What's your personal elevator pitch?
Use this for interviews, networking and in actual elevators
As a child, introducing yourself was quite straightforward:
“My name is Tomek, I'm 11 years old and I like to read books, and really anything else with text on it”.
As a professional, you have the opportunity to go deeper to make a positive impression and share your unique story. An introduction script will help you to do justice to your character, background, experience and talents. Good preparation can alleviate the anxiety you may feel when asked: “Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?” Most importantly, I promise that this gets easier with time. The more often you tell your story, the more confident you will sound and the better of an impression you’ll make.
Ideally you have a few different versions in mind depending on how much time you have. Practice introducing yourself in 1 minute, 5 minutes and 15 minutes, so you can shift between an actual elevator and a one-hour job interview, and go very personal or stay more professional.
So what should you talk about to go beyond your CV and engage your audience?
👶🏼 Background
Where are you from, where did you grow up? Do you have a diverse cultural background that helps at work? Do you know that market because you grew up there? How has having siblings taught conflict resolution?
💼 Experience
What did you do so far? Did you jobs have your passion as a common thread? Did you do specialist or generalist jobs, and why? What challenges did you overcome? Weave your career journey into a compelling story.
🏆 Achievements
How were you recognized for your work? What would your boss say about you to others? What are you the go-to person for in your team or function? Did you receive any formal awards or financial rewards?
💪🏼 Strengths
What are you both good at and do you enjoy doing? What unique combination of skills do you possess? I always recommend reading ‘Strengths Finder 2.0’ by Tom Rath to help identifying your talents and strengths.
💙 Values
What gets you up in the morning, and keeps you going when going gets tough? What do you most enjoy about your job? What difference do you want to make in the world, for others, for yourself?
🚩 Goals
What vision do you keep in mind for your career and life? What do you aim to achieve, and what do you think you need for that? How does your vision link to your background, strengths and values?
Having practiced your stories on the above themes will always give you something to talk about when introducing yourself, so you can make a memorable first impression. This is where you can be creative!
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