Email Address

By Allison Sass

You might think that your email address is the last thing potential employers care about. It certainly doesn't speak to your qualifications and is nothing more than a way to contact you online... right? Wrong.

If your resume is professional and your contact email address is partygirlxox@ wherever. com, or catlover363.. there is no doubt that employers will take you much less seriously.

Here are some tips to land yourself a professional email address that screams "hire me!"

-Keep it simple- The most professional email addresses are first and last name addresses. For example janedoe@hotmail.com, or sallymiller@gmail.com. It's also acceptable to abbreviate your first and last name and have your email address me jdoe@hotmail.com, or smiller@gmail.com.

-Avoid including interests- While potential employers do care about the interests outlined in your resume, you don't need to include these in your email address. iluvshoes@gmail.com is not going to be getting any email follow-ups from employers.

-Know when to abbreviate- If you have a very long first name, or it is spelt in an unusual way, consider abbreviating your email address. It would be unfortunate to miss out on an email from an employer because they accidentally misspelled your name!

There are tons of free email website out there (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, etc)- so if your email is something like sparklygirl101 (yes, that was my email address through the 9th grade....) it's time to switch things up!