Pitch đ Day 22 - Networking Advent Calendar
The Networking Advent Calendar is a 24-day long training program to build your networking muscles (and your network)! Not sure why you should do this? Missed Day 1? Read more here.
Day 22: Write your elevator pitch
On Day 5, we talked about (re)writing your bio, which is a specific form of introducing yourself for social media. While we get ready for January, the hottest hiring/networking month of the entire year, letâs sit down and create a more detailed elevator pitch. Hereâs a 3-step process on how to do that.
Start with a laundry list
Before you try to write a pitch thatâs perfect in one go, start by just listing out everything youâve done. Donât worry about writing full sentences either, try to cover as much ground as you can with keywords. An example from my own experiences:
Event organizer. Team of 6. Design, social media, planning, project management, public speaking. 50-300 guests. Student of the Year Award.
Management consultant trainee. PwC Academy, data analysis, business planning, conflict mediation & team leadership. Best Fellow Award.
Startup recruiter. Hired for 5 companies. Sales, marketing, engineering, data, finance, people, machine learning. Average 2 hires per month, 24.5% conversion rate to final stage. 5 ATS. Processes, training, employer branding.
I avoided using the exact job titles I held because they werenât very intuitive to outsiders, and I used the easier to understand versions instead. This advice is echoed by big tech recruiters that you should adapt your past job titles to the companies youâre applying to.
Find a story
One issue with most self-introductions or pitches I hear is that they are basically a verbal version of the CV. So whereâs the pitch part?
Based on the laundry list from before, add another section on what youâre motivated by and what youâd like to do in the future. Our past doesnât have to define us, and someone who is constantly seeking to grow and evolve themselves is a candidate that hiring companies want to speak to.
Same tip applies here: donât use hyper-specific job titles to define what you want to do. You can even use mission statements like âI want to help more women gain financial knowledge and make informed decisions by creating accessible softwareâ rather than âI want to be a junior UX designer in fintechâ.
Revise, rehearse, repeat
Finally, itâs not a pitch unless you can say it. Stitch the first two parts together through your story, make some revisions as you see fit, and start rehearsing. Record yourself saying it until youâre comfortable with how these words flow out of your mouth. If words donât sound right, keep tweaking them and changing them.
Rehearse this in front of your family and friends, and ask for their advice. This could be a great exercise to do during holiday times, and is even better when your family and friends donât work in the same industry as you do; they will force you to take out all the jargon and make it make sense.
January is when companies finalize their hiring budget for the new year and when theyâll be on the hunt for great future employees. Prepare yourself for January and have fun pitching!
Are these networking exercises helpful? Any feedback for me? Looking forward to hearing from you!