Does your domain matter in a job search?

From Infoworld, March 12, 2009...

Dear Bob ...Recently, a friend of mine said that, when job-hunting, she didn't want to use a Gmail account because she was concerned about how potential employers would view it.

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The subject is personal branding - how you want a hiring manager to think about you. As professional markets know, even small inconsistencies can damage a brand, so it's worth thinking about every element of the material you make visible to a prospective employer.

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For a technical IT position, I would say that an AOL address probably conveys the wrong image -- AOL's core customers are non-technical consumers. Speaking unscientifically, I'd think that of the major services, the order would look like this, from least desirable to best image-enhancer:

1. AOL
2. Hotmail
3. Yahoo mail and Gmail (tie)
4. Local broadband ISPs
5. Personal/family e-mail domain.

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