Your personal statement
With a strong elevator pitch, you sell yourself in a powerful way

A strong personal statement will have a huge bearing on whether you’ll be invited for an interview. It’s the first thing a hiring manager will read on your CV; therefore, an important part. How to write a good elevator pitch?

Personal statement | Elevator pitch - Hays.nl

A personal statement is also called a sales pitch or elevator pitch. And with an interesting elevator pitch, the hiring manager will choose to read on and take a closer look at your Curriculum Vitae.

Your personal statement

Your personal statement is the perfect opportunity to show why you have chosen this particular job and why you think you will fit in.

A strong elevator pitch can be divided into three parts:

introduction
skills and achievements
ambitions

We explain each part below.

1. Introduction

The first thing a recruiter or hiring manager wants to know when reading your personal statement is who you are and what level of experience you have. Get straight to these facts in your introduction, while at the same time, avoiding clichés and vague information. This makes for a clear and strong opening statement.

2. Skills and achievements

Next, you must outline your key skills and evidence your key achievements which set you apart from the competition. It is important that you keep this section of the elevator pitch relevant by identifying the desired skills and attributes outlined in the job description, and by ensuring that the skills highlighted in your personal statement mirror them.

3. Explain your ambitions

Finish your personal statement by outlining what you are looking to achieve next in your career, and make sure this links to the role in question. The hiring manager needs to know that your ambitions are relevant to the opportunity and that you would, therefore, be driven and likely to succeed.

Extra tips for your elevator pitch

Use relevant action verbs

The simple trick of including the below doing-words will help bring your achievements to life on your personal statement:

To demonstrate:

Creativity use: built, crafted, devised, implemented, pioneered, initiated, established

Efficiency use: enhanced, advanced, capitalised, maximised, leveraged, improved

Leadership skills use: headed, coordinated, executed, managed, operated, organised, lead

Improvements made use: refined, remodelled, strengthened, upgraded, transformed

Management skills use: guided, fostered, motivated, recruited, enabled, united

Bottom line contributions use: reduced, decreased, consolidated, saved, yielded, increased

Overall achievements use: awarded, exceeded, outperformed, surpassed, earned, granted

Be consistent with your narrative

The personal statement can be written in either the third-person or first-person narrative. Whatever writing style you choose, make sure you use it throughout the statement.

Keep your personal statement to 150-200 words

This should be easier to do now you know what to include and what to omit in your personal statement. However, if you find yourself writing over 200 words, take a second look and check all points can be linked back to the job vacancy and showcases why you are the right person for the job.

Final remarks

Do not underestimate the power of a personal statement, take this opportunity to sell yourself as a potential candidate. Grab the recruiter's attention from the start and increase your chances of getting a job interview.