One in an occasional series on professionalism:

Creating voicemail greetings is becoming an ignored art.  Too often, we call a tutor and get, “The user has not set up their voicemail,” or a robot voice will invite you to leave a message for “404-xxx”, a phone number which leaves you guessing as to whether you have reached the right number.

Ideally, all our tutors will leave a professional voicemail message,

“Hello, you’ve reached <tutor name>. I’m sorry to have missed your call, please leave a message and I’ll get right back to you.”

Even better from our viewpoint but totally optional would be

“Hello, you’ve reached <tutor name> with In-Home Tutors. I’m sorry to have missed your call. Please leave a message and I’ll get right back to you.”

Avoid jokey greetings, they are unprofessional and even your friends will get bored with them really quickly.  A bad greeting can really hurt your chances with any recruiter or person contacting you for professional reasons (read this article).

It’s not hard to record a greeting, Typically, just call your voicemail and listen for the option to change your message. On my AT&T phone you get to the menu by pressing * then 4.

And while we are on the topic, do not let your voicemails build up. Speaking personally, there is nothing that drives me more crazy that a message that the user’s voicemail is full.  I am not saying that this would cause us to stop offering you tutoring assignments; it won’t. But yes, it does impact our enthusiasm for making you the first person we call.

Thanks for reading. Comments below are welcome.

Dennis Freeman