Writing Resumes: The Impacts of an Unprofessional Email Address

Are you confident in your ability to pass the job interview effortlessly? While that can be crucial to locking a job, you would only get the opportunity if your resume amazes the recruiters to call you for the interview. That is where the whole quest of job searching gets complicated.

If you are not getting a response from the hiring manager for the submitted resume, there could be lots of reasons. The many reasons could be inappropriate format and structure, grammatical and typo errors, and many more. But one of the essential and usually overlooked reasons that imperil your chance to make it to the interview is adding an unprofessional email address in your resume. In this article, you will understand what an unprofessional email address is and its impact on your resume.  

Unprofessional email address: What is it?

Unfortunately, there are many people who are unaware if there is any such thing as an unprofessional email address. And many do not know that the email address has the potential to impact the assessment process of a resume. Therefore, it is essential to define it in order to understand its impact. 

As the name suggests, the unprofessional email address refers to all kinds of email addresses that can create an improper impression- of whom it belongs to-on the one who sees it. It creates an image of the individual that does not sound professional and estimable.  Such email addresses have inapt and cracking content, like nicknames and numbers—for example, [email protected], [email protected], etc. Such email addresses put a bad impression on anyone who goes through them. 

Impacts of an unprofessional email address on your resume:

Let’s do a small exercise before proceeding any further. 

Imagine the personality of an individual by looking at the following usernames:

• IamFoxygirl
• John. smith
• Angelnoah
• Smith.John
• StarJohn999
• Dogslover

Categorize the usernames that you can imagine as mature, credible, and trustworthy into one group and the rest into the other. 

You must have categorized SJohn, John. Smith, and Smith John in one and the StarJohn999, Dogslover, Angelnoah, and Iamfoxygirl in the other. If you have categorized these groups in exactly this way, Bingo! You have cracked what it looks like to have an unprofessional email address. Anyhow, the impacts of an unprofessional email address on a resume are:

1.    You will be judged:

It may look harsh, but the harsh reality is that you will be judged straight away. You will be evaluated in a negative way and imagined as a childish, immature, and non-serious person. Think about the difference between Angelnoah and Noah.David. These two are the usernames of the same individual. While one is the full name, the other is the first name with an adjective. If the recruiter, who assesses the resume, goes through the email address that goes [email protected], he will immediately perceive him as an immature and unprofessional candidate. 

2.      Decreases your chances of getting your resume reviewed properly:

The recruiters have plenty of resumes to review, so they prefer scanning the resumes in the first place. Email addresses are some of those elements scanned by the recruiter at some initial points of assessment, if not first. Reviewing process is most likely to cease at the moment when the recruiters notice the unprofessional email address. It means that no matter how rich is your work experience and education, elements such as an unprofessional email address can avert the reviewer from going through in detail. 

3.    It leads to a bad reputation: 

An individual is an institution, especially when he appears in front of a company to offer his services. And it is obvious that companies trust the institution that has a good reputation. The reputation of a prospected employee is measured by his professionalism. And your email address speaks volumes about how professional you are. With an email address that contains unnecessary content, you will lose your reputation. 

4.    You will lose credibility and trustworthiness:

The credibility and trustworthiness of an individual are attached to his reputation. A good reputation leads to more credibility and vice versa. Credibility is a significant element that is counted by hiring managers whilst reviewing resumes. If your resume is not able to appeal to the recruiter in terms of credibility and trustworthiness, you will lose the chance of getting any attention.  

5.    Your resume will be rejected:

All of the above elements compel the hiring manager to reject the resume, in short. How would a recruiter shortlist a resume that gives an impression of an unprofessional, immature, and untrustworthy candidate?

But it is never too late; if you have been adding such an email address to your resume, now is the time to change it. Replace it with a professional email address, and you will see the difference in responses from the recruiters in the future. 

Also Read: Nine deadliest mistakes in resume writing

Tips for creating a professional email address:

In order to create a professional email address, you have to focus solely on the user name, as the mail server and domain name do not make any difference. 

In the email address: [email protected]

Username: Noah

mail server:  Xyz

domain name: .com

1.      Use your original name:

The first and foremost thing that you need to keep in mind while creating the email address is avoiding fake names. The email address is one of the essential possessions of a candidate; it shows who it belongs to. Therefore, it has to have the exact name you have on the legal documents. You must create an email Id to run in the long term as it is crucial for keeping consistency. Therefore, it is suitable for a username to have the first name only because the second name may change after marriage or divorce. However, it is absolutely professional to use both first and second names. 

For example, for Noah David, the possible professional emails could be: 

• Firstname: [email protected] 
• Firstname and second name: [email protected] 
• The first letter of second name first name: [email protected] 
• The first letter of first name second name: [email protected] 

2.      Omit silly content:

Don’t ever think of creating an email address with unnecessary content. The recruiters do not want to know about your nature and obsessions through the email address. Blending the official name with unwanted adjectives like beautiful, strong, and titles or associations is not only meaningless but detrimental. You must keep it simple and omit unnecessary details. 

For example: 

NoahBTScrazy fan@xyz.com  à   [email protected] 

3.      Avoid numbers:

Restrict your email addresses to letters only, and you should not use numbers and special characters. Usually, people add their date of birth, lucky number, or a random number that the mail server suggests in the email addresses, which is not professional. You also should not use special characters, with some exceptions for the period. You can use periods, if highly required, which must never exceed two. 

For example:

• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• [email protected] 
• [email protected]

4.      Skip nicknames:

The unnecessary words in the username make you look unprofessional; adding nicknames can also put a bad image on the reviewer. No matter how you enjoy being called with your nickname, you have to use your official name for professional use. 

For example: 

• [email protected] instead of [email protected] 
• [email protected] instead of [email protected] 

5.      Avoid titles:

Moreover, you must omit the titles as Doctor, Engineer, mechanic, or whatsoever from the username. An email is not a place to tell the recruiters or anyone that you are this and that. Such kinds of references in the email address are usually perceived as childish and, therefore, unprofessional. 

For example: 

• [email protected]  

• [email protected]
• [email protected] à  [email protected] 

In a nutshell…

Do’s	Don’ts
[email protected]	[email protected]
[email protected]	[email protected]
[email protected]	[email protected]
[email protected]	[email protected]

Bottom Line: 

In order to increase the probability of getting called for a job interview, you must try to reduce the resume dealbreakers. Having an unprofessional email address is one of the potential elements that need to be avoided. Writing a resume is indeed a highly critical task, as it needs to be written immaculately. Luckily, ResumeCroc has made it easier for you. The highly professional writers are able to write professional and flawless resumes tailored to your particular specifics. You can check the samples and testimonies for validation.