Responding to Job Postings

Jump to:

My Home

Private Invitations

Public Invitations

Featured Jobs

Prioritizing Your Invitations

Job Notifications to Your Email

Job List

What Determines Which Jobs I See on the Hiring Tab?

What Do the Icons Beside Job Postings Mean?

Response Page

Writing A Proposal

Setting a Revision Policy

Creating a Proposal Template

Submitting a Quote

Submitting a Response File

After You've Replied to a Job

Getting Awarded a Job

Completing a Job and Getting Paid

Leaving a Client Review

My Home

My Home is your home base for everything you need to maximize your success on Voices. As soon as you log in, you’ll be able to see at a glance how many Hiring jobs you have, broken down by public invites (jobs you’ve been matched with) and private invites (jobs clients have personally invited you to respond to). 

You’ll also be able to see how many jobs you’ve been shortlisted for and how many are new since you last logged in. This dashboard will give you a great spot to see exactly what’s happening up to the minute and what to prioritize responding to first.
 

Private Invitations

Your private invitations are for jobs clients have personally invited you to reply to. This means that the client has found you through search/browse on the Voices site, has taken a look at your profile, and thinks you might be a good fit for their job. Most talent prioritize responding to these invitations first, with the understanding that the client already feels they are a strong fit for the job. A green envelope icon next to the invitation indicates you’ve been privately invited to the job.
 

Public Invitations

Public invitations are typically sent out to a larger number of talent, when the client decides they’d prefer to have Voices do the work of inviting the best-suited talent to reply to the job posting. The best way to maximize your public invitations is to make sure your profile is accurate and up to date and to ensure you’ve added demos and tagged them all appropriately. This helps match you to the best-suited opportunities. Only Premium members have access to public invitations.
 

Featured Jobs

Featured jobs appear at the top of the Hiring tab and can be distinguished by the purple 'Featured' label. Clients may select to feature their job in order to draw extra attention to their posting, and therefore attract top talent to respond quickly.
 

Prioritizing Your Invitations

Most talent prioritize their private invitations first, in the knowledge that the client has invited them personally to respond and their odds of being hired are therefore higher. From there, it’s a good practice to look at whether the job is a Featured Job - public or private. Talent will also often filter their invitation list by budget and response deadline under the advanced filter options.

Job Notifications to Your Email

Logging in and viewing your invitations from My Home is one way to organize your daily workflow. You’ll also receive an email each time you are invited to reply to a job, so you can jump directly to a job posting from that email notification.

Your profile and demos will determine which jobs appear in your Hiring tab, and your Account Settings selections will allow you to manage how job notifications are sent to you via email.

To access your email settings:

• Log in to your Voices account and click on the Me dropdown in the top-right corner
• Select the format of your email notifications (HTML or plain text) and set budget limits, so that you are notified of jobs that meet your personal budget threshold.
   

Job List

 In Jobs under the Hiring tab you can see all open jobs that are available for you to respond to. You can click on any of the jobs to open up the job details.
 
The Response Deadline will tell you when the client wants to have all responses by and the Project Deadline lets you know the actual due date for the final deliverables. 
 
As you are going through the hiring jobs, you can save jobs for later if there are some you’d like to come back to. (This feature is available for Premium subscribers only.)
 

What Determines Which Jobs I See on the Hiring Tab?

Within your account, the Hiring list, located under Jobs, displays posted/open jobs based on the information selected on your profile.
 
To ensure that you're being presented with the most opportunities, you'll want to make sure your profile is complete. Any job that has a status of Hiring is available and you are encouraged to submit your response.
 

What Do the Icons Beside Job Postings Mean?

You may encounter the following icons in your various Jobs tabs.

In your Hiring tab you may see:

• A purple Featured label indicating a Featured Job.
• A green Envelope indicating a Private Job.
• The Voices icon indicating a Professional Service job.

In your Answered tab you could see:

• A Headphone icon to designate those responses that have been listened to.
• A Thumbs Up icon indicating that the client has liked your response.

In your Archived tab you may see:

• A Headphone icon to show that your response has been listened to.
• A Thumbs Up icon indicating that the client has liked your response.
• A Microphone icon indicating that a response was submitted.

If you forget what an icon represents, hover your mouse over it for a few seconds. A pop-up label will appear to remind you, or you can check the legend in your Jobs List.
 

Response Page

Once you’ve decided to reply to a job, click on Reply to Job and you’ll be taken to the response page for that job. Here you’ll be able to reference specifics in the job posting’s details and factor those into the writing of your proposal.

In your proposal, you’ll also want to include your revision policy so that it’s clear to the client right up front. You’ll also have the opportunity to upload a custom response file to demonstrate to the client exactly what you’d bring to their project. 
 

Writing a Proposal

At minimum your proposal should greet the client (by name if a contact has been provided in the About section of the job), thank them for the opportunity to respond, and provide a basic introduction of yourself, your voice over experience, and why you're the right fit for the job. Voices provides proposal templates you can work from. Setting these templates up ahead of time will allow you to respond to jobs more quickly.
 

Creating a Proposal Template

Using Templates is an excellent way to save time and effort when replying to jobs. Because each response requires a proposal, you have two options to create one: 
 

1. You can either write a personalized proposal each time, or; 
2. You can create Templates that you can use over and over again, and modify as needed.

To create a Template simply:

• Log in to your Voices account
• Navigate to ‘Templates’ from the ‘Me’ drop-down menu in the top navigation bar
• Click the ‘Create Template’ button
• Add a Template name at the very top
• Choose which service you'd like to create the template for
• By either using the default copy provided as reference, or writing your own, draft your Proposal and Revision Policy
• Review and edit your Proposal and Revision Policy as needed
• Once you are happy with your Template, click ‘Save’ to save it for use in future responses

To use a custom Template, select it from the ‘Select a Template’ dropdown on the Response Page when replying to a job. 
 

Setting a Revision Policy

The Revision Policy section of the response form is an open-ended text field, meaning you can type anything you feel is relevant to your own Revision Policy. Voices also provides some guidance for each of the services, but here is an example of a voice over revision policy: 
 
Performance Mistakes: Mispronunciations or missing words are fixed at no charge.
 
Artistic Edits: One round of feedback concerning pacing or tone is included at no charge. I typically charge [$X] for each round afterwards.
 
Script Rewrites: One round of rewrites, that are less than 10% of the final script, is included at no charge. Additional rounds typically cost [$X for each round afterwards or X% of the original budget]. Rewrites beyond 10% will be quoted upon request.
 

Submitting a Quote

When responding to a job, you will be asked to submit a quote. You can indicate your quote by either entering it directly into the ‘Your Quote’ field, or you can indicate the amount you’d like to earn on the job by inputting the amount directly into the ‘Your Earnings’ field. Depending on which approach you take, the Platform Fee will be calculated and subtracted from the ‘Your Quote’ amount and the ‘Your Earnings’ amount will be updated accordingly.  To learn more about the Platform Fee and how it is calculated, please read this FAQ article.
 
Voices has made the job posting form comprehensive so ideally, you'll have everything you need to accurately quote on the job.
 
While clients are required to include, for example, a word count or number of finished minutes for a project, it is important to review the job posting details to be sure that everything lines up. 
 
Talent are not locked into working for the quote they’ve proposed and most clients realize that the quotes obtained at the proposal level are based on the information provided at that time. All talent have the ability to modify their rate during the response phase and with the assistance of customer support after hire. You can also mention in your proposal that rates can change based on additional information obtained. 
 
You must submit a quote when responding. Whenever possible, provide a quote within the client's budget range, and try not to quote less than their minimum.
 
If you quote more than the client's budget maximum, provide the reason for this in your proposal. For instance, if the deadline is tight, it is understandable that you would charge a premium for your time. 
 

Do I Have to Stay Within the Client’s Budget Range?

When posting a job, Voices requires clients to set a Talent Budget that meets an established minimum amount for the specific type of work they are requesting. Talent Budget minimums depend on whether the job is broadcast or non-broadcast and the licensing needs. The lowest minimum budget available for voice over is $100 (non-broadcast only). Whenever possible, be sure to provide a quote within the client's Talent Budget range.
 
We also suggest that you stand by your own pricing structure, especially if you tend to do similar jobs for a very different price from the proposed budget. You can choose to submit a quote or not reply to the job at all.
 
If and when a client awards the job to you, they will be required to include your quoted amount in their deposit into the SurePay™ service to be paid out at the end of the project.
 

Submitting a Response File

A response file must be included with your proposal. You can send either a response file from among your demos or portfolio samples, or you can click on the Browse button to upload a file from your computer hard drive.

Quick Tip: Keep in mind that you can only choose ONE response file, so be sure to choose your best work when responding.

When responding to a voice over job posting, there will be a sample script, and it is recommended that you record a custom response using a portion of the script provided (e.g. 20 to 30 seconds of recorded material).
 
What clients are looking for when they request a voice over custom response is your interpretation of the script copy provided, correct pronunciation of potentially difficult words, and an example of what you can produce in a specified time frame. If you do take the time to record a twenty-second dry voice read, select a portion of the script that will best show your skills and be sure to protect your work by using the tools available to you.

Once you have clicked on Submit Response, you will receive a confirmation that your response was submitted successfully and that the response process for that job has concluded.
 

After You’ve Replied to a Job

After you have replied to a job posting, the job status will change to Answered, and the job posting moves from the hiring tab to the answered tab. All of your details are now under My Response within the job. 
 
The Answered tab is a concise summary of your response history for each job you have replied to at Voices. You can view the Job Posting Details, your proposal to the client, the demo you attached or uploaded, and the quote you provided for the job simply by clicking on any of the job titles in the Answered list.
 
If you know the job number, you can use the Search Jobs field on the right-hand side of the screen to easily find a job you have responded to in the Answered list.
 
You can also review and edit your response to a job—you’ll see the response the same way the client would see it. Editing the response takes you back to the response page you would have used for your original submission.
 
You can track any client activity on the response page and see whether they have listened to or viewed your response file, added you to a shortlist, etc.

Quick Tip: You have three editing sessions per response where you are able to update your quote, proposal, revision policy, or response file. Clients don't receive an email when you update your response, but if the Client has listened to your original response already, a ‘New’ label will be applied if you upload a new response file. If you alter your quote, clients will see this on the payment page when they click ‘Hire’ from your proposal.
 

Getting Awarded a Job

You’ll be notified by email when you’ve been awarded a job. From there the client will create a job agreement and the job status will change from Deciding to Offering. As soon as you’ve accepted the agreement, you can begin working on the project and the job status will move to Working. 

Once the job status is in Working, the following tabs will become visible to you: Agreements, payments, files, reviews, and messages. You can use the messaging center to communicate and work through any finer job details. If at any point you need to check specifics or reference materials, you can still access all the job details in the job posting tab. If you’re confused at any point about the client’s needs, make sure to ask the client directly. 

If at any point while working on the project, it’s determined between you and the client that additional work outside of the original project scope is required, you can request that the client add an additional payment. This will create an additional agreement for you to accept, and then you can provide the additional work.
 

Completing a Job and Getting Paid

Once you have completed the work, you can upload the files to the Files tab of the job for client approval. From there, the client can either accept the files or request revisions. If they request a revision, you will be notified. Make sure to clarify with the client exactly what they need by using the messaging feature. You can also use the additional payment calculator in the job message thread to help calculate the cost of the revision if needed. This is another reason why setting your revision policy as part of your proposal clearly at the beginning is so important—it avoids unnecessary complications down the road.

Once the final files are accepted by the client, they can release the funds to you. You can track the payment status for each job in the Payments tab. 

If the client fails to manually release the funds, our SurePay^TM Payment Protection system will ensure you are paid after 14 days of the client accepting the final files.

At this point, the job will move to the Done tab for your records.
 

Leaving a Client Review

Once the job is done, you have the opportunity to leave a review for the client to let them know how you found working with them on the project. The experience of working with you plus you leaving a positive review for the client can really set the stage for working together on future projects. The client will also have the opportunity to leave a review for you. Building relationships is an important part of building your successful businesses, so it’s important to take the time to leave client reviews.