One of the first things I ask my clients as a career advocate is: “Tell me about yourself.” It appears as an innocuous question but is usually met with a question back to me: “What do you mean?” The reason I ask is determining how I can assist within their next career adventure. Specifically, is this for an internal move, promotion opportunity at another company, transition to new industry, or need for employment after a layoff? From there we can craft an up-to-date personal brand image strategy. Believe it or not, 90% of the time, it takes a 60-minute discussion to synthesize a concise answer which I call an elevator pitch or elevator speech. My formal training on elevator pitch creation was a decade ago at a Miller Heiman (MH) Strategic Selling course. MH is well versed at solution selling training which ultimately is what you need to position yourself for your next career opportunity. You’re positioning yourself to meet the corporate need with your unique skills and background. Each of my MH classmates had to create, practice 1:1, and deliver to the room. Subsequently, I have researched other resources deriving best practices for my clients to create their elevator pitch.
It’s challenging to create an elevator pitch since it’s NOT a routine task to talk about yourself plus boil it down to a 30-second personal commercial. Initially it feels very uncomfortable. Once you master it, it’s empowering. It succinctly defines who you are within the business environment. After my client develops their elevator pitch, we weave components into their resumé and LinkedIn profile. This is table stakes for networking events and job interviews. The bottom line is one of the first questions a recruiter or hiring manager will ask is, “So, tell me a little about yourself.” This astute preparation allows you to respond without a rambling answer. How would you answer? In a nutshell, an elevator pitch is a short description of your personal brand explaining who you are, what you’ve done, and why you’re the perfect person for the job. This is your opportunity to communicate your personal brand to any listener within a short time period.
Who Came Up with the Elevator Pitch?
According to Wikipedia (of course, I went there), Philip Crosby — technician and author who contributed to quality management practices — “suggested individuals should have a pre-prepared speech that can deliver information regarding themselves or a quality that they can provide within a short period of time, namely the amount of time of an elevator ride for if an individual finds themselves on an elevator with a prominent figure. Essentially, an elevator pitch is meant to allow an individual to pitch themselves or an idea to a person who is high up in a company, with very limited time.”
How to Create?
Remember within the career environment, the idea of a elevator pitch is providing a compelling peek about yourself so the other person wants to know more. It’s about engagement and connection. Think of it as a speed dating introduction within the business context! From a resumé and LinkedIn profile perspective, it starts with your headline. What title best describes you? Next, let’s layer three components that sum you up succinctly:
- Explain who you are from career perspective,
- Place your experience into context, and
- Highlight intangible strengths you deliver to a hiring company.
Resumé Summary Examples
Here are some samples — feel free to clone and own for — your resumé summaries. Of course for your LinkedIn profile, you would modify with the more personal first person context; e.g., “I have more than 19 years experience spearheading organizational understanding of the ever changing threat landscape.”
- Headline: Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) | Cyber Security Thought Leader | Speaker — Nineteen years’ experience spearheading organizational understanding of ever changing threat landscape. Work in cross-disciplinary research teams mapping data and intelligence into actionable insights. Award-winning speaker, author, blogger and mentor. Continuously wearing white hat.
- Headline: DevOps Engineer | Unconventional Thinker | Collaborator — Experience grounded within Linux/Unix Administration. Fifteen years’ experience designing, implementing, and managing cutting-edge deployment automation of cloud resources. Collaborate with software engineering to deploy and operate systems. Acclaimed troubleshooter in dev, test and production environments. Master of best practices and IT operations in always-up, always-available service. Working to build future at confluence of agile, data and cloud computing.
- Headline: VP Engineering | Software Product Lifecycle Executive | ITIL & PMP Certified — More than 15 years IT management experience at two Fortune 200 companies. Recognized leader in technology product management. Demonstrated team builder mentality delivering technical project requirements on time.
- Headline: Career Consultant | Resumé Guru | Personal Branding — Career strategist for IT and Tech clients with 20 years Fortune 200 staffing experience. Conducted 1,000 resumé critiques. Plus, executed 160 LinkedIn profile makeovers within the past 12 months. Backed by Marketing MBA. Can share my personal brand imaging experience as #1 Tech Sales Executive to land your next career adventure!
- Headline: Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) | Fortune 500 | Technology Hardware — Evangelical business marketer and product strategist transforming the way corporations attract B2B and B2C clients. More than 25 years of CMO experience at Fortune 500 and IT startups, bring thoughtful perspective and branding savvy. Entrepreneurial at heart and Forbes speaker recognized for my impassioned approach and colorful ideas.
Would love to hear your thoughts on personal branding. And elevator pitches. Take care and land your dream job. You deserve it.
