Hello John,
Similarly: If someone sends from a "free" email service, I am immediately
suspicious. Because I do not know who I am talking to, and it would appear
that such people are not well-enough established in life and in business to
afford their own email account. Maybe that's OK for "The first job out of
high school", but after that, I would expect job applicants to send from
their own email account
I can understand why you would immediately be suspicious
of emails coming from so-called "free" email services.
It's easy enough for anyone to get a free account these days
and pelt an employer with oodles of junk mail.
Also, having a email account with your own identity
establishes that you've taken the time to set up your own
domain name, or at the very least that you are using the email
service provided by your ISP's home domain (which is not
always the most flexible thing in the world).
On the other hand, I have a few comments.
In my previous job, I was responsible for hiring new employees.
Many candidates (quite possibly, MOST candidates) used free mail
services such as Hotmail, Yahoo!, Gmail and so on.
My first argument is that nothing is ever really "free",
in that all of these services contain paid advertisements that
you need to put up with. (Many of these free mail services
in fact offer paid upgrades that are ad-free.)
I would agree that the ads don't usually leave a positive
impression on the employer on the receiving end.
On the other hand, however, they are ubiquitous in Internet
society and culture today, much like a bus advert or a magazine
advert. I never personally felt that just because the job
candidate was using a free mail service, that he/she was
slouching off in his/her duties as a job seeker, or that
he/she needed to go out and pay for a "respectable" email address.
Some free email services (such as Gmail) actually offer email
without inline ads, so it is possibly to still use a free mail
service and be semi-respectable. So I wouldn't write a prospective
employee off based on his/her email address (unless the address
was vulgar, racist or otherwise displayed a blatant lack
of professionalism).
The second issue regarding using free mail services when applying
for a job has to do with privacy. If you happen to own your
own domain, your employer will likely run a search on that domain
to see what it hosts. If you are hosting or if the owner of your
domain name hosts a site that your prospective employer happens not to
like for whatever reason, that is already a strike against the
employee. (For instance, I own a domain on which I host a variety
of content from graphic design samples to music clips to
philosophical treatises.
If I don't feel confident that the person or employer I am contacting
is in approval of the content, I will refrain from using any
email address associated with my domain name.)
Free mail accounts offer a degree of anonymity to avoid
such issues that could stem from differences in personal taste.
Honestly, I don't know of anyone, friends, family or acquaintances
that are actually paying for email these days. They may have an
email account with their ISP, but the chances are greater that they
are using a free mail account to help protect their privacy in
online transactions.
This leads me to the third issue, which is one of privacy of
the job seeker during the job hunting process.
Resumes are typically passed from job seeker to employer,
revealing all kinds of personal information including educational
and professional background, date of birth, hobbies and interests
and so on. I don't argue that it's important for the employer
to know quite a bit about the prospective employee before committing
to hiring them. But on the other hand, I don't believe that resumes
are the most relevant means of learning about your prospective
employees. Neither are email addresses. In an ideal situation,
information from both the employer side and the employee side
should be released gradually and on an as-needed basis.
Questions asked should be answered. Eventually, you need to know,
and they need to know. But I have come to realize that the
prospective employee also deserves a measure of privacy and
an even larger measure of respect. Respect is displayed by
attitude towards others and your professionalism in writing
emails and in presenting the facts about yourself, not by your
email address. At least, that's how it seems to me.
Jeff
