News Flash – Your high school email address won’t cut it in the real world. Even if baseballbro25@aim.com serves as a nostalgic reminder of your top athletic years, it will look like a thorn in your side on your resume and urge any recruiter or hiring manager to click delete.
That said, there is likely at least one person who has the same name as you, so the email address with just your first and last name is most likely taken by now.
Fortunately, a professional email address isn’t limited to just your first and last name. There are many ways to choose one that any recruiter or hiring manager would consider professional.
How to create a business email address
- Choose your email host.
- Connect your email to an email client.
- Connect your email to your marketing automation software.
1. Choose your email host.
The first time you start your business, purchase a domain and hosting site.
One way to create a work email address is to find the hosting plan that contains work emails. There is usually an additional cost to this, but many users choose to set up their business email this way because of its simplicity.
If you choose this way of composing a business email, you 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 selecting an email (tips and examples below).
Another way to set up email is to use G-Suite instead of your hosting platform (that’s 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 e-mail to an e-mail client.
If you want to host your email through your hosting platform, you’ll need to connect your email address to an email client.
To do this, log into your hosting platform, go to the “Email” section and find a button that says “Set Up Mail Client” or something similar.
This will walk you through the process of setting up your email using Outlook, Gmail, or any email app.
3. Connect your email to your marketing automation software.
After all, you want to make sure that your marketing automation platform has access to your email.
To do this with HubSpot, you can follow these instructions.
Typically this process involves going into your settings and looking for a Domains or Send Email button.
Once you find 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 look at a few 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 name + last name = cchi@domain.com
- First name + 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 job, your city or your 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 a challenge, especially since you can’t spice it up as you can with your own. As you can see, there are still many ways to choose a strong professional email address and hopefully we have helped you find one.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in October 2018 and has been updated for completeness.
