How do you sum up everything that you are and do professionally in a short span of time? This is the premise of the elevator speech- a few lines of dialogue which encapsulate your professional experience, approach, and future. We don’t use them often in veterinary medicine, but I think it’s useful to have one ready. Let’s look at who the elevator speech is for, some uses for the elevator speech, and how to make a great one.
Use #1 – Talking with non-veterinary types. Although most of the people you engage with during an interview are in the veterinary field, you may encounter some who are not. Maybe you have a meeting with a Senior VP (for higher-level positions), maybe you have time with a basic sciences researcher or someone from a different college. These people need a purchase to stand on and enter a conversation. Your elevator speech gives them a starting point.
Use #2 – You may get asked regardless. Particularly in larger group interviews, you may get asked to give a quick summary of what you do. Hopefully, everyone has read your CV and letter, but those don’t necessarily answer this question. If you don’t have an answer prepared, you can flail around looking for an answer. This question may come up as, “Do tell us about yourself” or “I’ve read your CV- give me some insight into your overall approach.”
Use #3 – Priming your brain. Similar to a mission statement, having an elevator speech helps to crystalize what you do and why you do it. This can inform any professional interaction you have, even if you don’t actually say your elevator speech. You can refer back to it and ask, “Is this still true? Do I want it to be?” You can even ask, “How would this project fit into my image of myself, given my elevator speech?”
Now that we’ve decided it’s useful, let’s work on crafting one. Here are the few short, sweet suggestions:
1) The most important rule is to keep it short. One to three sentences- what you could say to someone as you ride an elevator to the next floor.
2) Give some context for who you are now and what you do.
3) Provide an example.
4) Make a conclusion. Or not. I like to leave the ending opening for a question. You can see that in my elevator speech:
“I’m Erik Hofmeister, I’m a Professor of Veterinary Anesthesia at the University of Wherever. I look for improvements in systems- teaching, research, service, policies- using an evidence-based approach. For example, I measured how students performed on quizzes of varying length over the years to arrive at the best amount of time to balance efficiency with student performance.”
Let’s look at how it hits the four points above:
1. It’s short- 3 sentences. It takes about 18 seconds to verbalize. 2. The context is I work at this place in this role. Since people may not know what a professor of anesthesia does, I expanded on what I do on a fundamental level. Saying “I anesthetize pets and research animals” doesn’t add much to “I’m a veterinary anesthesiologist.” Also, it doesn’t really encapsulate my whole professional approach and philosophy. 3. There’s an example of my research. 4. I don’t give a conclusion because I want to leave them with something to ask. Hopefully, this gives the other person an easy next step in the conversation: “What did you find in your study?”
My wife’s is: “I’m Susan Elrod; I’m a PharmD and PhD at the University of Wherever. I teach pharmacy and other healthcare topics and I research natural products. The project most people are most interested in is my research on the phenolic and antioxidant content of craft beer and its ability to inhibit some of the processes by which diabetic complications arise.“
Let’s look at how it hits the four points above:
1. It’s short- 3 sentences. It takes about 16 seconds to verbalize. 2. The context includes her degrees, which is important- she can do both clinical and basic sciences work. She specifies what exactly in pharmacy she does. 3. She gives an interesting publication. 4. She doesn’t include a conclusion, but beer and science are always intriguing to people, so giving them an example, which will make them curious, leads them to asking about it.
The elevator speech is not often found in veterinary medicine, but I think it’s a good tool to have ready, just in case. I believe it also helps to cement what you are interested in professionally, which can affect your global thinking.