Quick Tip: Keep Your Email Address Simple
I’ve been in this game for years, it made me an animal
There’s rules to this shit, I wrote me a manual
-notorious B.I.G. - 10 crack commandments
#1. Simplify. Simplify. Simplify.
I once worked with a client that complained she never heard back from HR reps after applying to jobs using third party job portals. She shared her resume with me and it became real apparent to me what her issue was. Her email address had i’s and l’s next to one another in sequence. That makes it real easy for someone to make a typo when typing her info in.
If you have a name that reverses typical english language conventions like “i before e, except after c,” this is for you.
If your email address ends in ‘l’ but then is followed by a ‘1’, this is for you.
If your email is currently overly complex like qjonesj08@gmail.com, this is for you.
If you have a name that is quite distinctive, but is often hard for people to spell, this is for you.
Simplify your email address.
In a perfect world, your email address would be: firstname.lastname@gmail.com or lastname.firstname@gmail.com. If that is not available, consider replacing either your first name or last name with an initial ex. FN.lastname@gmail.com where FN = the initial of your first name.
Be careful with numbers. Use periods meaningfully. Make your email address less error prone. Keep it simple.
The domain that houses your email address is less important, but does still communicate something about you. If you work in digital tech but your email domain is @ hotmail.com, you may stand out. TBD if that’s a good or bad thing. It’s just something to be aware of. Your email address is foundational to branding yourself. Make it count and keep it simple.