How to Write a Self-Pitch That Actually Gets You the Interview (90-Second Framework)

Hello, my amazing Job Search Formula members. Welcome to Lesson 2 in Module 3. In this lesson, we're going to be going through, uh, everything you need to start building your self-pitch framework. You'll walk away with this lesson understanding what a self-pitch is, why you need it, why it's important, and how to actually write it. Now, in the first lesson, which you need to have done before you do this, uh, you will have identified your skills, strengths, um, what your value is, what's important to you. You'll have your unique value proposition put together. So what All of that material will help you build this self-pitch. So let's get into it. Okay, so in this lesson, as I said, you'll be going, we're gonna be going into what is the self-pitch. This is one of the strongest things that you need to be successful in your job search. And a lot of the time we think I only need my self-pitch for when I get to the interview and I'm answering that question, tell me about yourself. This is what you need when you are meeting people at networking events, when you are reaching out to people, there's versions of this you need. This is really important for when you're pitching yourself into organizations. And it's also important to have for when you're posting on LinkedIn and showing up online. The more you can understand what your offering is, the better you're able to articulate yourself and communicate that to the rest of the world. So I think what's also key for me to highlight here is when you think about this self-pitch, you will build the framework and the foundation. Then it's up to you to then, you know, alter it from there when you need to. Just say, for example, you build this self-pitch and then you're, uh, and this will make sense as we go through, but you build your self-pitch and maybe the last part of it doesn't make sense for that networking event you're going to, so you're not going to say it there. Uh, or maybe when you're pitching yourself into an organization, it's, it, you know, it doesn't make sense to share certain parts. So you need to change it as you go, but this is, this is going to build you the foundation, which is exactly what you need, um, to be able to work with it from there. This needs to sound really organic. This needs to sound really natural. So So you're not going to feel that after this lesson, but the more you practice this, the more you feel comfortable with it, the more it will sound natural to you. And I think knowing that or thinking about if you were walking down the street and someone came up to you and said, hey, Jess, who are you? What do you do? Tell me about yourself. You could go straight into this and in 90 seconds, boom, boom, boom, you tell this person exactly who you are, what you bring, the value you have, what you're interested in, blah, blah, blah. This needs to be something that feels really natural, and it needs to be something that you feel really confident in. So any kind of networking event or opportunity or conversation or interview you walk into, you feel that you have this part handled. And not only in that part, but you know how to start positioning yourself online, which is just as important. Awesome, let's get into it. Okay, so the self-pitch is a concise, compelling story about who you are, what you do, and why it matters, delivered on demand in any room. So this is around what I was saying, um, any room from being networking and you conversation with someone and down the track when you're starting to get interviews. It's not your elevator pitch, so it's not the 30-second ad. Um, generally I would say elevator pitches are more for people that are, you know, uh, I think that scenario can be for people that are business owners trying to pitch to an investor, or maybe this could be, um, when you're trying to get like you're a salesperson and you've got someone for 30 seconds in an elevator. So I want you to kind of remove that kind of salesy vibe from it. It's not that. It's also not your resume summary. It's not you sitting there going, "Well, I started off here, then I went here, then I did this, then I did that, then I did this, then I did this. Now I'm here." It's not a resume summary. It's a verbal snapshot, conversational. It's warm. It gives them direct insight into who you are as a person and what you actually care about. And it's also your narrative anchor. So every single introduction, every interview, every network chat, starts with this. And as I said, there will be nuances to the different situations you find yourself in, but this is going to help you each and every single time. Okay. So what's really important about having this down pat and taking this really seriously is this is your first impression window. Now the second 7 seconds when you meet someone or when you're in an interview or when you're networking or putting yourself out there, the first impression, well, firstly in person, Probably around 7 seconds. Online, about 3 seconds. So those first 3 to 7 seconds is what you have to get someone's attention and to keep their attention. You get their attention, you keep their attention, they, you know, begin to be more invested in you. 85% of jobs now are filled through networking and referrals. So that is everything from recruiters searching you up on LinkedIn, which they do through the backend, and You know, the more that you are showing up online and posting, the more attractive of a candidate you're going to be. Um, and of course through, you know, putting yourself out there through various different networking events, there is a whole module on networking, which we're going to get into how to get more involved in that. And this is the one shot that you have to, of how others see you. Now I know that might be like, oh, that's a lot of pressure, but it's kind of reality. You know, you, you meet someone, you're introduced to someone. This is your moment to really blow them away. And this is what's good about this, is that you can actually become really good at this. You can get really confident about talking about yourself. You can feel that— I don't care who— you can feel that you could say to yourself, I don't care who walked into the room with me right now, I'd be able to pitch myself confidently, and I'd feel really good about myself when I was doing it. I wouldn't feel that I needed to be small. I wouldn't feel that I needed to apologize for myself. And I feel that I would come across really clearly. So this will help you do that. That's how you're gonna feel, which I think is a pretty epic thing. So without a self-pitch, these are the kind of things that the traps that we fall into. So you ramble, you lose the room before you've even started, you undersell yourself. I think we fall into the trap of just listing our duties instead of really owning our value. You sound different every time, so no one really remembers you. I think especially at like a networking event or if you are posting online, People want to become familiar with who you are and the messaging, the messaging you're putting out there. So that's really important. You freeze, you know, we have a mental blank, we, we, we, we lose our words, which I almost did just then, because you, you know, you never practice saying I am or I do this, this is who I am. So the part about not freezing, that's going to— and I think that's something that a lot of people face— that's going to become less and less the more you practice it. The more you feel comfortable with it, the more you do exercises like timing yourself. So, you know, putting the timer on and going, okay, I'm going to give myself 90 seconds to deliver this pitch, and that's all I've got. So put it like that, kind of pressure testing is always going to help as well. Great. So this is the framework for your self-pitch. Now it's divided into 4 pieces, 4 areas, I guess. Now, as I said, depending on the situation you're in, this might change, but the first part is who you are. So your professional identity in one clear sentence, your title, your field, your focus area, whatever it is. Now, where's it— where there's nuance, I'll highlight it. In an interview, you might start off with something like, um, you know, I was born and bred in the country, but I've been in the city for the last 15 years. And then you would go boom into this. So this is, again, this is the framework, the foundation, and you build it from there. So the first part is the who you are. The second part is what you do. So the specific value you create. Now this is not your, this is not where you just talk about the specific responsibilities that you do in your day-to-day work. This is where you speak to the outcomes that you deliver. Like what is the impact that you are having on every organization you walk into? What is the, like what is the change you are creating for the clients you work with? Like what's the support, you know, what's the support that you're giving these accounts or these customers, whatever it is. Think about the outcome you're delivering more so than the duties. Then you talk about why you do it. Now, this is really what makes you memorable because you're speaking to your motivation and your philosophy. So like, why do you do this work? Why is it important to you? What do you value about it? Value about it. This is a really, I would say, one of the most important parts of your self-pitch because anyone can sit there and rattle off their key skills and experiences and the deliverables they've done. But everyone's going to have a different why. And people that say, oh, everyone can have, everyone can have the same one, it means that they're not really digging deep enough into the real why as to why they do this. Like, what is it? Like, what is your motivation in this work? Why do you— like, when you were young, like, what did you want to be? Or, you know, when you started in this industry, what was important to you? What did you want to change? What did you want to be a part of? What movement did you want to be a part of? Like, get deep. Don't be— don't stick around, like, don't just give this surface level shit. I think a lot of the time when we are thinking about putting these together, we think we come up with these words and generic statements that we think people want to hear, but what is actually going to resonate is what's in here. So don't be afraid to dig deep. Don't be afraid to share something personal because that is what will make you memorable. The generic stuff that keeps you on the surface is just going to make you sound like everyone else. So really, really think about why you actually do this. Like, why do you care? Why? That's what I, that's what I want to know. Whenever I interview people, I'm like, okay, why do you do this? What's important to you? Um, cool. I spend a lot of time on that, but it is important. And the next part is where you're headed. So I think again, this is going to change depending on the situation. Like in an interview, you want this to kind of all tie into a little bow as to why this role now. And I speak to that in the Interview Blueprint, which, um, if you haven't got that already, I would highly recommend and you jump in because that's gonna give you all the scripts and templates you need to start building your interview answers. So that's what will change there. I think in a networking scenario, it's more around this is the kind of work I wanna be involved in. When you are speaking online, it's gonna be more focused on this is what I do now, this is what's important to me, this is where I wanna go. So just think about how it's gonna fit, be relative to where you are sharing this self-pitch. But that is your framework that you wanna work with. Okay, and this is the strategy. So I always recommend, um, you want it to be no more than 90 seconds. I think 90 seconds is a— is enough. Uh, I think it gives you— and I think it also gives you a good structure as to how you want to build this. So the 90-second career story format, again: 1, where you started; 2, the key transitions, like the key changes that you made along the way. And I think, um, what's really important in this part is people want to kind of understand the decisions you made to get to this point. Like, what were the, what were the key moments or the key changes that got you to where you are now? And if you're someone that's early on in their career and you haven't gone through like a lot of roles yet, think about like, it doesn't have to be a big part of your, of your pitch. You can just go like, think about what you were focusing on in school. Why, why did you decide to study that specific area? What's been some work experience you've got? Where, like, you know, what's that next thing now? So I think this can work for any stage of your career. You want to speak to recent results again, like that outcome-focused piece, and then again tying it to this role or tying it to the work you want to be involved in. And as I said, you know, this bonus question, what are the decisions or moves you made that got you to where you are today? That's really important. And through these key transitions, you'll find that— and there's a full— I have a template that you will be able to use to build your self-pitch. But the key transitions also speaks to like what you discovered along the way. Like, what did you discover where your what were the skills that stood out? What were the things that you realized were important to you and what weren't? Like, that's— that kind of story wants to blend in there. And this is the script that you're going to base it off. Now, of course, this is a templated script. I don't recommend using it word for word. What I do recommend doing is taking this and making it sound like you. But this is really going to just help you with that framework. So again, you've got the start. So I started my career in industry or field back in this university, early role, whatever you want to say, where I quickly developed a real interest in 2 or 3 skills or areas. That led me to take on a role at this company where I found my strengths in specific skills. Again, like, you know, be really clear around what these skills are and how they kind of tie into overall story. Try and keep them as relevant as possible to like the specific scenario you're in. From there, I moved into this role, which really built on those foundations. 'For example, one concrete achievement or outcome delivered.' 'What I've realized I value the most is things like, you know, collaboration, innovation,' whatever it is, make it, make it sound like you and what you believe in. 'And that's really shaped how I approach my work. Since then, I've continued to hone my experience in this specific skill set, and most recently I've found I've been focused on latest work or project, expanding my capability in this specific area.' This recent piece, you want to make that very relevant. If you are very relevant, sorry, to the work that you want to be doing. So when you're posting online, when you're talking about this, keep it relevant to where you want to go. When you're reaching out to people, when you're networking, keep it relevant to the roles they might be hiring for. Tie in. So now I'm looking to step into a role like this at the company name or, you know, industry, whatever it is, where I can bring together everything I've learned from X, Y, and Z and contribute to a team focused on this specific goal. So as you can see, this is a really solid framework that you can build upon. And the things that you're probably going to change depending on who you're talking to, depending on what you're talking about online, in your job search, the things you probably will slightly change are going to be the recent part and the tie-in. But the rest of it, that's going to stay pretty much the same for most of the conversations that you find yourself in or most of the content you're putting out there. And these are the two types of contexts that this pitch will be used in. So of course, it's going to come up in your interview. We won't focus too much on that right now. As I said, there's a whole, whole module focused on this in Interview Blueprint. But what's going to be really, really prominent where you'll need this, where it's going to be really prominent for you is in networking. So this is going to be used at events, intros, DMs, coffee chats. This is going to be conversation and curiosity led. This is going to be where you lead with your who and why. And generally, like, I've, you know, 90 seconds is the max, right? But obviously when you're sitting in a coffee chat with someone, you might want to, you know, reduce it slightly, uh, depending on how the conversation is flowing. So I would say 20, like, is the shortest. That's very, very short. Um, I would say probably more around that 40 to 60 second mark, uh, if you're in like a coffee chat, um, or if you're in a networking room, again, that might be around that shorter time period because you know, you got to read the room, right? You might not have someone's attention for that long. The 90 seconds is definitely more for, well, if you're posting, if you're putting things online, if you, you know, read through it, if it takes you more than 90 seconds, then it's probably too long. Also, when you're pitching yourself into organizations, you know, if you find someone on LinkedIn or you find a company on LinkedIn you really want to work for, reaching out to that person, and actually using this self-pitch in what you, what you share with them. That's what you're going to be using, and that's going to be around 90-second mark. Okay, cool. So these are the two type of areas you can use it in. Again, we're going to be going into a whole lot of work around networking and how to use this self-pitch to start networking. Okay, so we have the script and prompts attached to this lesson for you to go and build your self-pitch. You now can start pitching yourself. I would highly recommend going and finding 5 companies that you really want to work for. Find a potential hiring manager or recruiter or a manager, even like your potential manager, and pitch in with this self-pitch. Now, in the next module, we'll be speaking around networking, and I'll give you more templates as to what that might look like. But challenge yourself, say, okay, I'm going to put together my self-pitch, I'm going to send it to 5 companies that I want to work for, and I'm going to start putting myself out there because That is what is going to start giving you change in your job search and where you will start seeing results. As always, any questions, thoughts, feedbacks you have, please add it in the comments section of these lessons. I do monitor them regularly. Everything you need to build yourself pitch is attached to this lesson. Thanks everyone. I will see you in the next module.