One of my clients has a couple of team members who STILL use an AOL email address. Others use Gmail but none were using an @company email when I was hired.

A few years ago at PSBJ I taught a workshop with a resume coach. One thing she said was that if you have an AOL email address on your resume, she’s probably going to stop reading your resume. SERIOUSLY. We judge people based on their email address. Don’t lie, you do it too. Sure you’re a better person than me, most people are. When your job hunting have a REAL email address. firstname.lastname@XYZ.com is ideal, or some combo of that-my personal email has my middle initial in it. If you work for a company, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be using an @company email address.

As a company owner here’s WHY you need to have employees using a company email address:

1. They quit and take all your clients with their gmail account

2. They DIE and no one knows their email PW (it happens, you never know)

3. If I contact a company via their website and yourmom85@aol.com replies to me, I’m going to take my business to mom@company.com.

4. they die and no one knows who to contact to get access to their email account

You don’t think it’s costing you business, but you’d be surprised at how petty people are. It’s unprofessional, trust me.

My client is now transitioning to company email accounts, but it’s a much slower process than expected, and I have one person who’s refusing and bothered I’m asking them to look professional. It’s an uphill battle, so start off your company on the right foot.