Hi, Taylor Maurer here, Senior Managing Partner with Heavy Civil Resource Consultants. Back with another two-minute Tuesday tip of the week and this week we’re looking at is your voicemail keeping you from professional opportunities or lack thereof?
A lot of people don’t put a lot of thought into their voicemails, but here is why you should. If somebody’s reaching out to you for a professional opportunity, they want to a know that they’re getting in touch with the right person, they want to feel like they that person is professional and see they want to be able to leave a message so that you’ll give them a call back. So here are some things to avoid with your voicemail. Two factors. One is the message and we’ll get to that in just a second. Secondly is a full mailbox or mailbox that is not set up. Obviously if somebody cannot leave you a message, they can’t leave you a message, so that could keep you from a professional opportunity right then and there.
Secondly, a potential employer may think that if you have a full mailbox or you haven’t set up your mailbox that you’re too lazy or can’t stay on top of things to clear out your voicemails. They may think of you as a potential employee and say, well, hey, I need to call John about this issue. And their impression before they’ve even hired you is they’re not going to be able to leave you a message or get in touch with you about maybe an issue that’s pretty significant that that needs to be dealt with. So, stay on top of your voice, of your inbox, your voicemail inbox. Make sure you clear it out so that people can leave you voicemails and it does not get full. Secondly, make sure you do set it up, it’s pretty simple. And then on to the second part, your message. You always want to leave a professional personalized message. If you don’t have a personalized message, you may get something like this. When somebody listens to that, they have a couple thoughts of potential. Employer may have a couple thoughts. One is this the correct telephone number for this person? Have they changed phones? It will likely discourage them from leaving a message to some degree where they may not. So you want to have that personalized message.
You also want to make it professional. Don’t have a message like hey this is John, I’m too busy to talk to you. You want to make your voicemail welcoming and make it feel like you are really disappointed that you can’t talk to this person right now, and that you will call them back. You do want your voicemails to be fairly short and to the point, though, so don’t drag on too much. But that is going to set you up for success in regards to making sure that your voicemail isn’t keeping you from professional opportunities.
