ELEVATOR PITCH PRESENTATION & OUTLINE: Assignment Instructions

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS
Each student will create an approximately 60 - 90 second personal statement, or elevator pitch (a brief,
persuasive speech used to spark interest in what you have to offer an organization). Pitches should be
interesting, memorable, and succinct. They need to explain what makes you unique.

SPECIFIC STEPS:

1.Identify Your Goal/Analyze Audience:The first step is to clarify what action you want as a result of
someone hearing your pitch. For this assignment, the goal of your pitch is to get an interview with a
recruiter you meet at an on campus job fair. In order to achieve your goal, the pitch will effectively convey
who your are and your area of focus, as well as some specifics about your relevant skills & experience.

Once you have a clear goal, you need to analyze the audience a bit. For a recruiter, think about the specific
industry, organization, and type of position that s/he is looking to fill. Know this will help you create a
targeted pitch.

2. Explain What YouDo:Start your pitch by introducing yourself, and then describe what you're interested in
and your unique skills and abilities. Focus on the ways your unique skills and accomplishments (academic,
business, non-profit, sports, etc.) qualify you for your career field or position you want to attain. Include
statements about what youve done that has helped to solve a problem, or that can add value to an
organization, as well as any ways that you have helped people. If you can, add information or a statistic
that shows the value in what you do.

Ask yourself this question as you start writing:What do you want your audience (in this case the recruiter)
to remember most about you?

First and foremost, you should feel enthusiastic about your pitch; after all, if youre not excited about it, your
audience wont be either. Your pitch should make you happy. People may not remember everything that you
say, but they will likely remember your enthusiasm.

Example:Imagine that you're trying to convey theexperienceyou've had in fundraising. You could say, "I
was the coordinator of my Fraternity's philanthropy club, and successfully ran three events." But that's not
very memorable. A better explanation would be, "A major part of my Fraternity's focus is on philanthropy. As
the coordinator of theseefforts, I planned and organized three successfulevents, resulting in $50,000 fora
local charity. Due to these efforts, this charity was able to feed an additional X number of people for X
number of months." That's much more interesting, and shows the value that your fundraising efforts
provided to thecharitableorganization.

3. Communicate Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP):Your elevator pitch also needs to communicate
yourUSP. Identify what makes you, your skills, or your idea unique. Your USB is distinct from what you do
and should be communicated after you've talked about what you do.

Example:To highlight how your desire to solve problems makes you unique, you could say, Ive always
enjoyed finding solutions to all kinds of problems. That isnt very interesting or specific, however. Instead,
you could say something like: I love finding solutions to complex problems. Growing up, I was always
working out puzzles like the rubrics cube, and in middle school, I helped to re-organize the setup in the
cafeteria so that students could get through the lunch line faster. Most recently, I developed an online system
for scheduling student volunteers at a local non-profit.
4. Engage With a Question:After you communicate your USP, you need to engage your audience. To do
this, prepare open-ended questions to engage your listener in the conversation (open-ended questions
require a compete response and cannot be answered with a "yes" or no"). Make sure that you are also able
to answer any questions that the audience may have.

Example:You might ask "How does your organization handle the training of new people?

5. Put it all Together:When you've completed each section of your pitch, put it all together in the order
listed in steps 2 - 4. Then, read it out loud and use a stopwatch to time how long it takes. Your pitch should
be between 60 - 90 seconds (the time it takes to ride an elevator); otherwise, you risk losing the person's
interest, or monopolizing the conversation. Remember, your pitch needs to be concise and compelling.

6. Write a Full Sentence Outline of Your Pitch:Outlines should be typed, full sentences, grammatically
correct, andinclude at least one sentence for each of the above content points.

7. Practice:Like anything else, practice makes perfect. Remember, how you say it is just as important as
what you say. You want your pitch to come across naturally, and practice will ensure that this is the case.Set
a goal to practice your pitch regularly. The more you practice, the more natural your pitch will become. You
want it to sound like a smooth conversation, not an aggressive sales pitch.

Make sure that you're aware of yournon-verbal communication,which conveys just as much information to
the listener as your words do. Practice in front of your friends, family members, or classmates (or anyone
who will listen) until the pitch feels natural.

8. Record yourself giving the pitch:You can only see what is working, or not working so well, by watching a
recording. Have a friend record you practicing your pitch so you know what youre doing well, and what
you need to improve.

Rough Drafts of pitch outlines are due in class on Monday, 2/6;

Pitches andTYPED full-sentence outlines are due inclass on Monday,2/13.

This assignment is worth up to 50 points (30 points for delivering the pitch, 15 points for the typed outline,
and 5 points for the typed outline draft).

EVALUATION CRITERIA: I will evaluate posts on the following criteria:

Completeness - Pitch & outlines include all elements and follow the specific format as stated in the
assignment instructions listed above.

Delivery - Pitch presentation demonstrates clear preparation and practice (e.g. not reading from note cards,
and not making it up on the spot).

Thoughtfulness- Content demonstrates careful thought and preparation in highlighting your unique
qualities.

Clarity and Grammatical Correctness- Ideas are clearly presented and delivered in the presentation, and the
outline include complete sentences that are clearly written and grammatically correct (the draft outline may
include bullet points rather than full sentences).