Plus, you don’t want your current company to know that you are job searching.
You want to be able to stick with the same email address throughout your job search.
Other things I would avoid:
- Nothing desperate ([email protected])
- No numbers. I wouldn’t include any numbers if you can help it because they can be easy to mix up and harder to remember. If no name variations are available, and you need to put a number after your name, pick as few as possible. Also, remember no birth or graduation years.
- No locations. I wouldn’t put my city or state because that could be limiting when applying for jobs online.
Symbols:
When I was looking up lists of recommendations, I saw a lot of people suggesting that you use symbols (such as – or _), but symbols are not allowed on Gmail.
Best option: your name
Unfortunately, your name (such as [email protected]) is probably not going to be available. That is why you will need to be creative when coming up with a professional email address.
Name variation ideas:
- First name + last name: [email protected]
- First name . last name: [email protected]
- First name + middle name + last name: [email protected]
- First name . middle name . last name: [email protected]
- First name + middle initial + last name: [email protected]
- First name . middle initial . last name: [email protected]
- First initial + middle name + last name: [email protected]
- First initial + middle initial + last name: [email protected]
- First name + last initial: [email protected]
- First initial + last name: [email protected]
- Last name + first name: [email protected]
You can also use appropriate nicknames or the name you go by instead of your actual first name, such as [email protected] being [email protected].
Now you know the best professional email address format for resumes. You are ready to move forward with your job search!
Make sure to check your email account regularly!
If you found this post helpful, please share it with friends!
