News flash -- your email address from high school won’t cut it in the real world. Even if “baseballbro25@aim.com” serves as a nostalgic reminder for your peak athletic years, it’ll look like an eyesore on your resume and prompt any recruiter or hiring manager to press delete.
That said, there’s probably at least one person who has the same name as you, so the email address with just your first and last name has most likely been taken by now.
Fortunately, though, a professional email address isn’t limited to just your first and last name. There are plenty of ways you can choose one that any recruiter or hiring manager would consider professional.1. Choose your email host.
When you first get started with your business, you're going to purchase a domain and hosting site.
One way to create a business email address is to look for the hosting package that includes business email. It's usually an additional cost, but many users choose to set up their business email this way because of the ease.
If you choose this way of creating a business email, you'll need to go to your hosting site and set up your email. Usually this means going to the "Email" section of your hosting site and choosing an email (tips and examples below).
However, another way to set up email is to go through G-Suite instead of your hosting platform (this is what we do at HubSpot). Google will walk you through this process, so it's usually as simple as 1, 2, 3.
2. Connect your email to an email client.
Next, if you chose to host your email through your hosting platform, you'll need to connect your email address to an email client.
To do this, you'll log in to your hosting platform, go to the "Email" section, and find a button that says "Set up Mail Client" or something to that affect.
This will walk you through the process of setting up your email with Outlook, Gmail, or any mail app.
3. Connect your email to your marketing automation software.
Finally, you'll want to make sure that your marketing automation platform has access to your email.
To do this with HubSpot, you can follow these instructions.
Usually, this process will include going to your settings and looking for a "Domains" or "Email Sending" button.
Once you've found this in your automation software, it should walk you through the process of connecting your email.
Now that you know how to set up your business email, let's review some ideas and examples to help you choose your naming conventions.
Professional Email Address Ideas and Examples
Combine your names.
- First name + last name = cliffordchi@domain.com
- First name . last name = clifford.chi@domain.com
- First name - last name = clifford-chi@domain.com
- First name . middle name . last name = clifford.douglas.chi@domain.com
- First name - middle name - last name = clifford-douglas-chi@domain.com
- First initial + last name = cchi@domain.com
- First initial + middle name + last name = cdouglaschi@domain.com
- First initial + middle initial +last name = cdchi@domain.com
Shorten your names.
- cliffchi@domain.com
- cliffdougchi@domain.com
- cliffdouglaschi@domain.com
- clifforddougchi@domain.com
Combine your name with your profession, city, or degree.
- cliffordchiwriter@domain.com
- cliffchiwriter@domain.com
- cchiwriter@domain.com
- cliffordchiboston@domain.com
- cliffchiboston@domain.com
- cchiboston@domain.com
- cliffordchimfa@domain.com
- cliffchimfa@domain.com
- cchimfa@domain.com
Surprisingly, choosing a professional email address can be quite challenging, especially since you can’t spice it up like you can with your personal one. But, as you can see, there are still plenty of ways for choosing a strong professional email address, and, hopefully, we helped you find one.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in October 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.