Ask HN: Do you judge/profile people based on their email address? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do you judge/profile people based on their email address?

3 pointsgnicholas5 comments

I don't treat friends differently based on their email address (though I may ask them at some point why they use a less-common provider). In dealing with customers, I note when someone uses a provider that is more common among less tech-savvy folks (AOL, hotmail), but if anything I treat them nicer (explain in more detail).

I'm sure other people have different experiences based on their age (I'm mid-30s) and their location (I understand Hotmail was the norm in many countries, though it never was in the US).

What leads you to +1 or -1? Has profiling ever led to particularly good or bad results (properly identified or mistakenly pigeon-holed someone)?

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If I was hiring I would notice lack of professionalism if your email was something like hot_chick999@whatever.whatever - I would not distinguish between hot_chick999@hotmail.com or hot_chick999@gmail.com

As I would not pay attention at all if your email was name.surname@whatever.whatever, even if it was totally foreign domain/email provider (actually I would probably note strange email provider and that would be in plus)

I wouldn't because it's no different from judging a person by their favourite colour. Who do you hire: a person with a sane email address or a person who has the skills you need? Are you going to admire their email every day? Or do you need to have that person to do their job?

Curious—so if a dev applied for a job and had an AOL email address as their primary, would you find that odd? Certainly their choice of email—which they use many times every day—says more about them than what their favorite color is.

For example, it might say that they are security-conscious and don't trust Google/gmail. Or it might indicate that they take pride in being contrarian. So it could reveal something about the character/personality of the individual.

For the record, the question was whether we notice email addresses and have any sort of prejudices based on them. Hopefully none of us ends up making important decisions (hiring) based on choice of email provider!

My dad got judged for not having a gmail.com address

  Acquaintance: can I have your email address please?
  My dad: firstname@lastname.net
  Acquaintance: errm, whaat! you don't have gmail??

Without going into specifics, yes.

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