The restaurant recruiters, managers and owners you send your information to are forming an image and opinion from everything they see about you, from the content, spelling and grammar in your cover letter and resume, to the email address you use to send it.
If you send your resume from something like,
“frothingatthemouth@somedomain.com“, “Budweiserchef@somedomain.com“, “cokehead@somedomain.com” or “Cookbunny@somedomain.com” (unfortunately, these are not invented – and there are worse), the perception of you as a hospitality professional could be diminished to some degree.
The time to let your personality express its self is at the interview, not in your initial communications or in your email address.
Think about it and then go get yourself real email address for your job search such as, “chefjohndoe@somedomain.com“, “janedoegeneralmanager@somedomain.com“, etc.
Though it seems that all the good email addresses have been taken with most big email services (AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.), Google’s new free “Gmail” email service offers you the opportunity to get yourself a serious address once again. Whether you are a Chef or Manager, take advantage of this or one of the low cost ($5-$10/yr) email services out there to maintain and maximize your image as a hospitality professional.
We’d like to say THANKS! to Jo Lynne Lockley of Chefs Professional Agency for contributing this tip.