Check Your Email...

...Not your messages (although that does help when job hunting), but check your email address. Make sure you're not using the hotmail acccount you set up during your GCSE year and thought was hilarious at the time. For example, when emailing your application, you may not be aware but most often your email address and/or the username will be the first thing a prospective employer will see. Therefore 'sexybexy' or 'leahluvsryan' or even 'takethatfan' do seem to give off connotations of a lack of maturity or professionalism. These thoughts are of course largely unfounded - but we're talking first impressions, these are hard to shift, very memorable and often based on stereotypical evidence. An employer may view an email address containing slang or 'txt' speak as an indication of poor literacy, or a bad attitude. This view is of course unfair, but it's often an unavoidable reflex response, that our brains employ to make life less complicated. We often make split second judgements based on almost no real tangible facts. Treat your email address like an interview outfit - it needs to look smart and clean. So, set up a new email address just for jobs to make things easier. Base the address on your actual name and keep 'djmatt_spangdooly' for play time.