The Position Statement As a Resume

For us the days of the generic resume are gone; generic resumes are good when you leave school, and cease to be good after your first job.

After the first job, you need a resume tailored to a specific position; if you are applying for a job as “COBOL Trainer”, then your resume is geared towards training programmers in COBOL.

The same is true of your position statement or elevator speech; if it is worth delivering, it is worth delivering in fashion tailored to the specific listener.

That means that my elevator speech, no matter how constructed, centers on “training” if I know the other person has an interest in training, “application development” if I know the other person has an interest in application development or “business communications” if I know the other person has an interest in business communications.

That’s why I can’t deliver an elevator speech unless I first know who I’m talking to; that means I must draw them out in conversation BEFORE they get a chance to ask me “So what do you do”.

And that means I have to learn to be a listener and to ask provocative questions.