Just back from a trip to see extended family over the weekend. During one of our house calls, in a room full of aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews I was asked ‘what do you do?’…..
I was caught completely off guard, I know all about having Elevator pitch prepared but when I was suddenly in the spotlight I realised I didn’t have a few lines ready to trot out to succinctly explain what I’m up to these days. In this instance my lack of preparation didn’t matter too much, but if I had been meeting a potential employer or client, I don’t’ think my long winded unprepared answer would have given a great first impression.
In light of this experience, I thought I would provide my readers with a few tips to help you write your elevator pitch.
So what is an elevator pitch? It’s a short, persuasive speech that you use to generate interest in you or your business, and should last no longer than it takes to take a lift (aka elevator) between two floors (approx. 30 seconds).
Top tips:
Identify your goal – what do you want your listener to know about you? What do you want them to remember most about you?
Tailor it – rework your pitch for different audiences – how you explain what you do to a potential employer will be different to how you convey what you are about to the an old colleague you bump into on the street. Provide a general overview about what you do making sure to highlight your expertise and unique selling points.
Practice and be enthusiastic – saying it out loud repeatedly will make it roll off your tongue easier when you need to say it for real. Being enthusiastic and genuine about what you are saying will make what you are saying more memorable.
In summary, an elevator pitch is a short, introductory statement that you can use to quickly explain to a stranger at a bus stop or future boss at an interview, what you do or what you are working towards in your working life. It’s an opportunity to promote your expertise, showcase your experience and will mean you will have a confident answer at the ready whenever you are asked “So, what do you do?”.
Whatever your motivation is for returning to work, be it financial, mental stimulation or your kids are now at school, if you are thinking of getting back to paid work here are some tips to help you on your way. From speaking to clients and meeting mums at the school gates and playgroups, I’ve learned that the barriers inhibiting women returning to the workplace fall into two categories – emotional and practical. I’ve created a list of top tips to help you overcome these barriers and get you started on your journey to where you want to be!
Emotional Steps: Acknowledge your emotions!
Often what stands in our way, is not the practical aspects of getting back to work but the emotional side of things holding us back. Many women start this process feeling overwhelmed and unsure of where to start. Fear, worry, self-doubt and lack of self-confidence, can stop us even investigating if we can make it work before we even get started. Know that as part of this back to work process, it is normal to feel this way and to doubt yourself. It has been a while and you may feel out of touch, rusty and lacking in self-confidence to operate in the working world. Acknowledge these feelings as a normal part of the process when making a life change, but don’t let them stop you. You are still as capable, (if not more) as you were the day you left your last job.
Susan Jeffers (author of Feel the fear and do it anyway) reminds us to “remember that underlying all our fears is a lack of trust in ourselves”. Leaving our comfort zone can be unnerving for the best of us, but the only way to grow and truly live your life is to push yourself to do things that take you out of your comfort zone, away from your normal and embrace challenges with a positive attitude believing in yourself and your abilities.
It may help to know that confident people aren’t born, they’re made! It’s a skill that can be learned. Spend time identifying what you do well, make a list of your achievements both during your career and whilst on career break. Remember to hold your head high, be upfront and don’t feel the need to apologise for your decision to stay at home with your family. You have been busy raising the next generation not sitting idle for years.
Practical Steps: Formulate your plan!
Take small steps to get you on your way.
Dedicate time in your weekly schedule to plan your back to work strategy. It’s easy to get bogged down with other demands on your time in the home, be strict in setting aside time to devote to your career planning. It can be a struggle to carve out time for yourself when you are used to putting everyone else first. You may need to delegate some tasks around the home to others, or be willing to let some things slide but dedicated ‘work’ time within your week is the only way you will get things moving for yourself. The planning stage is crucial as it will focus you on the steps you need to take to get to where you want to be, and by focusing your attention on what you need to do you will be less likely to procrastinate.
Decide what job you want to do, conduct a careers evaluation either by yourself or with a careers consultant. Your career pre-children may not be the same as your career post-children. Having children changes you as a person and you may have altered your priorities, values and requirements in terms of the work you want to do. Do you want to work for yourself? Make a direct application to an organisation for a part-time or full-time role you’ve seen advertised? Change sectors? Have you always wondered what it would be like to do a certain job? Perhaps you could job shadow for a day or organise an information interview with someone who is doing your dream job. This is your opportunity to explore your ideal work scenario.
Take time to assess what you have to offer in terms of skills and experience. Do you need to upskill? Volunteering and training courses may be beneficial. Find an organisation to donate your time in your industry. Doing so updates your CV, gives you examples to use in interviews and puts you into contact with new people in your industry. Activelink.ie and Volunteer.ie are fantastic resources which have new openings added weekly. With regards to additional training, professional bodies often run seminars on current topics affecting their industry. These are a good way to not only update your knowledge, but meet contacts working in your industry. Local enterprise boards run free or subsidised courses for entrepreneurs starting out on their own. Skillnets.ie also run industry led training courses.
Plan childcare – how will you manage the juggle? How many hours are you available to work? Will you need to get paid childcare involved? How will you get to work? Can you other half alter their start/finish time to do the school run for example?
Create a tailored CV and update your LinkedIn profile. How to address the gap on my CV? Quite Simply, with a simple heading along the lines of “2010-2015 Career Break to raise family”. You could follow this with Relevant Experience, where you talk about your voluntary work and training. There is lots of advice available on ways to structure CV’s such as using a skills based CV to highlight relevant experience. Find job adverts for the job you want to work in to help you highlight the significant experience you have when compiling your CV. When you are ready to start making applications, make sure that you send a targeted cover letter as well as a tailored CV (which has been tweaked based on the advert) to any roles you are applying for. Linkedin is a fantastic tool for showcasing your skills, knowledge and experience.
Practice Interviewing –Prepare answers to common interview questions, gather up job adverts for the roles you are considering and formulate questions based on the skills and experience the employer is looking for. Start doing mock interviews either with family/friends or enlist the services of a career coach.
Networking & Elevator Pitch – think about who you can reach out to in your network. This could be former colleagues, new mum friends you’ve made since having children, contacts you’ve met volunteering etc. Most people groan internally when the term networking is mentioned, but it really is a necessary evil! If it doesn’t come naturally to you, it really helps to have your elevator pitch ready, as well as a comprehensive research of the current trends affecting your industry and be ready to talk about the work you’ve been involved in in the past and more recently.
Before you reach out to anyone in your network, you need to have a short 30 second ‘elevator pitch’ ready that sums up the kind of work you are looking for and what your experience is. This is not the time to be self-depreciating, speak confidently about your background and the work you are intending to do.
Set goals and give yourself deadlines for when you will achieve these goals. It will be very easy to procrastinate, get distracted by other demands on your time, but to truly succeed you need to be very strict with yourself. Finding a job is a job in itself so give it the time it deserves.
Go for it, if you’ve started thinking about getting back to paid work again, keep the momentum going and throw yourself into it. There will be times you will feed exasperated, unsure, scared and totally out of your comfort zone but remember it is all part of the process and totally normal. Finally, as Nike are famous for saying – just do it!
