The perfect elevator pitch: 10 tips and 4 examples

An elevator pitch is a great and often used way to introduce yourself to recruiters, clients or employers. These pitches usually takes place face-to-face during a conversation, but sometimes they’re done through e-mail. But what exactly is an elevator pitch? How do you write a successful elevator pitch? This article will give you a comprehensive guide on how to do this and will include four practical examples. 

After reading this article you will know what an elevator pitch is, how you can write one yourself, and you’ll know the secret behind making your pitch a success. 

What is an elevator pitch? 

An elevator pitch is a short presentation in which you try to convince the listener(s) – in about one minute – what the added value is that you have to offer. It can be about the value you add as a person, as a professional, or it can be for marketing a service, product or idea. 

During a job interview, or when visiting a potential client to offer your services, an elevator pitch is an important tool. But a pitch can be helpful during less high-stakes moments too. Take meeting an interesting prospect during a networking event as an example.

In this article we will specifically focus on writing an elevator pitch for a job interview. If you are looking for a new job, this article is for you. 

10 tips for the perfect elevator pitch 

You now know that an elevator pitch can be a successful tool to sell your potential for a job and leave a good impression with a future employer. But how do you write a good elevator pitch for a job interview? In the following list, we provide you with ten tips for writing a solid elevator pitch. 

Tip 1. Create an overview of your good qualities 

You will have one minute to sell yourself to the HR manager or employer you’d like to work for. Because of this, your elevator pitch needs to have high information density. In short: every word you say has to be relevant and contribute to the good impression that the listener has of you. 

Base your pitch on the following questions to make sure you succeed in this: 

1. Who are you and what are your core qualities? 

2. What added value do these core qualities contribute to the position you’re applying for? 

3. What added value do you contribute as a person to the company and its culture?

4. What are your future ambition, and how do you expect this position and this company to help you fullfill those ambitions? 

It isn’t for you necessary to expand on every one of these questions in your elevator pitch, the point is that you’re able to answer these questions for yourself in order to get some insight into your qualities and ambitions, and how those correspond with the position you’re applying for. This insight will provide you with a good foundation for writing your pitch. 

Tip 2. High information density 

As we mentioned before, it’s important to fill your elevator pitch with a high density of information. This means that every word you say has to be relevant to the meaning of your pitch. You can achieve this by focusing the text of your pitch specifically, or on your core qualities and interests. After writing you first draft, ask yourself which words and sentences are irrelevant, and which parts you could perhaps talk about more extensively later on in the job interview. 

Tip 3. Think of a creative opening sentence 

To hook the listener and to increase the chance of a positive reaction, it’s important to capture their attention from the first sentence onwards. This is essential for constructing your elevator pitch. Make sure you don’t open your pitch with your name and position. Instead, you could describe that one moment in which you discovered your core value, or talk about the moment you realised that the company you’re interviewing for perfectly matches who you are and what you want to achieve.

Tip 4. Be funny, but not too silly 

It’s fine to crack a joke or to make a playful remark during your elevator pitch as this can break the ice and reduce tension for yourself and the listener. However, watch out though that humour doesn’t take up too much time and doesn’t distract everyone from the elevator pitch content. It’s alright to be witty, but make sure the message you convey is serious. 

Tip 5. Go from general to specific (and ‘kill your darlings’) 

It’s extremely challenging to summarise your core values and qualities in one minute. Still, it’s essential to make your elevator pitch concise. A good method for achieving this is the ‘kill your darlings’ principle. This idea corresponds well with our earlier tip regarding information density. 

You can apply the ‘kill your darlings’ principle by first writing down everything you want to talk about during your elevator pitch. You don’t have to be very specific at the start, and don’t be afraid to write more than you end up using. You can always take a critical look at what you wrote afterwards and remove the parts you don’t need, in order to make the text more specific. 

Tip 6. Give it a day and let your elevator pitch sink in 

Did you write your elevator pitch and do you have a good feeling about it? Or did you write one, but you’re struggling to make it coherent? Put your elevator pitch away for a day and take a look at it again tomorrow to give yourself a fresh perspective on the text. This will make sure that you spot things that you may have overlooked the day before and often means that a good pitch can be made even better, and that a mediocre pitch can be rewritten into a successful pitch. 

Tip 7. Read the elevator pitch out loud to yourself 

There’s a big difference between writing and speaking. Sometimes an elevator pitch looks great on paper, but doesn’t flow well when read aloud. That’s why it’s important to read the pitch out loud to yourself to discover if the text runs into any problems. Aside from that, reading the pitch out loud is a great tool to discover how you can best present it. 

Tip 8. Ask a friend or family member to listen to your pitch 

Do you want to make sure that employers will respond positively to your elevator pitch? Ask a friend, relative or colleague to listen to the pitch. Make sure they’re honest about the quality of your pitch, even if it’s lacking as you can learn a lot from this. It doesn’t only give you a better pitch, but it also provides you with an opportunity to improve your presentation skills. 

Make sure that the person listening is aware about the goal of the pitch, for example whether it serves as a first introduction, or as part of negotiations about terms of employment and benefits. When negotiating terms of employment, you will usually negotiate your salary too. Your salary with your new employer may depend in part on the quality of your elevator pitch. During salary negotiations you will often get an indication of your salary, which gives you an opportunity to formulate an answer to the question: what can I ask for and what counter offer can I make?

Tip 9. Bring enthusiasm and energy to your pitch 

Although the content of your elevator pitch is really important, there is one thing that is more important: making an energetic and enthusiastic impression. If you want to inspire and convince your future employer, it’s essential that you stand up straight, look cheerful and energetic, and talk about yourself and your core qualities with genuine enthusiasm. 

With an elevator pitch, everything is about emotion. Of course the content is important, but the way you present that content usually makes or breaks the pitch. 

Tip 10. Remember that the elevator pitch isn’t everything 

Are you not a naturally gifted speaker or presenter? Do you dread the prospect of giving a speech? Don’t worry. An elevator pitch may be important for selling yourself and your skills, but it’s not the only thing that counts in making your offer attractive. Maybe you’re able to impress your future employer most during the conversation that follows after the pitch, or maybe your cover letter already left an indestructible impression. Aside from your pitch, don’t forget that it’s also important to leave a good first impression.

4 examples of rock-solid elevator pitches 

To give you a good idea of what elevator pitches look like, we’ve written several examples for you that you can find below. These could be pitches during face to face conversations with an employer, or they could be seen as e-mail templates. 

Example 1. Marketeer and programmer 

“During my work as team leader at an online marketing company, I used knowledge that I gained through my coding hobby to build a time registration system with which we were able to meticulously map out to what extent the estimated hours in the quotations matched the actual worked hours in our team. These insights have yielded our team huge monthly savings. Due to my combination of programming and marketing knowledge, I am confident that I can bring added value to your organisation as well. For your marketing clients, but also for the team itself and for creating insight into and improving their results.” 

Example 2. Journalist 

“Telling stories has always been a passion of mine. By the time I was ten, I was already filling notebooks with exciting thrillers. That hobby eventually led me to becoming an editor for the school paper, and during my journalism studies, I worked for the local news website. Now that I’ve graduated, I want to use my love for storytelling and journalism to inspire the readers of your national travel magazine every month with the most beautiful travel stories.” 

Example 3. Technician 

“I was six years old when my mum walked in on me with a disassembled radio and a screwdriver. At the time I wasn’t clever enough to put the device back together again, but my fascination with engineering was already abundantly apparent. This passion luckily never went away, because during my vocational training and my apprenticeship as an electrician, I have enjoyed learning about and working in this field every single day. Now that I’ve finished my education, I would love to become a part of your experienced technical team and continue to learn.” 

Example 4. Fashion designer 

“When I heard that your company went on a team outing to Milan, I was sold. Not just because I love city trips like that, but especially because I heard your team went to a small family-owned boutique where they used to make dresses for Italian nobility. Your passion for fashion history was the deciding factor for me to apply for a job with your company. Fashion is more than colours, fabrics, trends and influencers after all. It’s an important part of our culture. I’m convinced that I will, with my experience as a fashion designer combined with my background as a cultural historian, add value to your marketing team.” 

Frequently asked questions about elevator pitches 

You now know how much time an elevator pitch is supposed to take up, how to write one, and how best to present your pitch in practice. You’ve also read several useful examples of elevator pitches. To conclude this article, you will find several frequently asked questions with answers below that will briefly explain the most important details.