What’s Your Name?

Your name is pretty important. It’s how people know you’re you, and not someone else. And since, nowadays, we often introduce ourselves via email, your name in your email is very important, too.

I received an email from a reader who shall remain nameless because… I have no idea what their name is. Their email address looked like a series of words and numbers created by a random password generator. This is a bad idea, because it can look like spam. Would you open an email from 7NopeApples@gmail.com?

What’s worse, the name they gave Gmail as their real name obviously wasn’t. It was along the lines of “Sole Safe.” I tried to give the benefit of the doubt; maybe his name is “Sol,” and this is some kind of pun?

Nope! After the (long) email, the salutation read “Thank you, Eff.”

So, to summarize, I’ve been given three “names,” none of which are actual names.

If you want people to reply to your email (and if you’re looking for a job, I’m sure you do), then you really, really, really want them to know who you are.

I know not everyone can get their name as their email address. If you have a super common name like me, you’ll have difficulty getting your name in your email address. That’s okay, but make sure your real name is used in the profile.

Another good idea is to create a professional signature line at the end of every email. It’s really easy to setup in Gmail, and probably most other mail clients, too. Keep it simple, though: name, phone number… and that’s it.

What I’m getting at is, make sure the recipient knows who you are. At the most basic level, that means you need to make sure your name in your email.