I was asked to write on the difference between the “Elevator Pitch” and the “2 Minute Pitch”, and the elements that go into each.
An “Elevator Pitch” is the short, engaging statement you are going to make to draw someone into conversation with you. The term comes from the idea that it should be short enough to deliver between floors on the elevator where you’ve run into a potentially influential contact. The typical time frame people think of for this is 30 seconds or less.
In fact, my experience is that 80% of the Elevator Pitches delivered are fairly ineffective. (When I give workshops on the “Killer Marketing Message” to business networking groups, where people are very experienced with giving such pitches, and ask how many they just heard that they found truly engaging, I STILL get an answer like 10-20%.)
The reason is that most people get stuck in their titles and duties, instead of focusing strictly on answering the fundamental question, “Why Should I Pay Your Salary?” or “Why Should I Pay For Your Product / Service?”
Here’s a short article that talks about this a bit more:
www.JHACareers.
The “2 Minute Pitch” refers to the story you want to tell at the start of any interview, and often at the start of an extended 1-on-1 networking meeting, to help frame the discussion. Here the idea is to give the interviewer or networking contact a more complete picture of the entire package you bring to the table, in no more than 2 minutes.
Just as with the “Elevator Pitch”, Your “2 Minute Pitch” needs to be engaging. It needs to communicate selected results you have delivered or could deliver to keep it interesting and to provide the ‘hooks’ for further conversation and questions. There are many ways you can approach this, and I have developed one format for this has proven very effective for many people, which I refer to this as your “HERO Story.” Here’s an article on putting together your HERO Story:
www.JHACareers.
This is excerpted from a posting to a group to which I belong:
I have been searching for a few months, and have not found a really good management recruitment firm to work with. At the suggestion of a member of the group, I figured I would come to you folks and see if I might have some luck. Below is a quick synapses of my skills, experience and abilities. If any of you know of or have an opportunity that you feel I might be good for, please let me know.
Here was my response:
One of the reasons you may not be getting the attention your experience deserves is your message. You do a good job describing the experience and qualities you bring to the table, but you haven’t addressed the most important “attribute” you bring to a prospective employer - the results you can produce for them.
For example, look at this excerpt from the introduction letter you attached:
“last several years managing the IT Operations group for a large division of a well known international software company, while also performing as the CIO for an IT consulting firm. The prior several years were spent as a senior analyst/architect leading large and small teams of professionals on a wide variety of IT projects.”
This gives no indication whether you actually accomplished anything for either the division or the IT consulting firm, just that you managed one and performed as CIO for the other. And a jaded hiring manager is likely to assume that since you didn’t say more, you probably didn’t accomplish much; not to mention wondering if you really did a very good job for either since you were splitting your time and focus.
Then you talk about leading teams on IT projects. But were any of those projects delivered on time? Within budget? In a way that accomplished anything of consequence for those companies?
The ONLY reason someone hires you is because of the RESULTS they expect you will produce. Your elevator pitch, your 2 minute pitch, your resume, your cover letter, and everything you do needs to clearly communicate results you can produce.
Here’s a short article on this relative to your Elevator Pitch:
www.JHACareers.com/30SecondPitch.htm
Oh, and with regard to seeking to work with recruiting firms, see this article:
www.JHACareers.com/ArticlesRecruiters.htm
Question: I have a lot of experience and feel my age may be blocking me from job offers. What’s your strategy about filling out job applications?
Answer: You can’t change your age, just how you deal with it. You need to build your case for why your age is an advantage, and deliver a confident message. If it is still an issue at the time you are filling our a job application, then you may not be conducting your search the most effective way. You can’t lie on the application, and you are unlikely to get to the next step if you don’t fill in the application accurately, so I would advise completing it and keeping your fingers crossed.
Follow-Up Question: Here’s my take away from what you are saying:
I wrote an article on focusing your career search, and received the following comment
The Focusing topic sounds interesting, since we are often told– even in the same breath– to focus but “consider wider possiblities.” Hopefully, you cover “overfocusing” as well– the “third finger manicurist” syndrome as I call it. In such cases there is focus and differentiation, but not much of a meaningful market or application.
My response
My experience is that lack of focus is a much greater problem than overfocusing. If you do a great job of explaining exactly what you are passionate about, and the types of results you can provide or problems you can solve, it opens up a meaningful dialog. Even if that’s not what I might be able to connect you to, I’ll remember you when I hear about something that might be a possibility. And I may still present you with some ‘wider possibilities’ to consider, once you’ve attracted my interest. What may mask itself as an “overfocusing” problem is the person who gets stuck down in the details of what he or she does, instead of focusing on potential accomplishments and results. I won’t get very excited about someone who tells me he is a thrid finger manicurist (titles and duties aren’t particularly interesting); a better conversation will come from telling me that he helps people maintain the health of their fingers. One of the strongest candidates I ever interviewed told me he really didn’t want the job I had to offer, and proceeded to tell me exactly what role he wanted. It led to a great discussion, and before he left the office, I made him the best possible job offer I could to try to attract him to my operation. You can get the article that prompted this, Don’t Kill Your Career Search With Lack Of Focus!”, here: http://www.JHACareers.com/LackFocus.htmThis question was posted to a group to which I belong
I’ve been short listed for a position and they are bringing in the final candidates for interviews over a two day period.
Question: Do I want to go first, last or somewhere in the middle? They have given me the option since I will be traveling so I was wondering if there were any thoughts? Since the interviews will only be over a two day period, perhaps there’s not much difference.
My response
I’d go for 1st, for 2 reasons:
What do YOU think? Post your own comments…
I came across this advice some time ago for how to reach out to a hiring manager who has an opening:
“If the manager’s secretary answers, introduce yourself and ask for the manager by name. Expect that she will tell you he is not available and ask the purpose of your call. Do not, under any circumstances tell her you are responding to an advertisement or seeking a job, but rather say, “it’s personal.” Then leave your name, phone number at which you can be reached, and a time you will be available. The chances are very good that she will pass the message on.”
I take very strong exception with telling someone “It’s personal”. Having been a hiring manager for many years, I can tell you that anyone who did that with me would have a big hole to dig themseleves out of. In fact, most times when I got a message saying “it’s personal”, and didn’t recognize the name, I would throw away the message, ask my administrative assistant to call and find out more, or simply assume the person would call back some time. I had learned that 99% of such messages I received were either recruiters or salespeople.
There is the additional issue of potentially alienating a very important person - the hiring manager’s administrative assistant. By misrepresenting yourself this way to get around the assistant, they will also remember you negatively for having done that. You have just turned a critical gate keeper into your enemy!
Although the “it’s personal” strategy may get you through more often than being honest about the call, when you do get connected you are on a much stronger footing. The key to an influential conversation, to a winning interview, is to build a strong relationship with the hiring manager, so that they see you as someone they really WANT to work with day by day, who is clearly aligned with their goals, who they can always rely on. Starting out with something that already may negatively influence that relationship is not a great strategy.
For more on how to Hit a Home Run in Every Interview, see this article:
http://www.JHACareers.com/ArticlesInterview.htm
By the way, another tactic used by a recruiter for whom I used to have respect was to leave a fake name. He claimed it was to protect the candidate, since he was so well known. At the time I didn’t realize this - he hadn’t needed to try that particularl dodge because I always took his calls.
He then did 2 things I considered unethical in presenting candidates to me, and I told him not to ever bother to call our company again, as we would never use him in any capacity. (I was responsible for all actuarial hiring.)
A few years later, when I was looking to make a move myself, he called me under the fake name (which I still didn’t know), and sent me materials about his firm with that name on the letterhead. Since he had moved in the interim and had a different phone number and area code, I didn’t realize it was him. I went on the interview, afterwards happened to mention the name to a friend, and found out who I was dealing with. I never let on, and made a note in my address book never to return a call again that was left under that name!
Recruiters can be critical contacts in a Career Search, but you need go about working with them the right way. Just as in any profession, there are a large number of average (or worse) recruiters, and a small percentage of top notch professionals.
You want to be selective, choosing to work actively only with those who have proven successes in the exact type of job, industry, company and compensation level you seek. You want to evaluate them just as extensively as they evaluate you as a potential candidate they might present. For more on this, see this article:
http://www.JHACareers.com/ArticlesRecruiters.htm
Here’s a comment I received some time ago on the subject, in response to an article I wrote about seeking to Hit A Home Run in your Career Search:
When I first wrote my piece “When to Talk About Salary”, I received the following comment:
“I couldn’t disagree with your comments about salary more. Hiring someone is an economic transaction. To not talk about salary is to hide part of the facts of the transaction from one of the parties involved in the deal. There is no reason to feel shame in discussing it. In fact, the job candidate who asks about salary early in the interview shows to me a business acumen and forthrightness that makes him/her look more favorable in my eyes, not less.”
My response
I was surprised to receive such a strong disagreement with this article. Coincidentally, I received a comment from another actuary who couldn’t imagine anyone taking issue with what I said - he thought it was such obvious common sense!
Even if you reduce hiring to just an economic transaction (debatable), how do you determine the ‘value’ of that transaction? How do you measure the value of the future results this candidate will produce for the organization? This is where negotiation comes into it. And I would never start a negotiation by laying out all of my cards on the table face up.
I’m not advocating “hiding” anything. I just believe firmly that the best time to get into the discussion is after the hiring manager is convinced that he or she needs the candidate, that the candidate is the strong solution to his or her serious challenge. That’s the time that the hiring manager is prepared to make the best offer, and to be the most flexible in negotiation. To get into the discussion earlier is to risk ending the interview prematurely, or set things up for a significantly lower offer.
Feel free to post your own comments on this topic!
Here’s a question I received from someone who had received his first job offer after a layoff, struggling with whether to consider relocation
I interviewed for a position, and the manager sent me email asking, if he made me an offer, would I accept it? I responded: “I am very interested. What are the terms of the offer?”
My concern (and apparently his, too) is that he wants me to relocate.
I have lived here for close to 30 years. My two kids are going to college only a 45 minute car ride from our home. We are close and we see each other regularly. On the other hand, the job is very good: the position is very good, the work challenging and exciting, secure, opportunity for growth.
I have not been made an official offer. His email was the opening of the negotiations and it seems like he doesn’t want to go through the effort of a formal offer, if I already know I would not move. The truth is, I don’t know. It is not out of the question for me. It’s a two-hour plane ride from where I live, so, it’s not like I am going to the ends of the earth. My son and I are particularly close. He is already feeling discomfort… only at the thought.
So this is the classic dilemma. Family and familiarity of my sorroundings vs. new sorroundings away from close members of my family.
What do you think?
My response (Feel free to weigh in with your own comments)
You can always turn an offer down, so until you have the formal offer, there’s no problem fully exploring the opportunity. It’s not a fair question to ask if you would accept an offer, without all the details of the offer, so it’s fair for you to express strong interest in the opportunity, and use that as a chance to explore fully what will help you make a decision.
For example, will he bring you back up for further discussion face-to-face, and also to spend a day with a realtor looking around the areas that would be a reasonable commute from the office to get a feel for that? (That’s something I did on an interview in Indiana once, and the end result was that I surprised myself with how impressed I was with the area & lifestyle for both myself & my family.)
For example, is he open to the idea of you doing a partial tele-commute, so that you could work from home, say, 1-2 days a week and work 3-4 day weeks at the home office (living in an apartment or such in the area during those days)? Or working a compressed week like 4-10 hour days, so that you could come back home 3 days a week?
These things are difficult to explore with him via email, so I would use the email to set up a date/time you could discuss the opportunity over the phone or in person.
In any event, don’t let the fact that it’s the first possible opening you’ve seen, and fear of looking, drive your decision. Sit down and weigh carefully the pros and cons of the opportunity (outside of the location) to see if it really fits what you want exclusive of that problem.
Someone posted to a listserv I’m in, complaining about the fact that items posted there were getting picked up and re-posted elsewhere. This prompted a good discussion. I weighed in as follows:
I’d suggest you think of everything you post to this or any other forum, and your profile and postings on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. as an open book - don’t post anything that you aren’t comfortable having sent to the world. Make sure everything you do contributes to the same professional image you are trying to foster, that you want prospective employers to see.
No matter what safeguards you think are being taken, once you post something there is a potential for it to be found in an internet search, or for someone else to forward it or cut & paste it into something else. Most of the time this is innocent - someone using what you wrote as an example, or thinking they are being helpful by forwarding it somewhere else. Just assume that will happen, and act accordingly.
Even emails should foster the image you are attempting to achieve. At the very basic level, friends & associates to whom you send emails are part of your network who can connect you to opportunities, and it is important that they have the same professional image you want to promote to those potential employers. And you never know who might innocently forward something you write them (“Hey, Joe, thought you might like to catch up on what Joanne’s been doing”) or to be helpful (”Jim, if you’re ever looking for a top quality recruiter, check out my friend Joanne.”). And sometimes things get forwarded to the wrong address…
For more on guarding your professional image, check out this article:
http://www.jhacaree
A posting I came across
“I am just curious as to whether or not any of you have recovered from a bad interview. For instance, you talked too much or weren’t focused in your responses .. maybe you were distracted from something that happened just prior to your interview and it threw you off your game or you didn’t feel as though you connected with the interviewer or didn’t say something you thought would have been great to bring up.
Did you make up for it in your Thank you letter or did you do a follow up call and as a result, you got another chance?”
My response
Review very carefully in your mind whether you actually made mistakes in the interview, or simply didn’t perform as well as you could. For example, if communication skills are critical to the job, and you garbled what you said in significant sections, then you need to address that in your thank you letter. Make a very simple statement explaining it, but don’t go into much detail - the more you talk about it, the more you emphasize the negative. Then immediately go into accomplishments and results that demonstrate that you actually do have powerful communication skills.
On the other hand, if you simply didn’t perform as well as you hoped, or neglected to include a story to back up an important skill / area of experience, then there’s no need to talk about your performance in the interview. Simply provide the proof in your thank you letter of the qualifications and results that make you a powerful candidate, including the bullet points to prove any missing points. You could even preface something that you omitted to mention in the interview, like “I may not have mentioned…”
The Thank You letter is really a marketing document, just as is the Cover Letter. You need to make your most powerful arguments in both…and in the Thank You you have the advantage of already having had the deep discussion with the interviewers, so that you can tailor it much more effectively to their challenges.
Here’s an article on the topic:
“Are Cover Letters A Waste Of Time?”
When a job seeker told me he’d had a great interview, but that they wouldn’t pay him enough to make it worthwhile, I asked how he knew. His answer: “Because I asked them what the range was.”
I asked why he did that. The question surprised him. “Because I wanted to know … but don’t worry, I first told them that money wasn’t the most important thing to me, that I was most interested in the challenges, etc.”
This is a common mistake among job seekers. They are naturally worried about compensation, and want to know what the possibilities are. They want to be prepared for offer negotiations. But there are many other ways to find out enough information to satisfy those concerns, such as through networking with people in similar roles at other companies, or friends at the particular company who aren’t involved in the hiring decision; and through research in the library and on websites like SalaryExpert.com.
The problem with being the first to bring up compensation with anyone in the hiring chain is that just raising the question:
“Oh, but I said all the right things first.”
So? Do you think hiring managers aren’t savvy enough to know that you ask every question for a reason? Do you really believe that they don’t try to use every piece of information offered, including what questions you ask, to get a fix on what’s important to you and whether you are the best possible candidate?
“Don’t worry, I didn’t ask the hiring manager … I just asked the HR person.”
OK, that’s better than asking the hiring manager. But don’t you think I will seek input from every person you talked to prior to making a decision whether to move forward? Or do you assume that the HR person’s opinion carries absolutely zero weight?
“But I didn’t ask about salary, just other benefits.” (eg, paid time off, medical/dental)
Why is that any better? Those benefits are still part of the total compensation. In fact, that might be worse. As a hiring manager, I can at least understand why someone would be so worried about salary that they ask about it, but to ask about specific benefits? Now I’m wondering whether you are even focused on the right issues, and understand that benefits are a tradeoff for salary. And if it was vacation time you asked about, I might now be worried about whether you are prepared to put in whatever time the job requires.
“But, wait, by asking early on, I’ve often been able to find out they couldn’t offer me enough to make it worthwhile, and saved us both the time and energy of a pointless interview!”
Perhaps, but how do you know that they couldn’t offer you more than what they said? If I’m a hiring manager interviewing for a job whose range was $70-100,000, typically I’m going to try to bring in new employees in the lower half of the range, ie, $70-85,000. 90% of offers I make will be under $87,000, but there will sometimes be exceptional candidates to whom I offer $90,000 or even $95,000. And once in a great while I will even upgrade the job to a new grade level to fit that exceptional candidate, opening up a whole new range.
But if someone asked me early in the process what the range was, I would likely answer $70-85,000. I don’t want the candidate thinking I can offer more, and then bargaining for that higher amount. Plus I don’t want to set things up for them to potentially be disappointed with the offer because they compare their offer to a top of the range I don’t expect to offer.
In fact, twice in my years as a hiring manager, I offered a candidate who was a superstar a salary only a few $1,000 below what I was making! But I NEVER would have even considered revealing that number as a possibility to either a prospective candidate or a recruiter who was interested in sending me candidates - until I interviewed those candidates, I hadn’t considered that amount a possibility myself!
Here’s the most fundamental reason never to bring up compensation yourself: You don’t want a prospective employer thinking about how much you might cost them until they are convinced they want you on their team. If you’ve done a great job in the interview of getting deep into their challenges, of establishing how much it’s costing them not to have you in that position tomorrow, that you are a great solution to their problems, then they will want to make the best possible offer they can to get you on their team!
Here was the first response to my question:
“Do you view performance appraisals as a meaningless exercise, or an opportunity to raise your visibility?”
“Meaningless- sitting on both sides I have yet to see a meaningful experience. The appraisal is written and done. There is no opportunity to gain visibility from the exercise.”
I agree…if you wait until the time the appraisal is written to try to turn it into a meaningful excercise. By then, your boss has already evaluated your performance and reached his or her conclusions.; You may be able to make incremental improvements, but probably not much beyond that.
On the other hand, if you write your own self-appraisal in advance of that time, you have an opportunity to:
-Improve the ratings you receive, and ensure that what you’ve accomplished is well-documented in your personnel files.
-Enhance your boss’s perception of your contributions.
-Better equip your boss to describe to others (the next level up, other key executives) the value you are adding to his or her operation.
What do you do if your company doesn’t provide for self-appraisals?
Why should you let that stop you? What would prevent you from documenting your accomplishments to your boss, and presenting it as something to help him or her in preparing the eventual appraisal.
Just be sure that you give a lot of thought to the self-appraisal, and stay at the high level. Don’t get down and dirty into all of the details of what you did, focus on the high level accomplishments. And get very clear on the results you achieved - what your work meant for the operation and the company.
For more on how to do this, check out this article:
“Catch Yourself Doing a Good Job”
Many people on both sides of the table worry about performance appraisals:
On the other hand, performance appraisals can be an opportunity:
What do you think? Post your comments on this question:
“Do you view performance appraisals as a meaningless exercise, or an opportunity to raise your visibility?”
“What’s the biggest obstacle to making sure new career opportunities seek you out?”
Post your comments here, and let’s get a good discussion going!
Do you dread performance appraisal time? Or do you see this as an opportunity to market yourself?
I hope you see it as the latter!
Obviously, you need to be working throughout the year to make sure that you are doing a great job, and that this is visible to your boss, your co-workers, and other key influencers in your organization. Now that you get to performance appraisal time, it’s your chance to do a good summary to cement your performance in your boss’s mind.
Ideal is when you are asked to do a self-appraisal. If not, do one anyway. Put together your thoughts and provide them to your boss ahead of time. Offer it as a way to help make his or her job easier. (Boss’s rarely look forward to performance appraisals either!)
When you go to do your self-appraisal, don’t get stuck in all of the details of what you did. Think about your critical goals, and particularly what will be critical to your boss, and then use that to focus and order your presentation. Then concentrate on what you accomplished, and what results that created for your unit, your department, and your company. You need to articulate that part very clearly, because in the end the results are the ONLY reason your salary is being paid.
Also think carefully about what challenges you encountered along the way, and succeeded in overcoming. One of the most important benefits you bring to your boss is your ability to overcome challenges, particularly if you are able to make it look easy. If you do a great job with that, how likely is it that your boss truly recognizes what you are accomplishing? It’s easy to notice an issue, it’s much more difficult to notice and remember an issue that goes away!
The self-appraisal is your chance to clearly articulate those challenges you dealt with, and remind your boss of all of the value you are adding to his or her organization!
If you’d like to talk more about this, post a comment!
In an article in Career Tips, 2008 Volume 7, I wrote:
Asking for the next steps is a good idea, though it should be AFTER you’ve asked questions to uncover any problems that might exist with your candidacy. One way to ask is along the lines of:
“What else can I tell you to convince you I’m the person you would want to hire for this position?”
(If you would like a copy of 2008 Volume 7, just drop me an email at John@JHACareers.com.)
Toni wrote in response:
“I think your response is excellent and bold. I say bold because if you’re clearly lacking some qualifications, to have it pointed out or highlighted at the end of the interview may make them eliminate you on the spot. Where as if most of the people they are interviewing lack this same skill you could be still in the running. On the other hand, the lacking quality may be something that was not listed in the resume and the interviewee did not articulate a response that gave them the answer they were looking for. The additional questions at the end of the interview would give the interviewee one last chance to set themselves about the rest.”
Here’s more on the subject:
Toni:
Thanks for weighing in!
You need to come across in an interview as confident in what you bring to the table, and as if you truly belive you are the best candidate. If you are worried about something you may be lacking, and trying to avoid it, you will rarely succeed. The point of asking a question like
“What else can I tell you to convince you I’m the person you would want to hire for this position?”
is to surface objections that already exist in the interviewer’s mind, so you can address them. If there are objections, and you leave them unaddressed, you will rarely make it to the next round.
I suppose it’s possible, as you suggest, that everyone else has the same issue, but then that means you are hoping to be no worse than everyone else they talk to. By getting the chance to address it right on the spot, you have the opportunity to differentiate yourself as better than everyone else.
By the way, I often hear about candidates asking a variation of this question in a negative way, like
“Do you have any concerns about my candidacy?”
The problem with asking the question this way is that it invites the interviewer to focus on the problems with your candidacy. It is much more effective to have them focused on the positives - which is why I suggest the question the way I did in my article. Plus, the question I posed presents an air of confidence in your candidacy.
“What’s the biggest obstacle to making sure new career opportunities seek you out?”
Post your answers here, and let’s get a good discussion going!
Someone asked me a good question, and I thought other readers would benefit from the answer. I invite you to post your own responses & comments as well…
Asking for the next steps is a good idea, though it should be AFTER you’ve asked questions to uncover any problems that might exist with your candidacy. One way to ask is along the lines of:“I’ve gotten the interview, established good rapport and made it known that I’m interested. How do I close the deal or get the job? Some say simply ask for the job! I usually ask what is the next step before a decision is made. That is when I hear, “We have (X-number) more candidates to interview before we decide.” I then thank them once again for their time and reiterate my interest. What should I be saying?”
“What else can I tell you to convince you I’m the person you would want to hire for this position?”
Their answer, both verbal and non-verbal, will give you important clues, perhaps even downright objections, that you can address right there and in your thank you letter. If they don’t express an objection outright, but the body language or lack of enthusiasm suggest they have them, you could try following up with something like:
“I get the sense that you have some reservation about my candidacy. Can I ask what that might be?”
After you find out the next steps, and the time frame for those steps, you should set your own action step, along the lines of:
“Since you expect to make a decision on second interviews next week, I will give you a call a week from Monday if I haven’t heard from you by then.”
If they say that it’s too soon, then just push the date back, but still leave yourself a specific date you will call them. This gives you the chance to model how you do business – professionally persistent, taking action, doing exactly what you say you are going to do when you say you will.
Finally, go home and within 24 hours write a marketing letter to everyone with whom you met. Notice I didn’t say a thank you letter. Of course, the ‘excuse’ is to thank them for interviewing you, but the purpose is to make your strong pitch for why you are a great candidate for the job, using what you learned during the interview. This is your chance to leave them a reminder of what you would bring to the table, and to show your confidence in presenting it. It’s also a chance to fill in some important quality you neglected to bring to light in the interview, or to try to strengthen an answer that you don’t think you delivered that well during the interview.
For more on “How to Hit a Home Run in Interviews”, check out this article:
www.JHACareers.com/ArticlesInterview.htm
I’ve posted additional categories, as well as articles to jump start the discussion in Interviews and Networking. Jump in and add your own comments and questions!
I’m headed off to Montana for a short vacation, so don’t be disappointed if I don’t respond to your comments myself until late next week!