Over the past year, I have read several admissions/proclamations/boasts by people who note the they would never hire someone who has an AOL email address. [For the record, I do not have one.]
Apparently, they believe such an address denotes a lack of hipness or creativity and reveals a certain stodginess. Based on my unscientific review of friends who have those addresses, I can say that conclusion doesn't hold up. One or two might be somewhat cautious or formal, but all of the others are pretty bold operators and a few are very unconventional. Perhaps having an AOL address is their way of protesting the accepted forms of hip and they see it as so far out it's in.
Anyway, have you encountered or practiced this bias? Looking over your own circle of acquaintances, are there any who use an AOL address and don't fit the negative stereotype?
[Update: Check out Eclecticity.]
5 comments:
I did a quick check of my contacts and found that 20 had aol addresses. CEO of a national brand, attorney, detective, college admissions director, safety officer, regional manager, area supervisors, small business owners, and the other half are folks that would better match the stereotype. The common factor from my list is that the AOL address holders tend to need more technical support than others.
Not sure what stereotype I fit in, but one of my two e-mail accounts is with AOL. Maybe I'm too lazy to change it. S
I don't believe in bias by web address. I use a Gmail address for most things, although I do have a vanity address at futurelawyer.com.
People who look at externals for value are shallow and vain.
I don't particularly notice the @aol.com unless it's paired with a company web address that doesn't match. "Visit me at www.mytotallyawesomewebsite.com or email me at thisisme@aol.com." If the two domains don't match, that suggests an amature. Hotmail and Yahoo accounts suggest similarly
Even I don’t have an AOL, address. I mostly use Gmail and Yahoo. I wonder what the hype and bias is all about. But this doesn’t stop people from signing up with AOL. In my office about 33 of them have an account with it!!!
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