What is your pitch?

Second only to a resume in your job search is your pitch or what is called your elevator speech.  It should last about as long as an elevator ride, 20-30 seconds.  You need a few of them handy but the two biggest one is the answer to “Tell me about yourself.”

What it is NOT is your biography.  I hear people a lot start wandering down the “what makes me, me” path:

• “I am an only child”
• “I have been married for 20 years”
• “I have five years of experience with…”
• or my favorite of the Ricky Bobby responses… “What do you want to know.”

This is where your research can shine.  You want to tell them why they want to hire you.  How about these responses:

• “I am a recruiter that believes in attracting and connecting with candidates through honest and refreshing dialogue. “
• “I enjoy being part of a team that challenges me and allows me to find creative solutions to problems. “
• “I do not like the answer ‘because we have always done it that way’ to the question of why do we do it that way.  I am always looking for a better way to do things.”

I may be biased, but those sure do sound a lot more interesting to a recruiter.  One thing that your elevator speech MUST be is true to you.  You need to believe what you are saying.  Not sure?  Act like you believe it.  We all question ourselves or have self-doubt but you don’t want to lead with that.

So be sure to practice your pitch.  Record it, listen to it, ask others to listen to it, work on it and repeat the process.  You should be able to own it, not just know it.

Al

The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.
Vince Lombardi