Notably, employers were asked to asked candidate skills/qualities (NACE Job Outlook 2016 report, 2016) and rated verbal communication skills the most important (4.63 on a five-point scale) above teamwork (4.62) and the ability to make decisions and solve problems (4.49).
It is important to be able to verbally showcase yourself – “elevator speech” or a “pitch” – ultimately, you need to get comfortable with talking about yourself – showing off your stuff.
Not everyone is comfortable doing this. There’s some of you who are dealing with Imposter S (Links to an external site.)yndrome (Links to an external site.) in your personal, professional, or academic (Links to an external site.) life. Others are just more introverted and are not comfortable with self-promotion. You don’t have to change your personality, but you’ll want to get comfortable with shining at the right moments in a professional world seemingly made for extroverts (Links to an external site.). There’s a place for everyone.
Review the instructions below and then create a document labeled: 30 Second Bio_Your Name with the following information. This is worth 10-points (2-point per bullet point).
30-Second Biography
For Job Fairs, Job Interviews, Grad School Interviews, &/or Networking Events
When someone asks you, “Tell me about yourself,” you should be prepared with the following:
How you chose your field of study
Why you chose that organization/school to contact/interview with; what you know about them
What you know about the position/school/program; about the required skills & experience
Skills and experience you have which fit what they want
Peppy wrap-up-the-bio verbiage, e.g. “…and I’m really excited about being here/getting the opportunity to talk with you today…”
For this assignment:
Choose a situation you’d like to prepare for. This can be the job from the job posting your chose or for one of the graduate schools you researched.
Indicate your choice at the top of your document, i.e., Southwest Institute for Naturopathic Medicine – Medical School interview or Chicanos Por La Causa – Grants Administrator interview.
Construct answers to all the prompts above. Write them down in a paragraph, as if you were going to read it off a teleprompter, but it doesn’t have to be formal. Write it how you would speak. Eliminate slang or colloquial sayings, but you want it to sound natural and cordial. It shouldn’t be staid.
Time it. If it’s 10-sentences, it’s probably not 30-seconds. But if it’s a full page, you don’t want to have to speak at lightening speed. It doesn’t have to be exactly 30-seconds, but 15-seconds just won’t showcase enough of your “stuff.” It will likely take multiple tries. But practice makes perfect!
