Perfect Pitch: Creating YOUR Best Elevator Spech

Article first published as How to Give the Perfect Pitch on Technorati.

I’m in sales, so I’m always pitching something.  Whether it’s a brand, an idea, or a product or service, I’m comfortable with the process of creating a compelling pitch and persuading others to “buy in” with their support, budget, effort, or other resources.

As a job seeker, you should get equally comfortable with the notion that you’re selling yourself to potential employers, but also to any number of people along the way who can help you get connected to new opportunities, based on their perception of who you are, what you bring to the party, and where your passion lies.  Your ability to concisely articulate your unique value proposition might be the strongest weapon in your career arsenal and will exponentially improve your networking and job search results.   You can call this pitch a personal branding statement, elevator pitch, or individual value proposition, but whatever you call it, create one now.

So, grab some pencil and paper and start drafting the elements of your pitch.

1)     What’s your name?  Sounds obvious, right? You need to be clear about what name you want to use professionally.  Stay consistent.   This can be a challenge for those of us with maiden names, or for folks who prefer a shortened name or nickname.  Get clear on what you want to be called and use that name consistently.  Make sure that if you choose to use a nickname, it isn’t one that will negatively impact people’s perception of you. (For example, George W. Bush stopped encouraging people call him “Junior” and even Eminem dropped the name “Slim Shady”, right?)

2)     What do you do?  How do you see yourself?  What service or role do you do well or do you wish to do in your next role?  You can be creative here.  If you’re a salesperson for an HR outsourcing company, you can say that you help companies connect with experts to put HR best practices in place. If you’re a private chef, you could say that work with busy households to ensure that they always have delicious, healthful food available for family meals, snacks and special occasions.  You can also of course say what you are: nurse, teacher, or student. Be authentic!  Is your self-image tied to your title, or is it a specific facet of your job/career?  There’s no right answer here. You need to be accurate about your qualifications and core focus, but you can choose whether to say who you work for and what your title is, or focus more on what’s important to you about what you do and frame it in terms of where you want to go next.

3)     What’s your passion?  What truly compels you?  Is it an industry, platform, environmental concern, industry best practice, or some other focus?  If you’re passionate about some aspect of your current role or if a personal passion is driving a career change, you should communicate this. You’re much more interesting, credible, and persuasive if your passion shines through.  

4)     How do others benefit from working with you?  What unique value do you bring to the table?  What outcome or results can you help an organization achieve?  What accomplishment or trait do you possess that’s important for people to know about?  You don’t want to come across as a braggart, but you do need to toot your own horn!

5)     Where are you going? Do you have a clear vision or career aspiration?  Are you planning relocation or will you soon be earning additional certification or education?  If so, this needs to be part of your pitch, so that it’s forward-looking and enables the listener to help you.

Write ideas down for these categories.  Play around with options and narrow it down to your best answers to each question.  Now, take those concepts and create one paragraph that captures you.  Read it aloud.  Does it sound natural, like something you’d actually say?  If not, tweak it – you need to get really comfortable with this statement for conversational use. Make sure it’s not more than about 20 seconds – we’re a short attention span nation! Now, practice, practice, practice! Run it by your best friend, spouse, mentor, colleague or other confidant.  Get some feedback, then, retool and rehearse again.  Want some more ideas?  Look here: http://www.ehow.com/how_5450473_create-personal-elevator-pitch-interview.html.

 

Now that you have your Perfect Pitch, how should you use it?  Use it at networking events, in interviews, introductions, when you catch up with people from your past, or when you talk to a recruiter.  You can also use it to craft your career objective on your resume, or to create your Linked In profile statement (or any other Social Media profiles), and you can use a version of it in any cover letter you write.  Be sure you can both write and say it in a voice that is uniquely yours.

Now get to work, so you can get to work and tackle the 21^st century job market! 

How Not to Blow a Phone Interview...Final Thoughts

This article was first published as How Not to Blow a Phone Interview: Final Thoughts! on Technorati.  A former client called me recently to ask about how I’d suggest wrapping up a successful phone interview.  It got me thinking about a few more ideas for interview success, particularly for phone screens.  These tips, together with the suggestions in my last post (http://technorati.com/business/article/how-not-to-blow-a-phone1/), will help you get your ducks in a row, so you can rock your next phone screen!

1)     Be a Sleuth!  With all the resources available today, there’s no excuse for going into any interview without doing your research.  If nothing else, this will show that you’re intelligent, interested in the opportunity, and a fairly savvy candidate.  Use Google, Linked In, Plaxo or Facebook to see what you can learn about the person on the other end of the phone prior to the call.  If a staffing industry/agency recruiter has set this interview up for you, ask them about the experience placing prior candidates with this organization.  Find out how prior interviews have gone, and what you should expect.  Be sure that you’ve taken time to fully review the hiring firm’s web site and understand at least their structure, what they do, and some recent news about them.  Use this information both to generate better questions to ask, and to tailor your answers to questions so that they not only reflect your personal truth, but also jibe with the company’s culture and direction.

2)     Get Your Facts Straight!  The purpose of many phone interviews is really a brief technical screen.  The interviewer wants to spend 10-15 with a handful of candidates to quickly determine if they have the appropriate technical expertise, or hard skills, to do the job.  In other words, they want to see if you really know all the things you say you do in your resume.  Then if you pass muster, they’ll bring you in to assess fit for the environment, soft skills, level of interest, etc… By technical skills, I don’t necessarily mean technology, but the hard facts and processes needed to be successful in any job.  For an accountant, these might be finance/tax/regulatory questions, for a computer programmer, these would be questions on how you create a certain type of code or application, and for a sommelier, they’d be questions focused on various wine terroir and vintage. Be sure that you fully understand the direct competencies and hard skills needed for the role and if you have any weaknesses in these areas, study up prior to the interview.  Don’t be afraid to use notes either. You’re invisible to the interviewer, so allow that to work to your advantage. I’m not suggesting you totally fake it!  If you don’t have the basic skills to do a job successfully, getting through a phone screen will not help you.  It will just draw out the inevitable result of you being weeded out, and waste both your time and the employer’s time.

3)     Get Those Ducks Lined Up! The worst thing an interviewer can hear is “NO, I don’t have any questions”.  This makes you sound uninterested in the opportunity, or (worse yet), not analytical enough to dig into any of the covered topics.  By all means, have some questions prepared! Don’t ask about benefits, pay, flex time or related topics at this stage of the game.  Keep your inquiries professionally-focused and ask about their expectations, vision, past successes or failures in filling this role, culture, or tools/methodologies/processes used in the role. The best questions are “high octane” – they get you information and cast you in a more intelligent light with the hiring manager.   

4)     Lock and Load!  If you decide you want a “second date” with this employer, don’t be shy! When the interview is over, tell them you’ve genuinely enjoyed speaking with them and getting to know more about the organization and the role.  Share how you feel you are a good match for their need and how you could make an impact.  Ask them what the next step would be and whether they have any hesitations moving forward. This gives them the opportunity to share their concerns with you so that you can overcome their potential objection.  Conversely, if you don’t think it sounds like a match, let them know this (nicely) as well.  If it makes sense, inquire about other more appropriate roles for which you would be better suited.  Thank them for their time and be sure that you’re helping to drive the next step that you want to achieve.  

Now, get to work and tackle the 21^st century job market, fully armed with all the skills you need to thrive.  Don’t forget to let your personality shine and just be the best version of yourself.  In other words, even on a phone interview, don’t be a phony. Best wishes and happy hunting!

         

How Not to Blow a Phone Interview...Part One!

This article first published as How Not to Blow a Phone Interview...Part One on Technorati.

 I'll confess to a love/hate relationship with phone screens.  As a recruiter, I want to push the interview process along quickly and get to an offer stage (or not) quickly.  I typically try to put people together face to face as soon as there’s mutual interest.  As a candidate, I enjoy connecting with new people and believe that comes across when I meet them, so I’m more compelling in person. Experts say nearly 90% of human communication is nonverbal, so the phone isn’t the best showcase for your charisma, confidence and body language to shine.  It’s tougher as a candidate to read the cues from the interviewer over the phone than in a face-to-face meeting, so making adjustments along the way is trickier.  Also, odds are good that someone will be on a cell phone.  This can be fraught with issues including dropped calls, bad signal strength, poor network quality (which makes you sound as if you’re slurring, or even drunk!), background noise, or the dreaded delay.   On the other hand, as a busy candidate, I’ve found that a phone interview is a great use of my time and an easy way to determine quickly if an opportunity is right for me.  As a recruiter, I encourage a hiring manager to conduct a phone interview if they’re on the fence about someone, to get a quick gauge of their suitability for the role.

However, phone interviews are here to stay.  Companies have distributed work teams.  Telecommuting is growing so team members may not even be on site to conduct an interview.  Also, it can be a good use of both the candidate’s and the employer’s time.  There’s no need to fight traffic, park and spend an hour getting your hair perfect, and the hiring manager doesn’t have to clean up their office!  For out-of-towner’s, both parties benefit from a quick conversation to ensure there’s a baseline fit, before investing in travel time and expenses. So, how can you, the candidate, turn the phone interview into a clear advantage for yourself?  How can you minimize the inherent problems associated with this forum and stand out?  Here are a few things that can make a BIG difference and ensure you don’t blow it! I’ll share several tips, broken into 3 posts so you can quickly read and digest each one without getting overwhelmed.

1)     Be a Landlubber!  Mobile devices are awesome, but unpredictable. It’s totally old school, but if you have a landline, it’s just better. Disable call waiting.  If you must use a cell, be sure you pick a quiet place to conduct the call and check your signal strength, so there will be no surprises.  Stay away from using a Bluetooth, as that can compromise call quality too.

2)      No Pajamas!  Comfort is good. I’m not suggesting that you put on your best suit for a phone interview, but if you’re overly casual in your posture, attire, or environment, your voice will reflect it.  Sit up straight at a desk or table with your feet on the floor, and have on business casual/work clothes.  You’ll feel professional and it will come through in your voice.  You can even stand up and walk around the room a bit and use hand gestures, if you typically would in live conversation.  You’ll sound more animated and probably more interested. If you’re a natural skeptic (like me!), try this experiment.  Put on comfy pants, lay down on the couch with your feet up, and record yourself on your cell answering this question, “where do you see yourself in 5 years?”  Now, wear standard business attire and sit up at a table or desk with your feet in front of you.  Record yourself again answering the same question.  Finally, stand up, stretch, shake your arms and legs out a bit, have some water and record the same thing again.  Listen to all three recordings back to back.  Which one gives the listener the best version of you?

3)      Power Down! Turn off your computer, radio, TV, etc…and unless you’re on your cell phone, turn that off too.  You don’t need any distractions.  You want to focus on the call and nothing else.  This is not the time for your potential boss to hear your new ringtone chiming in as background noise.  Don’t IM, check email, tweet, or read texts – it can wait.  The phone interview typically won’t last long, and you should afford the interviewer the same courtesies you would in a face-to-face meeting.  

Stay tuned for my next post with tips 4-6.Also, if you’d like some more tips from the hiring manager’s perspective, check here: http://www.job-search-steps.com/phone-interview.html. Most importantly, let your personality shine and just be the best version of yourself. That’s always my #1 tip!