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IT recruiters sometimes see candidates make mistakes that are really easy to avoid in their search for IT jobs.  One area IT recruiting agencies see candidates make small, avoidable mistakes is with their email.  Here are a few things not to do when you’re working with IT staffing agencies to find your next role.

Don’t use an email address that is obscene or unprofessional. When you are meeting technical recruiters and potential employers, all you have to represent yourself is your resume, your calls or meetings with them, and your emails with them.  This means how you present yourself in these limited instances is all the more important for landing a great role.  If you have an email address that’s not professional or is offensive or obscene, it’s worth creating a new one to use just for your job search.  You don’t want to lose out on job opportunities simply because your email address offended an employer or IT recruiter—especially when a new, professional email address would be free and quick to create.

Don’t use somebody else’s email address or have somebody else email your materials on your behalf. Especially if an email address is clearly not yours or is clearly a joint email address, it looks far, far less professional to IT recruiting companies and possible employers.  Again, email addresses are free and quick to set up.  It doesn’t say that you’re taking your job search seriously if you can’t take the time to set up your own, personal, professional email account to use for your IT job search.  It also says that you’re not a serious candidate who understands professional norms when you rely on somebody else to send your materials to employers or IT staffing firms.

Don’t use your college email address after you graduate (unless you went to a prestigious or Ivy League school). This could directly damage how potential employers or IT staffing companies see you.  Particularly when you’re no longer a recent graduate of your school, it’s time to distance yourself from your college or university a bit.  You want to present yourself as professional with experience in the working world.  Having a college email address leads people to assume that you might still be a student—or weren’t one too long ago.  Even if neither is true, this again suggests you are aren’t detail-oriented and/or taking your job search seriously.  Take the five minutes to create a new, professional email address.  It will be well worth it when you land a great new IT job!  (Note that Ivy League graduates are usually the exception to this rule.  People who wen to an Ivy League school will often continue to use their college or university email address long into their careers.)