Your Career Needs a Lift
It’s all too easy to make a mistake in your response to the dreaded ” Tell me about yourself .” Even if it’s not the interviewer who is asking you this question directly, most of us, when given the opportunity to explain your work in simple terms, give confusing, boring, or incomplete answers.
Many career opportunities are as simple as having one of your contacts “thinking of you”. But in order for someone to think of you, they must first understand what you do. Here are the basics of why you need an elevator presentation for your career, and how you can write one that people are sure to remember.
Remember the purpose of the presentation in the elevator
If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of an elevator presentation, here’s the knowledge: imagine you’re in an elevator with an interviewer or someone who can help your career. You only have 60 seconds until they get to their floor to explain what you’re doing, so you’d better make it as concise and convincing as possible.
So when it comes to creating a presentation about your current career, you need to figure out (1) the most compelling information and (2) how you can get it across as concisely as possible.
Learn to prioritize information
Reducing only the most important information is often surprisingly difficult. As Mark Twain once said, “I didn’t have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote a long one.” Especially when it comes to summarizing your own career, you may feel like you’re always missing something or that you need to add to your description to make it more impressive.
Start by making a list of everything that might be relevant to your career lift. Think about education, work experience, skills, and strengths. Cross out everything from this list that is not critical to the other person’s understanding of what you can do for them.
Once you’ve narrowed down the list of the most important points, it’s time to organize and articulate them in a way that’s easy to understand and remember.
Be interesting but use plain language
Your pitch should be easy to understand. But when you’re passionate about what you do (or want to appear passionate), it’s easy to lean on complicated jargon or industry terms. Resist the temptation to get technical or you could lose your audience.
The person you are offering yourself to will not be able to “keep you in mind” if they cannot understand what you said in the first place. If you find yourself throwing in a lot of complicated explanations, reformulate your presentation not in terms of technique , but in terms of what you can do for other people . You will find that jargon becomes unnecessary.
Create several different fields to choose from
Who is not a multi-hyphen these days? I know that I have a list of different presentations depending on which elevator I’m in. Whether I’m trying to draw attention to a writing project, or I’m being invited to stand up, or I’m trying to impress my partner’s family, the way I organize information will change for my audience.
However, if you think having multiple different presentations will make your brain work harder, stick to polishing the most important version of your career description.
Practice Your Serve
Now that you’ve come up with a compelling definition of who you are and what you do, be sure to rehearse your speech. Do not memorize it word for word, otherwise everyone will remember only that you sounded like a nervous robot. The bottom line is that there is no excuse for not preparing anything when you have the opportunity to introduce yourself. Give people something to remember so that when an exciting opportunity presents itself, they will be sure to “think of you.”