Pitch Yourself
The Most Effective CV You’ll Ever Write.
The Best Interview You’ll Ever Give.
Secure the Job You Really Want.
2nd Edition
By Bill Faust & Michael Faust
Pearson / Prentice Hall
June 2006
ISBN: 0273707302
176 Pages, 6” x 9 ¼”
$39.50 paper original
This revolution in the way we sell ourselves in CV and at interview is based on the Elevator Pitch concept and has now been endorsed and recommended by over 40 of the world's leading business schools and universities, from Kellogg to Columbia in the US, from Insead to London Business School in Europe and from Otago to Sydney in Asia-Pacific.
The Elevator Pitch prioritizes who you are and how you work, the qualities that you are employed for, rather than what you did and where you worked, your past, which is the emphasis of a traditional CV. The Elevator Pitch shifts the focus from your perspective to the employer’s perspective and from the past to the future. It's a way of presenting yourself that makes more sense to the employer, and allows you to sell yourself more effectively. It's a way of writing a CV and preparing for interview that will vastly increase your chances of getting the job.
Employers now are focused very much on competencies as a way of deciding who to employ. This is the book that shows you have to bring your competencies to the forefront. In a time when there are far more graduates than top class graduate jobs, standing out from the crowd is vital. This is the book to show you how. The second edition incorporates feedback from the authors' global seminar and lecture program, meetings with careers advisors at these institutions as well as helping hundreds of people create their job winning CVs.
Contents
Introduction
• Experience gained from talking at business schools/universities
• Experience gained from helping create CVs
Chapter 1: CRITIQUE of functional and chronological CVs
• The aim of a CV and the aim of the interview:
• Introducing the 4 key communication foundation blocks of What, Where, Who and How. Relate this to Corporate DNA defined by companies such as Korn Ferry comprising Expertise (what/Where) and Behavior and Values (Who and How)
• Overview of chronological and functional CV’s.
• New diagrams to compare and contrast the traditional CV and how they satisfy the different objectives
• Key issues that occur with any CV
• Limitations of other CV books which end their analysis at this stage including tips from leading career sites and critiques of executive search firms.
• Develop business (ie your career) by one of two routes either (a) taking the product to market or (b) bringing the customer to the solution. Traditional CVs used to be okay at the former but do not define enough for the latter
Chapter 2: BUILDING BLOCKS of Customer CV
• This chapter explains the base components of a Customer CV in greater detail than in the first edition
• Definition of Customer CV
• The importance of understanding yourself and what this means.
• Introduction to key components from Personal Promise, Career DNA, Transferable Assets to Career History.
• Compare and contrast Customer CV to other traditional CV models
• Explore additional fine-tuning issues such as the use of fact vs opinion, how to quantify results and relate them back to the business.
• New handy hints such as the rationale for a short company overview, how to write about responsibilities and how to frame business benefits.
Chapter 3: PROCESS to create new Customer CV (Preparation of the Career DNA Bank
• An enhanced chapter discussing how to properly prepare your Career DNA Bank the underpinnings (think of it as the skeleton) in order to frame and hang a Customer CV (the flesh). Without the correct skeleton you collapse. How does the Career DNA bank inform the Personal Promise, Transferable assets and Career History.
• How do you uncover a detailed understanding of your abilities, core competencies, behaviors and values e.g. what you will be employed for
• Development of the Career DNA Bank needs time effort and resources put into it.
• Revised case studies and examples
• New techniques to use.
• New ways to describe your journey and story.
Chapter 4: The END BENEFIT and the PROCESS BENEFIT
• The Benefit of the Customer CV
• New SWOT analysis
• Realigns from the past to the future and from the seller to the buyer
• Best hire not easiest laziest fit
• Efficiency for candidate and employer
• The Benefit of the Process:
• Writing a CV
• Easily be able to write bespoke & targeted CVs.
• Easier completion of (Competency Based) Application forms as preparation has already been done
• Easier to create cover letters
• Base material for you to use at interview – even agenda document
• Better targeting of potential employers
• Help you decipher the job descriptions and fully understand what the potential employer is looking for
• Open new career avenues
• Making the most of networking scenarios
• Management of your Career
• Customer CV enables you to adopt either business development approach of (a) taking the product to market or (b) bringing the customer to the solution.
Chapter 5: New CVS of REAL people
• New content
• New examples from across the world of people who have used the ideas and concepts in Pitch Yourself to gain employment
• Updated CVs from existing people.
Chapter 6: SUMMARY
• Re-think, re-build, re-engineered summary.
• Call to share your experiences with us through new consultancy web site.
• The only question you must ask at every interview
Features
• This is the only CV book - still - to say anything new
• Since the first edition the concept of the elevator pitch CV has been
widely taken up and the book is now endorsed and bought by over 40 business
schools and universities across the world
• This makes it the most widely endorsed CV book in the world
• Author is now a full-time guest lecturer on elevator pitching at business
schools and universities - the book gets constant year-round promotion
• This new edition has a punchier more explanatory subtitle and brighter
jacket
• The new edition also has much more added value in tips, tricks and
examples of how to sell yourself to best effect
Author
Bill Faust has 14 years’ experience in delivering high-level integrated,
marketing campaigns, for a range of blue chip companies including GE Capital,
Campbell’s, News Ltd, Bayard Presse and BT. This has taken Bill across
the world from London, Paris, Istanbul to Sydney. And back.
Michael Faust has had a top flight management, advertising and marketing career.
Most recently Michael was the Managing Director of Travelcare, the UK’s
largest independent travel agency . Prior to this he has held influential
positions as the European Marketing Director of LetsBuyIt.com as well as a
number of strategic consultancy roles across the European dotcom market. Over
the last fifteen years Michael has worked in both advertising agencies and
client companies from Saatchi and Saatchi to Dell.