Should You Hire [email protected]?: An Analysis of Job Applicants\u27 Email Addresses and their Scores on Pre-Employment Assessments

In an age where electronic mail is displacing traditional mail, email addresses are functioning as names, and names can be the basis of first impressions. What can be said about someone who applies for a job using an inappropriate email address (i.e. [email protected])? The aim of this study was to determine if there are differences in job qualifications (as determined by pre-employment tests) between individuals who use appropriate email addresses to apply for jobs and individuals who use inappropriate email addresses. This study analyzed applicant email addresses in two ways. First, subject matter experts (SMEs) subjectively rated each email address for appropriateness. Second, the SMEs coded each email for content based on whether the address contained antisocial/deviant themes or otherwise unprofessional themes. I found those who use Appropriate email addresses score higher than those who do not use Appropriate email addresses on the pre-employment measures of cognitive ability, conscientiousness, professionalism, work-related experience and overall score. Additionally, I found individuals who did not use either antisocial/deviant or otherwise unprofessional email addresses scored higher on each of the pre-employment tests with the exception of cognitive ability. Implications, limitations and ideas for future research are addressed as well

Should You Hire [email protected]?

When a person applies for a job online, one of the first things a recruiter learns about the applicant is the applicant’s e-mail address. So what might a recruiter think about an applicant who refers to himself as DemonSeed420@ mail.com or [email protected]? That is, would job applicants with unprofessional e-mail addresses behave less professionally than applicants with more appropriate addresses? Will [email protected] be as unstable as she claims to be? Should an employer take a chance on [email protected]? Managers often make snap judgments about job candidates (Howard & Ferris, 1996) and do so using whatever information is available to them including the candidate’s smile, clothing, handshake, small talk (Barrick, Swider & Stewart, 2010), or name. For instance, Bertrand and Mullainathan (2004) mailed resumés in response to help wanted advertisements in Boston and Chicago. The researchers mailed identical resumés, manipulating only the first name of the applicants to be either a stereotypically “White” name or a stereotypically “African-American” name. Across all industries, occupations, and employer sizes, resumés with “White” names (e.g., Greg, Brad, Kristen, and Allison) received 50% more callbacks than did resumes with “African-American” names (e.g., Darnell, Jermaine, Latoya, and Tanisha). E-mail addresses function like names but e-mail addresses may have a greater potential to shape impressions than a given and/or family name because they can reflect more than gender and ethnicity. For example, e-mail addresses can imply skills ([email protected]), political affiliation (BlueDem@ mail.com), interests ([email protected]), and values ([email protected]). In a study about the relationship between e-mail addresses and personality traits, Back, Schmukle, and Egloff (2008) asked 600 university students to complete the Big Five Inventory. The researchers then gave the students’ e-mail addresses to a group of judges and asked the judges to guess how each student would score on the Big Five. The authors found that the judges were able to guess how the students scored on Openness and Conscientiousness. For example, judges guessed that students with addresses like [email protected] and [email protected] would score low on Conscientiousness, and they were right. Like Back and her colleagues, we tested the relationship between e-mail address and personality, but we also wanted to know if an address could tell us something about an applicant’s job qualifications. More specifically, we asked if candidates with addresses that contained references to sex, antisocial behavior, and deviant interests were less intelligent, conscientious, professional, and experienced than applicants without these types of references. We also asked if candidates with nondeviant but otherwise nonprofessional addresses including cutesy, geeky, and immature addresses were less qualified than candidates with more professional addresses