Constructing and refining an elevator pitch are about as much fun as writing a resume, but the risk of not having and delivering one can keep your career on ice. I work with Purdue students via mock interviews and one thing there are always “supposed to” convey to me is their elevator pitch. I have always found it challenging to create and manage my own elevator pitch, so I began to ponder how I could help young professionals create and manage an elevator pitch. I stopped asking them to give me an elevator pitch and asked them one question that helped me work with them to develop the core of an elevator pitch in 3 minutes. The question I asked is as follows: When I call your references relative to a job opportunity what three things will they all say about you? It would take about 3 minutes for me to get the 3 main components of their personal value proposition out of them and then two minutes to work with them to word smith their thoughts into a quality 30 second elevator pitch. I also advised them that their resumes should convey the three main components of their professional value proposition and that they needed to make sure that these were the attributes they conveyed throughout a job interview and in their follow-up correspondence relative to all interviews.
The following are 5 steps anyone can use to create a quality elevator pitch (professional value proposition):
- Ask yourself, if my references relative to a job opportunity were called what three things would they all say about me?
- Word smith your answers and/or have a valued colleague help you.
- Communicate with your top 3 job references. Ask them if they were called about you relative to the next job on your career path (you describe it to them) what three things would they all say about you?
- Reconcile their responses with your version of you professional value proposition (elevator pitch).
- Send the revised version of your professional value proposition (elevator pitch) to your top references, and then tweak it to create your final version.
