The following is an excerpt from RecruiterGuy's Guide to Finding a Job. If you recall, we've previously discussed the elevator speech.
Your “Here I Am!” speech is also called an elevator speech or one-minute commercial. This is the beginning of branding yourself as a candidate or professional. The more successful candidates are the ones who do a
good job differentiating themselves. Your “Here I Am!” speech is not something you can memorize; it is something you feel. You’ll know you have hit it on the head when it feels good to you when you repeat it.
Let’s work on building it right now. What are the base elements of a “Here I Am!” speech?
- Talk about your experience and talents/impacts. It’s important to discuss why you are passionate about that type of work. That is a key differentiator for you.
- Discuss briefly why you are in this situation of looking for a job. Relax. My feeling is that the recession in the early 1990s was the first white-collar recession. The dot-bomb recession from 2000 to 2002 was strongly a professional and technical recession. Then the recession of 2008 until 2011 impacted everyone; therefore, everyone knows someone who was laid off or otherwise lost a job and did not deserve to be out of work.
- Talk about what you would like to do next.
This is an example of a “Here I Am!” speech that an engineer gave me after 9/11 when his company had to lay off several thousand professionals.
“When I was a kid, my dad was an air traffic controller and private pilot. He had his own plane. Every weekend, we would go up in the plane. My dad put me in his lap as he flew the plane, and I pretended to be the pilot. When I was older, I set a goal to get my pilot’s license at the same time I passed my driver’s license. When I was 16 years old, I earned both. When I graduated from high school, I went into the Air Force and began working on avionics equipment as a tech. Eventually, the Air Force promoted me to an avionics engineer. After I left the Air Force, I became an avionics engineer for (avionics company). As a matter of fact, if you are a (major airline) pilot flying a 767-400, I created the menu for the flat-panel display and determined when objects appeared in that display — so you are flying a plane with the menu I created. As a result of 9/11, (avionics company) had to lay off 3,000 people and I was one of them. Now I would like to go to work for another avionics company where I can help make flying safer for the pilots and the people they fly.”
Do you feel the passion in his “Here I Am!” speech? Two weeks after he created his differentiator, he had an offer from another avionics company. That is how important your “Here I Am!” speech is. It needs to be sincere and passionate about what you have done and desire to do. Include a major accomplishment in your discussion. It is the beginning of your brand. It needs to be memorable for the person hearing it. They don’t need to be able to repeat it. They need to remember it. Why? Many times when managers are actively interviewing many candidates, they forget names and details; however, they remember stories. I have repeatedly heard managers say, “I don’t remember his name. They were the one that told the story about…” Suddenly the other managers chime in and one of them remembers the name.
It’s time for the bookmark again. Take time to focus on your “Here I Am!” speech. Start to develop it. This usually is a task that takes a couple of days to hone. Remember, it must come from your heart. Trying to memorize it will fail because you can’t memorize passion, you feel it. You know you have it when you can give it to a friend with total confidence and feel the passion in your branding.
I liked this, in pite of the lack of comments.
-Mike
Posted by: Mike Hunt | May 18, 2011 at 12:31 AM