In Part One of this series, Bill Faust talks about how important it is to understand basic marketing principles in learning how to Pitch Yourself. The question he asks now is do we know why we are employed?

Deciphering the needs of the buyer

Most of us think it is because of our experience, this is partly true, if you do not have the relevant experience many employers will not give you a second look.

Every role you apply for there will be numerous candidates all with the same or similar experience. The experience important as it is: is the point entry, but it is not the differentiating factor. It allows you to legitimately apply for the contract.

So what are you actually employed for?

Think about the questions you were asked in previous interviews and meetings, they were probably things like:

• Tell me about yourself?
• How did you do this?
• What did you do on that project?
• Why did you do Y instead of X?
• Can you work with out support?
• If you had not done X would Y still have happened?

If you analyse these simple questions they are trying to find out how you tick, how you work or, put another way, how you think. You need to demonstrate how you think or how you do what it is you do, rather than what it is you do.

I am sure in general you have no problem answering these questions, but do you know what is important in the story you go on to tell?

For example, when writing or listing our achievements we tend to think that stating the objective, what we were trying to do and the result, is the important part. It is not. If you were being attacked by a shark the objective would be to escape with your life and the fact that you were telling this story means that the result was you escaped. However this tells us absolutely nothing, not that it was a small shark or you could swim fast, both of these points are assumptions and tells us nothing.

The important part is how we tackled the issue. The employer wants to know how you solved the situation e.g. your thinking on the matter. If you went to the pub and said to your friends I was attacked by a shark and left it at that your friends would insist on hearing all the gory details of exactly what happened. Right from the point when you realised you looked like fish-food to the point of how you escaped the jaws of death. I appreciate that this is a little extreme but it does get the point across. It is all about how you think, therefore you need to think about how to get this across.

In summary there are a few points we have to ensure we fulfil about ourselves when we pitch for a new contract:

• Make sure your qualifications and experience meet the entry criteria
• Demonstrate and prove how you do what you do not just state what it is you do
• Answer these points at the first point of contact.

Pitch Yourself is available at all good book shops and online at Amazon.co.uk

In Part Three we look at how to understand you the product and demonstrate your thinking.