Unless you’ve been holed up in some cave for the last twenty years or so, what I am about to tell you certainly won’t come as much of a surprise: It is virtually impossible to reach a real “live” person at most businesses today. Instead, call into almost any company today—unless the company is trying to sell you something!—and you will be greeted by the ubiquitous, dreaded “voice mail”!
Voice mail indeed has become the new “gatekeeper” for businesses!
As a job seeker, encountering voice mail system after voice mail system when telephone prospecting during a job search simply adds unnecessarily to an exercise that is already challenging enough. Well, take heart because, just as there are effective ways to get around the traditional real “live” gatekeepers and reach out to a hiring manager, there are also effective ways to circumvent this new electronic gatekeeper (or at least learn to use it to your advantage) and accomplish that, too. What’s more, if you follow the approach I recommend in this article, you stand to TRIPLE the response rate to your voice mail!
You will recall in the previous article in this seven-article series (“How Can YOU be DIFFERENT from Other Job Seekers?”) how vital it is for you to position yourself as, and be perceived as being, “different” from other job seekers. This same principle, of course, applies when it comes to effectively using voice mail when job prospecting via telephone.
The 'Typical' Voice Mail Message Left by Job Seekers
Obviously, before you need concern yourself too much about increasing response rate to your voice mail messages, you must first ensure that you have a powerful, compelling message to leave in the first place! So let me spend just a little time here on that integral component of telephone prospecting.
The voice mail message “typical” job seekers leave when they (inevitably!) encounter a voice mail system during job prospecting generally runs along these lines:
Unfortunately, job seekers who leave this type of message almost always are simply wasting their time and energy. Hiring managers, human resource professionals and recruiters receive dozens and dozens of voice mail messages just like this each and every business day. Because such messages are generally perceived as being timid, self serving, mundane, routine and limp (to cite just a few of the applicable adjectives!) in their approach and delivery, rarely, if ever, do such messages elicit any kind of response, favorable or otherwise!
A voice mail message that results in a response about half the time is this one, sometimes known as the “advice” or “project” message:
Notice that this message is short, to the point and is intended to arouse at least some curiosity in the hiring manager’s mind. Does it work every single time? Of course not, nothing does. But it works often enough to seriously consider using it!
Three 'Easy' Steps to TRIPLING Voice Mail Response
Once you have crafted a compelling, powerful voice mail message,* use this approach to not only ensure that your voice mails will actually elicit a response, but also, to TRIPLE the response rate to your voice mails:
Step One
Step Two
Step Three
Recent studies indicate that businesspeople normally respond to voice mail messages within THREE days, if they respond at all, that is. On the other hand, these same studies indicate that most businesspeople will respond to email messages within ONE day, again of course, if they respond at all. So, following up a well-crafted and well-delivered voice mail with an equally well-crafted email has been shown to double response rate. However, sending an email two to three days before making the call and leaving a voice mail message, and then following up with another email, if you again get voice mail when calling, can actually TRIPLE your response rate!
(Of course this approach assumes that you are going to get voice mail each and every time you place a call to a hiring manager, not an unrealistic assumption. What do you do if you actually encounter a real “live” person on the other end of the phone? Well, that’s a topic for another discussion, and it is of course covered thoroughly in “Headhunter” Hiring Secrets!)
Also, as I am sure you can easily infer, it’s not just the method that is outlined in this article that results in the increased response rate to the voice mail messages you leave when telephone prospecting. The actual components of this approach are what make it work, i.e., the powerful, effective voice mail scripts and the properly crafted, effective emails used in conjunction with the approach.
So, if the response you are currently getting (if any!) to the voice mail messages you are leaving for targeted hiring managers is, shall we say, “lackluster,” then you at least owe it to yourself to further explore the approach outlined in this article, to learn how to craft powerful voice mail messages, to learn how to craft powerful emails that will get the job done! Or, to put it another way, learn how to go about getting the job that you seek!
Skip Freeman, author of "Headhunter" Hiring Secrets: The Rules of the Hiring Game Have
Changed . . . Forever!, has successfully completed more than 300 executive search assignments in just seven years. Specializing in the placement of sales, engineering, manufacturing and R&D professionals in industry, he has developed powerful techniques that help companies hire the best and help the best get hired.
A distinguished graduate of the United States Military Academy, West Point, he is a lifelong student of leadership, people and the principles of success. While serving in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Chemical Corps, he also earned a Master of Science degree in Organic Chemistry from The Georgia Institute of Technology and a Master of Business Administration degree in Marketing from Long Island University.
