Yesterday I wrote about email addresses, and how they might be branding you.
The most popular email address people use to sign up for JibberJobber is Gmail. It is clearly the leader, as far as the people who are attracted to a more sophisticated job search / relationship tool. Juno is not popular anymore, although every once in a while I get someone who signs up with a Juno account.
Let me share some advice with regard to your email service provider, other than the branding issue that we talked about yesterday.
Get an email address that you can always “own.” I hate seeing people sign up with certain email addresses. For example, if you are getting laid off, WHY IN THE WORLD are you signing up for JibberJobber with your soon-to-be old work email address? In a few weeks or months you won’t have access to that account, which will make things like password retrieval a headache. Worse, someone at your old company might be able to hijack your account… if they have control over your old work email, they can “request password” from any site that has your email on it, change the password, and you’ve just lost it.
Don’t use your ISP’s email address. Another thing that makes me cringe is seeing people sign up with a Comcast or some other ISP. Why? Because ISPs come and go. Maybe yours has been around forever, but what if YOU come and go? You know how easy it is to switch to another ISP. What if, one day, you decide to dump your ISP? Then what happens to your email? You’ll have to send out the famous/notorious “my email has changed…” This could have been avoided if you got a Gmail or outlook (or other like email) address.
Okay, so privacy is kind of an issue. It shouldn’t be, though. If you use Gmail, you should know you don’t have much privacy. Do you want Google to tap into your private life, or do you want the NSA to tap into it? At least both organizations have different objectives. What some people do is use all of Gmail’s products (search, images, maps, etc.) and a different company’s email (like outlook.com), just so Gmail doesn’t have 100% of your information and browsing curiosities. I don’t do that, but I know a lot of people do.
So there you go – a few thoughts about email issues. Good luck!
Another option for email is to own your oun domain. Since you own it, it won’t go away.
Yep, I mentioned that in yesterday’s post. Interestingly, I think this can be really cool and, at the same time, a bit of a let-down.
When someone emails me from their own domain, I think “cool! What is on their website?” I grab the URL from their email, and try to go there, but there is no website. It’s so simple to get something, anything, on a website, even if it just redirects to your LinkedIn profile… but too often I am disappointed.
Still a better option than some of the others 🙂
Thanks Scot!