When YOU are the Message
We (ok, really it’s just me) spend a good amount effort here addressing communicating for business.
One aspect of business communicating we don’t touch much is the personal side of business communicating: when your job is to acquire a job.
Earlier this week, I attended an event sponsored by the Washington, DC chapter of IABC. The featured speaker was Kate Perrin, CEO and founder of PRofessional Solutions, LLC, the first public relations temporary agency in the DC area.
Being the times we live in, a number of attendees were involuntary “persons of leisure”, and in search of employment.
The event host asked for those looking for jobs to informally introduce themselves to the group. Being the times we live in, this portion of the event took a longer-than-usual amount of time.
We heard lengthy lists of previous jobs, education backgrounds, and a variety of reasons for unemployment from each communications professional.
Upon hearing all of these elevator pitches, Kate Perrin scolded the entire group.
It appears, even when talking about ourselves, many of us forget a vital rule in communicating effectively: Know Your Audience.
What does a hiring manager or potential employer want to know? It’s an easy question.
- What do you want to do?
- What can you do for me?
Kate gave some simple tips to help job seekers.
Tell us what you want to do. This is especially true for networking situations. Label yourself not by what you used to do, but what you want to do. Help those potential contacts by letting them know how to view you & sell you to others. Too many of the elevator pitches we heard at the IABC event spent all or most of their time listing previous jobs or background experience, not career goals or ideal positions the job seekers were searching for.
Link your relevant experience to the job you’re applying for. OK, this means doing a little bit of work to tailor your resume, but hopefully you are only applying for jobs you want. Your resume has to do the talking for you; tell an employer you have the experience to do what they’re asking for.
Do some research. I don’t put much effort into reading cover letters addressed to “Sir or Madam”, “Hiring Manager”, or even “Executive Producer”.
If a prospective employee shows they’ve visited the EFX Media web site, or is familiar with our work, I’ll see they’ve done some work to find out more about the company. This tells me they want to work with us.
Desire is huge for those looking to hire; we constantly ask and attempt to evaluate things we can’t see in a resume: work ethic, personality, perseverance, the ability to be self-sufficient, and desire. If I know someone will be ‘low-maintenance’ and highly productive, they will get consideration – even if they don’t have a great deal of experience.
The basis of each of these tips come under the idea job seekers should view their resumes, cover letters and elevator pitches not as reflections of the person writing them, but as tailored messages to the person receiving them.
Once you know what your audience responds to, you also know the most effective way to communicate to them.
When it comes to a job search: the company is your audience, you are the message.
Speak directly to your audience. Speak directly to their needs
