One of the most critical parts of our lives is how we pitch ourselves to others eg. job, school, role interviews. Employers are always looking for the best talent they can find in the sea of candidates. You might think to stand out, you will need to "shout", but that is what everyone doing as well. This becomes a sea of noise that recruiters have to filter out to find the chosen ones.
Now, there is no need to raise your volume, but you ought to raise how you present yourself so you can be an outstanding candidate to land any job, scholarship, or role that you want.
Firstly, you need to learn how to pitch yourself with "positioning".
I believe everyone overestimate their abilities and underestimate how tough getting success is. We are all victims of the Dunning-Kruger effect,a cognitive bias in which people wrongly overestimate their knowledge or ability in a specific area. This tends to occur because a lack of self-awareness prevents them from accurately assessing their own skills. What this means is that we are blind to our blindness.
To test people on their confidence, I usually ask them to pitch themselves as if it was an interview for their dream job. The question always start off with "Tell me about yourself". I noticed that people:
long, windy sentence
generic claims of their qualities, abilities, goals, contribution to the team or companies
This is the best way to shed light on your shortcomings...
Ultimately, you will want to have a short paragraph that gives enough context on your current role, your past working experience, your strength, and where you want to be. This paragraph should be able paint a vivid mental picture of you in recruiters' minds.
Multiple positioning
Once you mastered positioning for a desired role, begin to see how you can use this concept to introduce or sell yourself to others in non-professional context eg. classroom, a romantic date,
Niche down
What companies and studios do you want to work for?
What type of work do you want to do
WHat is the role that you want
What quality of your is the most desirable?
Methodology
Aesthetics
How do you justify your ciam
How do you perform in a team
Sample niche
Animation
2D: cel, geometric shapes,
3D:
vfx: editing, compositing
Subject: broadcast, advertisng
Designer
Illustrative-driven:
subject: character design, storyboard, environment, concept,
aesthetics / styles: abstract, minimal
methods: digital painting, 3D, etc
How to niche down your motion design portfolio
What's marketable:
# shape animation: Ordinary Folk,- geometric tunnel- trails & speed lines- interaction / reactivity > delight- clever transitions - oscillations: wave warp# 3D shoes >threads particles Peter Tarka aesthetics Rube Goldberg Simulation# character animation- facial - walk cycle - holding something# cel #fabrication# type fast type over imagery/video# practical#compositing photos / headshots texture#zag- tech startup- vegan brands - Aesthesized analog#subject matter- creativity: how to do it- love/humanity narrative#bonus expressions > automation > tool & script development
Questions
what makes you remarkable? outstanding?
Zag & Onliness
Onliness
WHAT:
HOW:
WHO:
WHERE:
WHY:
WHEN:
Who are you:
Where do you have the most credibility
Where do you have the most experience?
Where does your passion lie?
Write a future obituary for your brand
What do you do?
What business are you in?
Decide what is your purpose , beyond selling a product or a service
State your purpose in less than 12 words
What is your vision
What do you want to accomplish in 5,10,20 years?
How can you make this vision palpable and exciting?
Paint a vivid picture of your future?
Test it on a real piece of communication
Go back and refine it further
Use it repeatedly to illustrate the direction of your business
What wave are you riding?
What trend is powering business?
How powerful is it?
Can you ride more than one trend at a time?
Make a list of the trends that will power your success?
Who shares the brandscape
Who else competes in your category?
Who comes first, second, and third in customer’s minds?
Find how your brands ranks with customers
Design a strategy to become number one or two
Or become the first mover in a new category
What makes you the “only”
What’s the one thing that makes your brand both different and compelling?
Complete a simple onliness statement
Add detail by answering what, how who, where when and why
What should you add or subtract
What existing brand elements are undermining your onliness
What new brand elements could strengthen your onliness
Insights about art school
How do the remaining elements align with your vision?
Make a list of all current and planned offerings and brand elements
Decide which offerings to keep, sacrifice, or add
Be brutal - it’s better to err on the side of sacrifice
Who loves you?
Who makes up your brand community
How can you manage the “give and gets” so everyone’s happy?
Diagram your brand’s ecosystem
Decide how each participant will both contribute and benefit
Who’s the enemy?
Which competitor can you paint as the bad guy?
Tell your customers what you re not, in no uncertain terms
What do they call you ?
Is your name helping or hurting your brand?
If it’s hurting is there an opportunity to change it?
If it's too late to change it, is there a way to work around it?
Is it suitable for brandplay? Does it have creative legs?
Choose a name that is different brief and appropriate
Make sure it’s easy to spell and pronounce
Find out if the name can be used as a url
Determine how easy or difficult it will be to legally defined
How do you explain yourself?
What’s the one true statement you can make about your brand?
Craft a true-line that tells why your brand is compelling
Avoid any commas or “ands”
Turn your trueline into a tagline to use with customers
How do you spread the word?
How can you unpack your name, trueline, and tagline?
How can you enroll brand advocates through messaging?
How can you align all your communications with your zag?
Make sure your messaging is as different as yourbrand
Only compete at the touchpoints where you can win
How do people engage with you?
What are you selling and how are you selling it?
Which touchpoints will let you compete in white space?
Map your value proposition against those of your competitors?
See which competitive areas you can avoid entirely
Discover customer touchpoints where you will be unopposed
What do they experience?
How will customers learn about you ?
How can you “enroll them in your brand?”
Who will be your competition at each touchpoint?
Where should you put your marketing resources?
Map the customer journey from non-awareness to full enrolment
Bet your resources on the experiences that zag
How do you earn their loyalty
How can you help customers build barriers to competition?
How can you avoid creating ‘disloyalty program’
Start by being loyal to customers
Don't make new customers feel punished or excluded
How do you extend your success?
How do you keep growing the brand year after year?
Choose between a house of brands and a branded house
Add extensions that reinforce the brand’s meaning
Avoid extensions that unfocus the brand’s meaning
Avoid extensions that brings you into competition with leaders
How do you protect your portfolio?
How can the whole be worth more than the parts?
How can you stay focused under short-term profit pressure ?
Avoid c-sickness- contagion, confusion, contradiction, and complexity
Understand the long-term effects of brand extensions
Application
Statement of purpose
20% hero's journey narrative, 80% facts and career
Append a narrative element of how you and your career will transform when you are awarded the position, role, award, grant, scholarships, etc.
what is your desired future higher form of identity
what is the highest level of yourself you want to be
Here is an example for applying to , my transformation would be becoming an educator in the future, and to do so I need to refine my critical thinking and and deepen my domain expertise
Notes
Jodi Glickman on Pitching Yourself
You don't get the job not because you are not qualified but rather people do not believe your story
Destination
The key is landing the 2nd conversation with the other party
Questions
Why do I want to work for X company ?
What am I excited about now
What am I going to do next with my career
What am I trying to achieve today.
No: your life story
Yes: Hi, nice to meet you. I am in X industry for Y years, I have amazing returns and I want to go into Z. I was working in X and then went to Y, but my real passion is Z and I think I would be a great candidate for your program/job.
Backstory (not background; write your own story)
No one care about your resume
explain how your experience relates to the job
Talk about
Relevant experience
Transferable skills (quick-learner, agile, calm under pressure, juggling roles and tasks)
You are excited and passionate about X ,and you see the wave of the future going into that direction, and you want to be part of that change, working with companies who that are taking business in X direction.
Your experience: I spent alot of time in X, but I am noticing a trend or pattern in Y and that's why I am the right person to help take your business to next level.
Its not what recent that matters, it's what relevant
Connect the dots
It's not about the skills; the truth is you do not get hired is because people don't believe in your story or your destination. There is a doubt in your story. Until you convince yourself, no one is going to believe what you are selling.
