I actually just referred a potential client to her, but just as easily could have deleted her message because I initially had no idea who the sender was.Įxpect some misunderstandings.
I was mystified why this stranger was emailing me until I realized it was someone I’d worked with several years ago, who had gotten married and changed her name in the interim. But what she hadn’t done was the previous step: notify us about her name change.
I wanted to update you on a recent change in my career path.” She – correctly – made sure to notify everyone she knew that she was launching a new consulting venture. A few weeks ago, I received an email message from a woman that began, “I hope this message finds you doing well. Send an email blast to your existing contacts to let them know about the switch otherwise, only close contacts will know about it from conversations with you and the rest of the world will be in the dark. If you’re planning to change your name, you have to make that explicit. Here are the steps to take.Īnnounce the change.
If you do decide to change your name, it’s especially critical to build up a robust online portfolio and signal your professional seriousness out of the gate. There are also real financial considerations at stake, according to the study: “A job applicant who took her partner’s name, in comparison with one with her own name, was less likely to be hired for a job” and received nearly $500 less per month in salary. According to the Dutch study, women who kept their names were viewed as “less caring, more independent, more ambitious, more intelligent, and more competent” (apparently a variant of the “ likeability conundrum” discussed by Harvard Business School professor Amy Cuddy and others). On the other hand, there may also be a branding penalty associated with changing one’s name. Though Clinton’s campaign denied any specific strategic intent, they may have been aware of 2010 Dutch study that revealed “A woman who took her partner’s name … was judged as more caring” than one who did not. The media has eagerly followed Hillary Clinton’s changing appellations and decision, during the 2008 presidential campaign, to drop the “Rodham” that had accompanied her professionally for decades. Some researchers speculate that women may now be rebelling against the “hassle” of hyphenated names or differing last names that they saw growing up.īut the issues aren’t just logistical there are also serious branding implications.
While 23% of brides in the 1990s kept their maiden names, by 2011, it was down to 8%, with 86% taking their husband’s name and 6% hyphenating or creating a new variation. One typical example is journalist Julie Donnelly, who told me that because she’d written under that name for more than a decade, “I always planned to retain my original byline,” even after marriage.īut overall, an increasing number of women are changing their names when they wed. Studies have shown that the more professionally established the bride, the more likely she is to retain her own name.
In the digital era, how can you successfully rebrand yourself after a name change? Instead of being haunted by the past, you’re now a ghost, lacking the typical identifiers of professional credibility (blog posts, mentions in the media, articles you’ve published, and so on).
But if you decide to change your name – often due to marriage or divorce – a new problem results. The hallmark of the digital era is the past you can never erase: middle school friends can find you in an instant on Facebook, and legions of young professionals have sweated over which college photos the HR department might stumble across.