What Your Personal E-mail Address Says About You

When you work for an organization, an e-mail address is provided to you and you don’t have any choice in the matter. It doesn’t matter if that e-mail address dumps real e-mail in the spam folder and allows spam to sail into your inbox. You’re stuck with it. A personal e-mail address, or the e-mail address you use when you work for yourself, however, isn’t so cut and dry. I used to think that no one cared about your e-mail address unless it was something inappropriate or tacky like drunkatnoon@yahoo.com. But now I’m not so sure.

 Lately, the blogosphere has been murmuring that e-mail addresses from Hotmail and Yahoo are so 2003. Well, in fact, I’ve had my Hotmail address since 1999, and I’m quite attached to it. I’ve tried numerous times to switch over permanently to Gmail or my domain at AlexandraLevit.com, and I just can’t do it. But I wonder if my sentimentality is hurting my reputation. If Hotmail is considered behind the times, does this mean that people think I’m technologically challenged? Does failing to use an e-mail address associated with my spiffy-looking website mean that potential clients are not taking my business as seriously?

Several personal branding experts have weighed in on this recently, including my friend Dan Schawbel, who agreed that Hotmail and Yahoo e-mail addresses are dated. “You really need to get Gmail or at least use yourname@yourdomainname.com. Gmail allows you to talk directly with other people and your domain name is more professional.”

I would really love to hear what you guys think. For those who are job hunting or networking, do contacts really stop and think about where their e-mail comes from, and will it hurt their chances if Gmail just doesn’t float their boat? Is this enough of an issue that I should say goodbye to Hotmail forever?

Comments

[Dan Schawbel]

Alexandra, that was tough post because I knew people would disagree with me (as seen in the comments). I think gmail is 10x more respected than the others and the real benefit is that you can keep in closer contact people with "gtalk." Good discussion!

[Ben]

I have both a hotmail and a gmail account. My hotmail account is from sometime around 2002 and I only use it for people that still have that email address and don't know how to email my new one, meaning my mother, and because I am afraid I could still have credit cards etc that email the old one and I don't want to spend the time updating my information. However, my main problem and the main reason why I do not like and do not hand out my hotmail address anymore is because of forwarding and client use limitation. I don't understand why hotmail charges me to be able to use it in outlook and to forward to another account. That is just lame. On top of that yahoo and hotmail both have inferior searching capabilities and spam filtering. Yahoo has some of the same issues. They both used to allow you to do it for free but now charge. Whereas gmail allows you to do pretty much whatever you want. Another nail in hotmail's coffin is that the iPhone does not support it. In short if yahoo and hotmail want to catch up to gmail they need to make everything free, copy all of the great tools that gmail has, improve their spam filtering, and find some sort of reason to make people move back.

[Denise]

I do think that clients may assume that by not using your domain email that you have not committed fully to your business, or that your business isn't a fully legitimate business. Having said that, however, I use my domain email for many, but not all of my business. I use my GMail account for Google docs and chat, which are essential in my line of work.

[Erika with Qvisory]

Personally, I think that if you're qualified no one gives a darn about your email address. When I was a recruiter, I was so focused on qualifications that I never noticed the email address (unless it was trashy or silly).

[Chris Hamilton]

Hi there,

I left you a comment a while ago but never recieved a response? Just checking to see if my email reached you at all? :)

Thanks

[Katie Konrath]

For me, I feel much more professional having my name@mydomainname.com email address. I'm not sure how professional view it, but I feel my email address is a reflection of my personal brand and needs to reflect that.

I probably wouldn't think badly of you for having a Hotmail account, but the only people I know who still use Hotmail are ones who don't use the internet much. Some people might take that into account when they see your address, others probably won't.

I find Gmail to be much easier to use, and it gives me the ability to send email from my domain name as well. That's why I made the switch.

[Jeremy Hatfield]

I'm glad you proposed this question. So often people don't take their personal contact information serious enough. Ever facet of your resume and other personal branding collateral must be professional. Sugarlovekisses89@hotmail.com does NOT send the right message! (OK that email address might be exaggerated).
**Side note - why not use your @AlexandraLevit.com email address in all your professional work and go into your domain admin and have it forward all your emails to your hotmail account (since you seem so attached to it)
Thanks!

[Miriam Salpeter, Keppie Careers]

Dan gave me the same advice! I use my @keppiecareers.com email for business typically, but sometimes resort to my Yahoo standby once I have a business relationship with a colleague. (Or if there is a problem with my other email.)

I admit to a bias against Hotmail...I have told clients to change to a gmail address on their resumes instead of using Hotmail.

Personally, as long as the address isn't inappropriate or silly, it doesn't bother me.

[Josh Russo]

I feel a sense of forward-thinking hipness having my personal account on Gmail, and have made fun of a vendor that still uses an AOL account (you're a business, you have Fortune 500 clients, you have a building, get a domain already).

That said, my original username is somewhat silly, so for my resume and career networking I got myself a better gmail address that's a reasonable rendition of my actual name. Gmail's forwarding is simple and effective, so I could port them all to the same account at any time if I wanted to consolidate.

[Josh Russo]

BTW, now that Gmail has both Gtalk AND video chat integration I'm more in love than ever!