Crafting your Perfect Elevator Pitch: A Step-by-Step Guide

Intro

You're in a job interview and your interviewer says, "So, tell me about yourself." How do you normally answer❓ During my job search in 2022 (when I was first pivoting into tech), my mentor helped me develop an elevator pitch. 🛗 Now, it's my turn to share that advice with you!

How to craft your elevator pitch

📝 Let's write your personal elevator pitch in 5-8ish sentences:
1. 🗣️ Intro: Start with a brief introduction of yourself and your role. If you are pivoting, this should be the role you are looking to pivot into. (1 sentence)
2. 🗣️ Education: Mention relevant educational background or qualifications. You can skip this if this doesn't apply to you. You can also switch this with experience if your education is less recent. (1 sentence)
3. 🗣️ Experience: This is where you would highlight your most recent relevant work experiences and achievements, including any role-relevant methodologies and skills. (1-3ish sentences)
4. 🗣️ Other Relevant Methodologies/Skills: Discuss other specific methodologies, skills, or areas of expertise relevant to your role that you haven't mentioned yet. (1-2 sentences)
5. 🗣️ Additional Skillsets: Optionally, transition into any additional skills or experiences that complement your current role. This is especially relevant if you pivoted but have transferrable skills. Always tie it back to the role you're applying to. (1 sentence)

Example of an elevator pitch

🌱 My elevator pitch from 2022:
I’m a UX Researcher with a foundation in Service Design. I have a master’s in UX from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), where I focused on mixed methods UX research. In my current position as a Service Designer & Researcher at a NASA contractor, I have overhauled all corporate processes and procedures by building a scalable infrastructure to support future company growth. Throughout this project, I have employed various UX research methodologies such as journey mapping, user interviews, contextual inquiries, focus groups, user surveys, and usability testing. Prior to pivoting into UX, I had over a decade of experience as a visual designer, which has served me well in my UX career as I can take projects from planning and problem-scoping through generative research to ideation, sketching, and wireframing.

Further thoughts

💡 Use your resume to help you write steps 3 and 4.
💡 The longer your career, the more you *could* add to steps 3 and 4 but try to keep your elevator pitch to ~1-1.5 minutes. There will be plenty of time to get into the nitty gritty throughout a job interview. Your pitch should be a good high-level intro of who you are and your skills.
💡 Practice saying your elevator pitch out loud to make sure it sounds and feels natural!
💡 Use this elevator pitch for the "No-Ask" policy (if you're unfamiliar, learn more: https://lnkd.in/ewrcGTqP).

Outro

As you write your elevator pitch, remember: your story is your superpower. 🦸 I hope this guide helps you as you network and job search!

Navigating Layoffs: Advice That Helped Me in November 2023

I was laid off at the beginning of November 2023. It wasn’t my first time being laid off (the last one was January 2015), but it was still a huge shock. Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised, given the tech landscape in 2023. But, to be honest, it really affected me on a deep emotional level. I had so many thoughts swirling through my head: Who am I outside of my job? Why does this feeling of not having control feel so triggering? What does “productive member of society” mean in late-stage capitalism?

About a month after my layoff, I put together a list of advice that were helpful for me in navigating life post-layoff and now I’m going to share that here with you all:

✨ TAKE BREAKS: Don't spend all day every day on LinkedIn. Get up and do things that feed your soul. Exercise, read a good book, watch TV, laugh with friends, cook dinner, play with your dog, make art. I made it a point to take Sundays off of job hunting, even though it was hard. But this helped my brain get some rest from the endless scrolling on LinkedIn and job boards.

✨ REMEMBER THE BASICS: Drink water and feed yourself. My former manager said this to me one day after my layoff and I was like 🤯 whoa. It might seem obvious but sometimes you get caught up and forget the simple things!

✨ FIND COMMUNITY: Despite the stress that comes from being laid off, there were silver linings. The outpouring of support was incredible. I got to spend time with + meet so many awesome, generous people during my job hunt after the layoff. ❤️

✨ CELEBRATE YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS: In prepping for interviews, I got to reflect on all of the awesome work I've done in the past few years. Acknowledge your skills and remind yourself, "I'm great at what I do." It's more important now than ever to reflect on that.

✨ FEEL THE FEELINGS: This might be the most important one. It's okay to be angry, sad, disappointed, nervous, and upset. That's normal and totally warranted. It's also okay to feel optimistic, excited, and refreshed. That's also normal and totally warranted. Every emotion is valid. And you will likely feel completely different day to day. That’s also normal and totally warranted.

If you're navigating a layoff right now, know that you're not alone, you're awesome, and you've got this 💪 I hope these small reminders can help during this time.

Taking Control: Strategies for Standing Out in a Difficult UX Job Market

I've seen a lot of posts on LinkedIn lately discussing hiring in UX, especially highlighting how tough the UX job market is right now. There's absolutely no doubt that we're in a difficult job market -- I myself was just recently job hunting and know how few fully remote UX Research roles there were.

We can’t control the nature of the market right now. But what we can do is focus on the aspects of your job search that *are* within your control to help position yourself for success (and get that initial interview!).

🗂️ Portfolio:

I know portfolios are newer for UX researchers but, in a market this rough, do anything and everything in your control to present your skills as a candidate. A portfolio provides another way to showcase your abilities so take advantage of that! Remember, a resume talks about your history, but a portfolio shows how you think -- this is what hiring managers are looking for, regardless of the type of UX role you’re looking for.

📄 Resume:

I always recommend following the "what I did, how I did it, why I did it (impact or projected impact)" formula for writing your resume bullet points. I did a whole post on it here. You can also check out my LinkedIn because the bullet points on my profile are written in the same format.

🤝 Users:

As a UX professional, approach building your resume and portfolio as UX projects. Who are your users? Recruiters, hiring managers, maybe even the ATS! What are their needs? Think about what a recruiter is looking for compared to a hiring manager. And then build your resume and portfolio case studies to be usable and skimmable for both of them. On an initial pass, no one can sit down and read every single sentence of either a resume or a portfolio, even in a "normal" job market. Right now, especially, every role has 100s of applicants! The easier your resume and portfolio are to skim, the better! If you want feedback, use adplist.org to sign up for free mentorship and have multiple mentors review your resume and portfolio.

I personally iterated on my resume and portfolio multiple times throughout my recent job search! Though this job market is a difficult one, I'm hoping that these tips can help you prepare as you search for your next role! 🙌

Psst... You're Networking Wrong

Networking is Not Cold Calling ❌

New UXers are always advised to network, network, network! But many don't know how, especially in a virtual context.

So here's the big secret: Networking is NOT cold calling. ❌

Imagine you're at an in-person conference. You sit next to someone during a panel discussion and they ask a great question. You might lean over and whisper, "Thanks for asking that!" This could lead to you having a longer conversation later, grabbing a coffee, connecting on LinkedIn, and staying in touch.

Now, imagine you're at that same in-person conference. You see someone with a name tag: Sahar, UX Researcher. You walk up to them and say, "Hi, I'm looking for a role in UX Research. Are you available to get a coffee so I can pick your brain?" Maaaybe they'll say yes. But, more likely, it'll be super awkward because it will feel super out of the blue (and even pushy).

This applies to virtual networking, too. "Cold call" messaging someone and asking them for a coffee chat right off the bat can be very hit or miss. For example, I get so many "cold call" requests for coffee chats that I wouldn't have time to do anything else if I said yes to them all! So I generally have to decline and refer them to my ADPList waitlist.

So, How Should We Be Networking?

Here are a couple of my tips on how you can network successfully in a virtual environment:

Read people's LinkedIn bios to get a feel for their interests, even the things that aren't work-related! What is one of their hobbies? Do you like doing that, too? Boom, connection!
Adopt a "no-ask" policy: you can message someone, give them your spiel (or elevator pitch), and then NOT ask them for anything in return. Not asking for anything in return can actually make the person you're messaging more willing to connect with you. When I was job hunting, this was how I went about all of my messaging and I ended up meaningfully connecting with a ton of great folks (and was referred to many roles even without asking for that).

And hey, I get it. It is definitely uncomfortable reaching out to people you don't know. But the truth is that networking isn't about blindly sending out messages. It's about building genuine relationships and creating opportunities for collaboration. You are setting the foundation for a mutually meaningful and enriching professional relationship.

So, get out there and identify shared interests. Find ways to help each other achieve your goals. Offer value and show that you care about the other person's success. When you approach networking with this mindset, it becomes a lot less daunting and a lot more rewarding. So, the next time you're considering reaching out to someone for networking purposes, remember that it's not about making a sales pitch or asking for a favor. It's about building a connection and starting a conversation. And who knows? That connection could lead to an exciting new opportunity down the line.