An "unconventional" email address can definitely be held against you when it comes to applying for a job. It may seem unfair, but it's no more unusual than employers making judgments about applicants based on other superficial criteria, like, showing up for an interview with a dozen facial piercing or in t-shirt and jeans.

An oddball email address may raise red flags. A recruiter named Joe told his own story, "It looks like we've got a great candidate for customer service here," said Joe. "The only problem is, this person's email address makes me wonder about her: meananddirty@hotmail.com. It certainly conjured up an image, but not the one we can associate with friendly, efficient customer service.

"I have to be ME..." you may argue. "If employers can't accept me the way I am I don't want to work with them either." You can weed out employers that way if you want to. In fact, even at fabjob.com, a website of how-to information that assists fabulous people, they still offers advice that people should be careful with email address. For example, if your dream is to become a celebrity personal assistant, and your email address is celebstalker@hotmail.com, you likely will not be as successful as someone whose email address is organized@assistant.com.

If you're not sure what kind of message your email address conveys, get feedback from friends and even some employers, if you can. Find out what messages your email address is communicating.

If your email address is one that employers may judge negatively, consider getting another, more professional sounding address through a free email service. Most employers would almost certainly look more favorably on a basic email address using your name, such as ChrisSmith@yahoo.com, than an address such as worksucks@email.com.

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