In the real world, your high school email address isn’t going to cut it. Even if “baseballbro25@aim.com” serves as a nostalgic reminder of your peak athletic years, it will stand out on your resume and prompt any recruiter or hiring manager to delete it.

However, there is likely at least one person with the same name as you, so the email address with just your first and last name has most likely already been taken.

A professional email address, on the other hand, isn’t limited to just your first and last name. There are numerous approaches you can take to select one that any recruiter or hiring manager would consider professional.

Select an email host.

When you first start your business, you’ll need to buy a domain name and a hosting account.

Looking for a hosting package that includes business email is one way to get a business email address. Although it is usually an extra cost, many users prefer to set up their business email in this manner due to the ease of use.

If you choose this method of creating a business email, you must first go to your hosting site and configure your email. Typically, this entails going to your hosting site’s “Email” section and selecting an email address (tips and examples below).

However, another option for configuring email is to use G-Suite instead of your hosting platform (this is what we do at HubSpot). Google will walk you through the steps, so it’s usually as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Integrate your email with an email client.

Following that, if you chose to host your email through your hosting platform, you’ll need to link your email address to an email client.

Log in to your hosting platform, navigate to the “Email” section, and look for a button labeled “Set up Mail Client” or something along those lines.

This will guide you through the process of configuring your email with Outlook, Gmail, or any other mail app.

Integrate your email with your marketing automation platform.

Finally, make certain that your marketing automation platform has access to your email.

You can do this with HubSpot by following these steps.

This usually entails going to your settings and looking for a “Domains” or “Email Sending” button.

When you locate this in your automation software, it should guide you through the process of connecting your email.

Now that you know how to set up your business email, let’s go over some naming convention ideas and examples to help you decide.