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Creating an effective elevator pitch: what you need to know.

The good news is that people want to help you, but you need to help them by providing an easily digestible sound bite that gets them thinking about specific ways that they, or someone they know, may be able to help you. Enter, The Elevator Pitch: your sound bite. In the time it takes to complete an average elevator ride (approximately thirty to forty-five seconds), you need to be able to walk through the three parts of the elevator pitch authentically:

·       “This is what I’m looking for.”

·       “Based on my experience and/or skills, I know I’ll be good at it.”

·       “Can you help me?”

That’s all it is!  Be prepared to elaborate for a few more minutes if you get someone’s attention. However it’s those first few seconds that are key. You don’t have much more time than that to (1) prove that you know what you want, (2) prove that you are genuine in your interest in learning from the other person, and (3) remember to ask for help.

NOTE: If you don’t ask, you don’t get. Someone you know could know someone with a job that would be perfect for you. You can start asking around even if you don’t have a formal elevator pitch. Get out from behind your computer! Jobs are not going to come looking for you.

Let’s talk about Don, who is interested in an entry-level sales role with a software company. Here are the fundamentals of his elevator pitch:

Examples For This Is What I’m Looking for:

·       To add value to a sales organization with my strong work ethic and ability to develop relationships

·       To leverage my excellent attention to detail that I’ve gained with years of studying architecture, math, engineering, and other highly detailed disciplines

·       To use my award-winning customer-service skills gained from working customer-service roles part-time throughout high school and college

Examples For This Is How I Will Add Value:

I’ll proactively identify what needs to be done and complete required tasks, often under tight time pressure.

Examples:

·      Have a track record of working well in retail during high-pressure situations

·      Track record of teaching myself required technology skills, both proprietary and off the shelf, in school and professional settings

I can juggle several demands at once.

Examples:

·      I earned a high GPA while always working at least twenty-eight hours per week

·      Excelled in all work environments while also excelling at school

I can create new methodologies and strategies to meet goals.

Examples:

·      Created new processes for retail sales staff to meet and exceed sales goals

·      Generated sales at a family construction company with a new website interface and promotional campaigns on social media channels

Examples for This Is Why It Will Make Me Happy:  

I enjoy things that require hard work and discipline.

·      Running, learning new languages

I’m creative.

·      Writing, cooking, exploring new media outlets, and watching social media evolve

I’m adventurous.

·      Love travel and trying new things

Once you have created your lists, you can create the foundation for your elevator pitch. Here are some tips for translating your lists:

·      Look for themes: related things you have mentioned more than once.

·      Ask what these themes say about you, for example:

o   adventurous or studious;

o   love people and working in teams, or like accomplishing things on your own;

o   thrive under pressure, or get very anxious around deadlines;

o   happiest when in front of a computer, or happiest out meeting people;

o   love details, numbers, and analysis, or prefer developing relationships over power points and spreadsheets;

o   enjoy making presentations and speaking in front of a group or prefer to be behind the scenes.

Ask yourself why you chose what you did to include in your list. What makes each appealing? Assign skill-related themes to the items on your list. Remember the three skills we discussed that are highly valued in any workplace setting? Here they are, along with a few more. See if you recognize yourself in any of these characteristics below; cite specific examples in this exercise.

·      Being detail-oriented so you don’t make mistakes.

·      The ability to juggle multiple priorities under time pressure while still paying attention to details.

·      Staying organized while juggling assigned tasks efficiently and quickly so that you can take on more when you complete them.

·      Taking problems and breaking them down into action steps. For example, knowing that you need to improve customer service is interesting, but knowing that what is necessary for improvement is more rigorous training and better scripts are essential for customer service reps.

·      Creative problem-solving. Every part of an organization—operations, strategy, finance, human resources, and marketing— can benefit from creative employees who bring fresh energy and unique approaches to their daily tasks.

·      Link skills to experiences you have had, even if they are not work experiences.

Let’s go back to Don and see what this might look like:

·       The ability to juggle multiple priorities at once, such as Don’s ability to work an almost full-time job while also supporting his family’s business and completing his degree

·       Efficiency and speed at completing assigned tasks, such as being the kid who figured out how to change a bicycle chain before anyone else in his scout troop and, as a result, had time to learn how to install a kickstand

·       Taking difficult things and breaking them down into simpler pieces, such as understanding the reason why no one showed up at intramural lacrosse at 3:00 was that most of the players had lab until 4:15, so they needed to switch field times with intramural soccer

·       Creative problem-solving, such as figuring out how to get Don and his eight best college friends out of a bus station in Mexico where they have been stuck for twelve hours due to a ticket mix-up

Think about why you picked the things you did. Are there passions in your “real life” that are behind your choices? If they are genuine, they are appropriate to put into your analysis.

·       Do you want event planning because you love being responsible for hundreds of details and pulling off some things you thought could never be done?

·       Do you want to do consumer-product goods marketing because you love going into beauty-product stores and checking out the new fragrances, colors, brands, and formulae for shampoo?

·       Do you love your volunteer work at a health clinic and want to be able to impact the policy under which the clinic runs?

Additional Considerations:

·       Be specific about the kind of company where you would like to work, not necessarily the company where you want to work.

·       Bad: “I want to work at Pepsi because they are on the cutting edge of brand management.”
Good: “I’m very interested in how brand management is changing due to social media and would love to work with consumer-packaged goods.”

Why? Your target could lose interest quickly if they have no connection to Pepsi. This hurts you because that same person might know someone at Rubbermaid who hires entry-level positions.

Be specific about your skills, not necessarily how you would apply them.

·       Bad: “I want to go into finance because I’m great at details and like working with numbers.”
Good: “I’m great at keeping track of details and like working with numbers.”

Why? Again, you don’t want to limit the opportunities that could come your way. Your target could have an exciting idea about how financial modeling is used within a human resource organization to forecast benefit expenses.

NOTE: Yes, a human resources department can need financial modeling from economics majors. And a logistics operation can need communication writers who were English majors. It’s a thing. Don’t think too literally.

Develop three to five (never fewer than three and never more than five—it’s a thing too2) bullet points in each of the following categories:

This Is What I’m Looking For:

Should answer the question, “What do you want to do?”

This Is How I Will Add Value:

Should answer the question, “What do you have to offer?”

Why This Will Make Me Happy:

Should answer the question, “Why are you interested in this?”

Photo by Derrick Treadwell @sunearthmoon.studio