Perfect Your Personal Pitch to Get Hired Fast

Initial impressions are important. In this day and age, we spend a lot of time in brief interactions with people and colleagues. This also means that there is a lot of opportunity to leave a lasting impression on those we interact with. But it’s very easy to say the wrong thing or say a lot without saying anything at all. In this blog, we are going to help you navigate the elevator pitch and how to perfect it.

What is an elevator pitch:

An elevator pitch is a short summary that can be delivered and understood in the time span of an elevator ride (1 to 2 minutes). The goal is for this brief introduction to intrigue the listener (especially if you are at a networking event, work gathering, socializing event, and the like.) The purpose is to leave them wanting to hear more or be generally excited about the topic and continue the conversation. Their excitement stems from your own excitement about your passion for what you do or want to do.

Find your goal, find your voice: 

When you talk to people, what do you typically say? When you walk away, do you tell yourself, “Oh, I wish I had mentioned that.” Figure out the goal of your elevator pitch. You may need to include more or fewer details depending on who your audience is and their respective background. Of course, you may have to adjust the content of your pitch on the spot, so have a few versions ready to go. It’s also important to find relevant reasons a potential listener may be interested in your work and include such details accordingly. The goal of your pitch will heavily influence the structure and content. While highlighting your skills and the problems you’ve solved may be of importance, you always need to be mindful of your audience, so it’s important to emphasize why you love doing the work you do.

Elevator pitches are universal:

Elevator pitches are not just important for meeting people in person; they are also highly relevant on social media. Your elevator pitch can be used to write a compelling summary for a LinkedIn profile. How well you can communicate ideas to different audiences may just be the deciding factor in someone hiring you for a job or project. Going through the exercise of crafting an elevator pitch may even be helpful in providing direction for future endeavors. Organizing research, goals, past projects, and interests into a concise set of statements requires careful consideration of what is most important, as well as the cohesive theme that will tie everything together.

The process of crafting:

The elevator pitch is supposed to be short. Once you’ve composed the first draft of your message, you want to go through multiple revisions to select only the most essential points. A 2-minute time limit is a good rule-of-thumb for the length. Not only does the message have to be short, but it should also be approachable to listeners and audiences. Using an active voice and avoiding overly complex words will help your audience understand what you are trying to say. A common mistake when presenting your ideas is to use field-specific jargon that can be confusing even for people who work in the industry. Keep acronyms and work-speak to a minimum. 

Lastly—Remember these three principles: tell a story, connect your audience with that story, and have a tight closing (end goal) of the story to tie it all together.

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