Recruiters make hundreds of calls each week. During the course of any given day, we may have more conversations with voicemail systems than we do with actual people. We leave a lot of messages.

It’s lonely sometimes.

Similar to the phone, we also send hundreds of emails. All these calls and emails are to many people we’ve never met or talked with before and all we are trying to do is get a response. We hope our emails get replies and our voicemails result in return calls.

There’s literally hundreds of books, webinars, and classes on the topic of effective voicemail message techniques or on how to write winning emails. I’ve tried many of them myself, looking for a better mousetrap. Most feel a little contrived or manipulative. Some are just plain cheesy. Some work marginally better than others. But none work well enough.

So here’s the big question. If you receive a voicemail or an email from a recruiter you don’t know, what would motivate you to respond?

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