ResumeWriting.com

Having spent the better part of two decades helping people land new jobs, I sometimes think I’ve seen (or thought of) it all. But just this weekend, a new job search tip presented itself that I’m sorry to say I’d never thought of before.

What happened was, I had to call a client back to go over some final tweaks to their resume. The client wasn’t available, so I got his voicemail. To my surprise, the voicemail seemed to address me, and his job search, directly. I’ll paraphrase what it said (obviously changing some details for the sake of privacy):

Hello, this is John C. Doe, Project Engineer. I thank you for contacting me about a possible opening at your firm. I’m eager to speak with you and tell you more about my 20 plus years of project management experience. You’ve reached me at 555-555-5555, but you can also try my home number which is 555-555-5555. I look forward to speaking with you and learning more about your team.

Obviously, this message was more than the usual “I’m not here, leave a message” greeting most of us leave on our voicemails. When I finally got the client on the phone, I asked him why he had recorded a special voicemail just for his job search.

“I figure that’s the first real interaction I’d have with an employer,” he told me. “I wanted to make sure my first impression to the employer would be as professional as we’re making this resume. I’m sort of thinking of my voicemail greeting as a supplementary resume.”

Your Voicemail As Professional As Your Resume

This was so blatantly and obviously true, I’m embarrassed to say it had never occurred to me before. I spend all day every day helping tweak people’s resumes to make a solid, professional first impression. And yet, I had never thought to ALSO advise them to do the same with their voicemail. But think about it, that’s what you’re hoping your resume will do for you: get you that call back asking you to set up an interview. The voicemail message might very well be the first time you interact with your future employer directly. You should at least take some time to make sure the impression is a good one.

I’ve spoken before about how you want a professional email address on your resume, not something like sexxymamma51@aol.com that might be embarrassing. In the same way, you don’t want your voicemail to simply be “WAAAZZZUP!?”

Here are some tips for making sure your voicemail greeting complements and even supplements your resume:

• Record a new voicemail greeting. Do it in a quiet, calm place, so you can replace that garbled greeting you recorded at the Sprint store when you first picked up your phone. Use a headset if that makes the recording clearer.
• Make sure to include your full name in the greeting so the employer knows they’ve reached the person they intended.
• Make sure to repeat your phone number for the same reason.
• You could be like John Doe in the above example and record a special greeting that explicitly references your job search. If you do, keep it simple and maybe grab a tag line or two from your resume summary.
• Consider offering a secondary contact method like John did when he mentioned his home number. I’d even consider putting my email address in there.
• Be gracious, eager and thankful. Assure them that you’ll be in contact promptly, and then make sure you make good on that promise!