It never ceases to amaze me what people have on their answering machines. This past week alone, I heard three voice messages of people who really need to change their approach. Two of the voice messages said “please hold on while you enjoy this music”, followed by loud and unprofessional sounding songs. The other voice message sounded like someone saying “hello”, then “what”, they “sorry I’m not here”. I told these people that if they wanted to be taken seriously, they need to have a standard, professionally sounding voice message, because you never know who is going to call you.
Secondly, I have in the past several years seen more email addresses than not that have some type of ridiculous, unprofessional sound them, and in many cases these emails were used on people’s resumes!
To give you an idea of what I mean about these email addresses without implicating those who have them, no email should contain sexually suggestive comments, sports affiliations, or other descriptors that will cause employers to not take you seriously.
Keep your email address simple, like your first and last name @(insertemailprovider).com. Or use your initials and your last name, or some combo of both.
