If you're going to compete in the world of cyberspace with experienced job seekers, please take note: students often unknowingly advertise their entry level job seeker status via their e-mail address. The ".edu" extension hanging off the end of an e-mail screams out entry level.

There are several free Web-based e-mail services you can use instead. If you haven’t already done so, get signed up with Mail.com, Hotmail.com or Mail.Yahoo.com or one of the other free e-mail services. My preference is Mail.com, since you can choose among several domain name choices (including mail.com, email.com, iname.com, consultant.com, techie.com, usa.com and others) as well as having a higher likelihood of having your user name be accepted. The best user name is “first.last@domain.com” or, as an example:

brian.krueger@consultant.com

Using this format, which is the most common e-mail naming standard, will give you a more professional look when you communicate via e-mail. In addition, you can reserve using this e-mail address for job-search-only communication to keep it separate from your other e-mails. You can also change the standard signature to reflect your job search, including adding a URL for your online resume (if you have one).

Just make sure you consistently check your inbox at least once a day.

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