Attention Recruiters

Attention Recruiters: You have 30 seconds to impress me with your proposal in my voicemail box. Please use them wisely. Here are a few tips.

At least make sure to clearly enunciate the name of your company. You must say that name a hundred times a day. At least this once please make sure it is intelligible! Unfortunately 80% of the calls I've received thus far have failed at this simple task.

I will Google you. I don't care what your phone number is. I want your web site and company name (see above). I want to know what cool projects you're working on. I want to know what your work environment is like. Tell me something interesting besides the generic company spiel. Entice me to call back.

Don't call me about "an exciting opportunity in [my] field." Where did you get my phone number? I don't want to hear from you unless you know at least something about who I am. Prove to me that you are not just randomly dialing your way through the company directory. If someone recommended me please tell me who did. I have a blog and I actively participate in several open source communities. You should be able to learn something about me.

If you can do this, I might just call you back...

Edit: I've been receiving unsolicited calls from recruiters on my office voicemail. So far only one has managed to pique my interest. Even so, the recruiter said: "We're a company of 300 people but we still feel like a startup.". What? You mean chaotic and disorganized but too large for me to get a valuable equity stake? C'mon...