My finest resume tip … Give some thought to the shelf-life with the e-mail handle you checklist on your resume. School college students – Ah, that .edu email handle. It’s nice when you are in school, but 6 months or a year after graduation, you may find it no longer works. While this doesn’t matter prior to graduation, you may find you miss a few golden opportunities down the road. Resumes tend to resurface. A recruiter may find an outdated resume posted on a job board or sitting on a stagnant home page. I’ve played that “where are they now?” game many times when I’ve run across a 2 – 3 year old resume of a former student. The problem? I don’t know how to get in touch with them. The phone number and mailing address dates back to school, and the e-mail handle no longer works. So, pupils, my advice is to checklist your .edu address along with another standard email deal with (hotmail, gmail, yahoo, etc) you plan to hang onto and check periodically down the road. You never know what interesting opportunities await you in the future. Experienced jobseekers – Take my .edu argument and apply it your work e mail deal with. A big chunk of experienced people submit their resumes using their work e mail deal with. Two problems: 1) Just like in the “where are they now game?,” work email addresses deactivate as soon as you change jobs … and 2) many recruiters and hiring managers will tell you they find it unethical for an applicant to list their work e-mail address on a resume. You are job seeking on a current employer’s dime and time – hmmm, shady? Plus, current employers have the right to see what you are up to on their email domain ... probably a can of worms you don't want to open. Personally, as a recruiter,
Windows 7 Home Premium, I cared little about argument 2, as I don’t believe there is necessarily malicious intent by the employee who lists a work e-mail address – but I believe I may be in minority on this one. Be aware this perception is out there. Like I suggested below, stick with a generic (and professional sounding … no HotGirl1975 handles ;-) email handle you plan to keep around for a while. gretchen