When you’re looking for a job in a market as competitive as this is, everything counts.

Your outbound voice mail message should sound professional: When prospective employers call, they don’t want to hear an outbound message sung by your children or barked by your dog. They’re off-put by messages that sound menacing, mysterious, seductive, poetic, funny, or just plain strange.

Simply put, employers want to know they’ve contacted the right person and that person conducts himself or herself as would a professional. For that reason and for the duration of your job search, identify yourself, and ask in-coming to callers to do the same, along with a message and call back numbers.

Your email address should look professional: Employers think twice before responding to an applicant’s email address that looks too cute for comfort (callmefluffy@xyz.com); that says more about the applicant than a boss wants to know (stilldrunk@plowedunder.com); or is so obscure one isn’t sure who’s most likely to read it (4637825ggjjtty@guesswho.com ) . Eliminate your prospective employer’s concerns by providing an email address that projects professionalism instead of party-hearty-ism.

It’s a bad idea to badmouth your former employer: If you want to turn a good interview into a bad outcome, talk negatively about your former employers. If you want to turn a bad direction into a better one, steer the conversation back to the high road by saying something like, “Rather than focus on what didn’t work, I’d like to focus on what did work and what I learned from the experience.”

The best explanations can sound defensive: If you explain a bad outcome by blaming forces outside your control (“They did it to me,” “I couldn’t help myself,” “I had no choice”) you sound helpless, naïve, or both. If you blame others and make yourself out to be the hero (“I was the only one with brains,” “I was the only one with courage,” “Everyone depended on me to get the job done”), you sound arrogant, clueless, or both. Here’s the deal: describe whatever difficult situation you experienced in terms of what you learned and how you can apply that learning going forward.

Confidence is cool:  Arrogance, not so hot. Arrogant applicants take all the credit and devalue the contributions of others. They project a scarcity mentality and resist sharing knowledge, power, and control. Confident applicants know what they do well and what they don’t. They have an abundance mentality that enables them to share credit with others without feeling diminished as a result. They invite, involve, reward, and empower others.

What you wear speaks louder than what you say: Your appearance makes an appearance before you have a chance to say a word. Because of that simple truth, employers are apt to make judgments about you that have nothing to do with your talent, skills or abilities. On the plus side, if you dress like a professional, an employer might think you’d perform like one, and conversely, if you look like you slept in a swamp, an employer might surmise that’s where you ought to seek employment.

What you say speaks louder than what you’ve done: You may have a great resume and accomplishments galore, but if you can’t summarize your strengths and apply what you know to what an employer needs, someone else will get the job.

Demonstrate energy, not lethargy: Employers want the people they hire to have the desire and the fire to get the job done. If both have gone out because you’ve burned out, you may be looking for the wrong job. Reassess your strengths, readjust your focus, and get the training you need to go after what you have potential for doing best.

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Joyce Richman (www.joycerichman.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since she started her own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce has appeared regularly on WFMY-TV and is the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.