世論 What Japan Thinks

iShare recently conducted a rather interesting survey into email addresses on CVs (résumés), which produced the rather suprising result that email addresses were not that popular.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 22nd of January 2010 497 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 58.8% of the sample were male, 33.2% in their twenties, 30.4% in their thirties, and 36.4% in their forties.

In Q1SQ3, the type of free provider used makes a different; I would give bonus points to someone using Gmail, for instance, but a Hotmail or AOL address would be immediately round-filed!

Research results

Q1: Have you ever written a CV for a job application? (Sample size=497)

	All	Male N=292	Female N=205
Yes (to SQ1)	72.4%	68.8%	77.6%
No	27.6%	31.2%	22.4%

Q1SQ1A: When writing a CV for a job application, have you ever included an email address? (Sample size=360)

	All	Male N=201	Female N=159
Yes, always (to SQ2)	16.7%	21.4%	10.7%
Yes, usually (to SQ2)	13.1%	13.9%	11.9%
Yes, sometimes (to SQ2)	11.4%	11.4%	11.3%
No, never	58.9%	53.2%	66.0%

Q1SQ1B: When writing a CV for a job application, have you ever included an email address? (Sample size=360, by age)

	All	Twenties N=108	Thirties N=117
Forties N=135	Yes, always (to SQ2)	16.7%	22.2%
12.8%	15.6%	Yes, usually (to SQ2)	13.1%
15.7%	12.0%	11.9%	Yes, sometimes (to SQ2)
11.4%	17.6%	10.3%	7.4%
No, never	58.9%	44.4%	65.0%
65.2%

Note that due to the low degree of job-switching in the workforce, many of those in their thirties and forties may not have applied for a job since they left education.

Q1SQ2: Which kind of email address have you included the most? (Sample size=148)

	All	Male N=94	Female N=54
Computer email address (to SQ3)	92.6%	92.6%	92.6%
Mobile phone email address	3.4%	2.1%	5.6%
Most often include both (to SQ3)	4.1%	5.3%	1.9%

Q1SQ3: Which kind of computer email address have you included the most? (Sample size=143)

	All	Male N=92	Female N=51
Free email service address	49.0%	43.5%	58.8%
Provider-supplied address	36.4%	38.0%	33.3%
Other	14.7%	18.5%	7.8%

Q2: If you were working in personel for a company, looking at it from that viewpoint do you think it is necessary to record an email address on an CV? (Sample size=497)

	All	Male N=292	Female N=205
Definitely necessary	7.2%	9.9%	3.4%
Think it necessary	40.0%	40.8%	39.0%
Think it unnecessary	35.4%	31.5%	41.0%
Not necessary at all	17.3%	17.8%	16.6%

Even for those who always wrote email addresses on CVs, 15% thought it unnecessary. Some of the reasons cited for it being necessary was as a convenient means to contact and advertising one’s IT skill or business manners. For it being unnecessary, people felt a telephone was sufficient, it was an imposition to ask for such personal information, and email was inappropriate or bad manners.