Selling Yourself as an Analyst… What’s Your Pitch?

Imagine you show up to a networking event and all of a sudden you find yourself face to face with a recruiter from your dream job. What would you say? Would you have a pitch of yourself locked and ready to go or, would you like most people starting out in the analytics field, stumble through an introduction of yourself. That’s what this post will focus on, nailing your pitch. There are four key things to keep in mind when you’re giving an elevator pitch.

 

 Number one : Highlight your achievements rather than just your experience. Just because you’ve had five years of relevant experience in a field it doesn’t tell people what you’ve accomplished. Someone can kind of coast through a job for five years by doing the bare minimum. However if you have a resume full of examples of you going way above and

beyond and you can talk about those achievements it makes you a whole lot more palatable for those that are looking to hire someone new. Those achievements should be front and center of any conversation with a recruiter.

Number two: Keep it simple. A lot of people in technical jobs have a tendency to over complicate conversations when explaining their experience. It’s understandable if you’re doing something that’s very complex. It feels like you have to explain every detail to get a full understanding. You want to get across that your skills are vital and unique for a role in a company but the trick to getting a recruiter interested is showing your influence. Going to huge depths to explain your expertise to someone that’s hiring is likely going to glaze over them and they’re going to get bored of your conversation really quickly. However if you can, number one, highlight the big achievements. Then two, talk about how you achieved each of those briefly, highlighting the expertise in your process, all of a sudden you’re crafting a much more interesting and engaging conversation.

That leads us to the third point.

Number three: Tell a narrative. If possible, find a way to curate your experiences and achievements into a narrative. If you have one huge achievement that marks the past couple of years of your experience you should spend a good bit of your time in your pitch talking about that in a narrative form. The reason for a narrative is because it is easier for people to understand and follow a narrative rather than just a list of skills, degrees and roles.

Number four: Define your area of expertise. In your pitch you should make clear what industry or what specific space you are interested in and/or think you can make an impact in. Defining this helps you quickly weed out companies and roles that are not a good fit for you. 

 

 Pitching yourself to a stranger can feel a little uncomfortable, especially if you are trying to get into a more technical role and you see yourself as a viable candidate because of the value you can bring with your skill set rather than what you have done in the past. That being said, it is very important for you to sell yourself as a candidate and you should take time practicing your pitch with yourself and also with others until you feel comfortable enough to share it with a recruiter in an interview or networking event. Please share your own pitches that you use in these situations or other tips that might help someone out that is still trying to construct a pitch of their own.