2. Press the Star or Pound Key. Depending on your carrier, you will likely push one of these two keys next. It's more common to push the star key. When you hear your voicemail start, that's when you should press either the star (*) or the pound (#) key. For AT&T, Sprint, U.S. Cellular, and T-Mobile, press the star (*) key. Verizon, Bell Mobility and Virgin Mobile users should press the pound (#) key. If you are using a different carrier, you can check its website or call customer service to be sure.
Consider for a moment how your phone is currently being answered. Professional courtesy is quite often not the standard for many college students. An abrupt "Yeah!" could be listed among the more courteous greetings. The more outrageous remarks will often buy you a major black mark in the professionalism category—even if it was your roommate answering your phone and acting crazy. A simple "This is ____" is always a pleasant change for a college student call. Make the change today, before the next (or first) employer phone call. If you have a landline, you should also encourage your roommate to do the same.

In Australian English it’s pronounced with the vowel /a:/ like in ‘part’. Problems arise when people use the /ʌ/ vowel (like in ‘up’) instead of /æ/ or /a:/. If you do this is will sound like the worst swear word in English. Many non-native speakers often pronounce the vowel /æ/ more like /ʌ/ because they don’t have a vowel like /æ/ in their first language. Many speakers of European languages will do this (Spanish speakers and Italian speakers) and also speakers of Japanese and Korean. This problem with /æ/ also means that if you say the word ‘back’ in your voicemail greeting sample, you are likely to pronounce it more like ‘buck’. remember to pronounce word endings in English. Check you aren’t dropping any endings off or mispronouncing them.
Most businesses will automatically play a recording if you try to call their office when they are closed. An after hours announcement is a professional way to notify callers of important details, rather than making them wait for the call to failover to a voicemail box or other destination.