About Career Blog

What Does Your Username Really Say?

There are many things in today's job market that you cannot control. You cannot predict which company will hire you. You cannot be sure which job will provide the best benefits. But the things you can control, such as the professionalism you publicly display-- those things should be identified with the utmost attention.

I have multiple e-mail accounts, each with their specific purposes. One is for personal, family and friends communication. One is for my professors and school peers to use. Yet another is for my sorority life. What all of these have in common is that they are linked to me and a prospective employer could easily find my school account just as easily as they could find my "sparkler" account --a product of 10th grade creativity and wanting to honor my patriotic birthday.

In the five years since I created the "sparkler" account, I have been met with plenty of criticism and jeers. I stubbornly brushed these comments off, thinking that I wouldn't need a professional-sounding e-mail domain until my post-graduate life. It wasn't until this past January, when I was elected to a high profile position in my sorority community that I decided it was time to grow up-- even if only in the virtual world.

What does this personal account tell those of you looking to enter the working world? Even if your domain isn't covered with Xx's and "lilcutieangels," consider Seymour's advice. Your name is as professional as you can get and your future employers will appreciate your dedication. Something as small as a simple tool of communication can either help or hinder your hopes for being hired.

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Posted by Amanda on 6/25/2009 06:01:00 PM
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The Melancholy of Fart_Lord420@aol.com

When I was working as an independent media production contractor, I would network with potential clients and correspond with employers almost exclusively via e-mail. That's the nature of the business -- the movers and shakers' phone lines are perpetually tied up (or at least that's what they'd like you to think). In most cases, they had sensible email addresses along the lines of those described by Seymour in his last post.

Fart_Lord420@aol.com was not one of those cases.

I was introduced to the distinguished Mr. Fart Lord through an old client who would occasionally feed me leads. Apparently, he was an up-and-coming musician (what instruments he played remain a mystery to this day -- though beans, the musical fruit, seem a reasonable guess) looking for somebody to edit videos of his live performances. I reluctantly solicited this, shall we say...unfortunately-named individual, and was met with an unprofessional and uncouth response befitting a man who would deliberately present himself as a "fart lord." While he did express interest in my services, I declined him as a client for the following reasons:

1.) His email account name indicated that he loved farting and was probably perpetually baked.
2.) Assuming the hypotheses proposed in item #1 are true, he was probably on drugs when he composed that e-mail. And farting.
3.) Assuming the hypotheses proposed in items #1 and #2 are true, he wasn't worth dealing with in any capacity, professional or otherwise.
4.) His business e-mail address was "Fart_Lord420." Fart. Lord. Four. Twenty.

My position on e-mail usernames is that of almost everybody else in the professional world -- an immature, crude, incoherent, or otherwise inappropriate name is a likely indicator of an overall lack of decorum on the sender's end.

My tipster now screens email addresses before sending me leads.

Play it safe when it comes to choosing the name that will follow you through your professional career. A Fart_Lord by any other name, in this instance, will smell much sweeter.

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Posted by Brian on 6/20/2009 04:08:00 AM
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