About Career Blog

Leaving the right message before the beep

While we're on the subject of how your choice of words affects potential employers' perception of you, we should also discuss voicemail messages. If you don't have a dedicated business line, recording a clean, clear, and concise voicemail message can save you a lot of grief. "Hi, you've reached (name) at (number). I can't come to the phone right now, so leave your name and number and I'll get back to you as soon as possible" will do the trick in most cases -- there isn't any need to get creative unless you're involved in a creative industry, and even then, care should be taken to assure that a caller knows who they've reached. I've been greeted by vague, obnoxious, incomprehensible, and non-existent voicemail messages countless times. Not only can these make it difficult for whoever is calling to get back to you, but, depending on the message's content, it may reflect poorly on you in other ways. Just keep it simple, and you'll keep everyone happy.

Feel free to leave responses after the beep.

Beeep.

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Posted by Brian on 6/20/2009 04:58:00 AM
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The Melancholy of Fart_Lord420@aol.com

When I was working as an independent media production contractor, I would network with potential clients and correspond with employers almost exclusively via e-mail. That's the nature of the business -- the movers and shakers' phone lines are perpetually tied up (or at least that's what they'd like you to think). In most cases, they had sensible email addresses along the lines of those described by Seymour in his last post.

Fart_Lord420@aol.com was not one of those cases.

I was introduced to the distinguished Mr. Fart Lord through an old client who would occasionally feed me leads. Apparently, he was an up-and-coming musician (what instruments he played remain a mystery to this day -- though beans, the musical fruit, seem a reasonable guess) looking for somebody to edit videos of his live performances. I reluctantly solicited this, shall we say...unfortunately-named individual, and was met with an unprofessional and uncouth response befitting a man who would deliberately present himself as a "fart lord." While he did express interest in my services, I declined him as a client for the following reasons:

1.) His email account name indicated that he loved farting and was probably perpetually baked.
2.) Assuming the hypotheses proposed in item #1 are true, he was probably on drugs when he composed that e-mail. And farting.
3.) Assuming the hypotheses proposed in items #1 and #2 are true, he wasn't worth dealing with in any capacity, professional or otherwise.
4.) His business e-mail address was "Fart_Lord420." Fart. Lord. Four. Twenty.

My position on e-mail usernames is that of almost everybody else in the professional world -- an immature, crude, incoherent, or otherwise inappropriate name is a likely indicator of an overall lack of decorum on the sender's end.

My tipster now screens email addresses before sending me leads.

Play it safe when it comes to choosing the name that will follow you through your professional career. A Fart_Lord by any other name, in this instance, will smell much sweeter.

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Posted by Brian on 6/20/2009 04:08:00 AM
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