June 10th, 2018

​Sitting here on Sunday afternoon wondering what I could say that would be helpful for you in your search. I realize that it has been a while since we have discussed elevator pitches ... so let's do that now.  There are a lot of different approaches being taught when it comes to elevator pitches.  They tend to focus on your dumping enough information in a short amount of time so as to impress the person to whom you are speaking so as to hire you.   Yeah, ...fat chance!

Let's go back to Job Search 101.  Our sabbatical is a gift from God to provide us the opportunity to expand our network, sharpen our skills, and discover how our passion will be acted out in our next job placement.  So how can we use an elevator pitch to expand our connections?  

What if we conducted our Elevator Pitch so that we were able to schedule a 20 minute coffee with whomever we meet "on the elevator"* What would that pitch look like?  If we can construct our pitch in such a way that we cause the person to ask us a question, what happens?  Well for one, they expect an answer, so it might get us some extra time with the person as we explain the answer.  But wouldn't it be better to say, "I would love to answer your question, but I have an engagement, and I am sure you probably have one as well.  Perhaps we could meet for 20 minutes over coffee and I could explain the answer to you.  I also would love to ask you a question or two about your job/company/industry.  When and where could we meet?"

An elevator pitch can be a very powerful tool for generating coffee appointments for your job search!  

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