The Need-to-Know Strategy for Pitching Yourself to Employers

Many job seekers play hard to get when looking for work. While that approach may sometimes work during tight job markets, a person will likely not get far with that attitude when they're applying to several employers. Instead, job seekers should show that they are the solution to an organization's problem.

Eliana Goldstein , a well-known career coach, joins LinkedIn News Editor Andrew Seaman on the latest episode of the Get Hired podcast to talk about this strategy and why it's a winning approach for job seekers. For example, Goldstein says organizations hire to solve problems, such as providing services or working with clients. A person who can solve that issue and more is the foundation of that employer's decision.

The two also explain how job seekers can figure out an employer's biggest problems based on the job description and other research. Eliana and Andrew also touch on how people can address the needs of employers during different stages of the hiring process.

A transcript of the episode is available below. You can listen to Andrew's conversation with Eliana wherever you get you podcasts by clicking here .

TRANSCRIPT: The Need-to-Know Strategy for Pitching Yourself to Employers

Andrew Seaman: It's no secret that the job market is tight right now. With job transitions on the decline, there are fewer open roles available compared to a year ago. That means employers have the upper hand. So what can job seekers do to increase their chances of getting hired? On today's show, we're talking about how applicants can present themselves as the solution to their dream employer's problem. Stay tuned.?

From LinkedIn News, this is Get Hired, a podcast for the ups and downs and the ever-changing landscape of our professional lives. I'm Andrew Seaman, LinkedIn's editor-at-large for jobs and career development, bringing you conversations with experts who like me want to see you succeed at work, at home, and everywhere in between. Joining me today is Eliana Goldstein. She's a career coach who specializes in job transitions, career advancement and employee engagement. Eliana wants job seekers to hone in on two big questions. What problem is an employer trying to solve and how can you be the one to solve it? We sat down to talk about how you can use those questions to guide every step of your job search.

Eliana Goldstein: Many people think hiring is very arbitrary and they just think, "Oh, the team got a budget. They're just bringing in an additional head." And I think it's so important to remember that especially in this market where most employers are being far more conservative, there is a need and a reason behind hiring somebody. It might be focusing on a specific challenge or problem that they're looking for that person to solve, or there might be a specific goal that they have in mind for that team, and it's really up to you as a job seeker to identify what that is so you can position yourself against it.

Andrew: What I often think trips up job seekers, and I would love your thoughts on this, is that they don't take the mentality that I'm here to help you solve a problem. They take the mentality of, "I deserve this job."

Eliana: Yeah, you're here to help me.

Andrew: It's one of those things where naturally, and I notice this of myself is as you get older, you're like, "Yeah, I have done a lot and I deserve to have a good job to go along with my skills." But then you sort of realize, ooh, this company doesn't care about that. I always tell people, listen, companies are by design incredibly selfish. They don't care about your mortgage, they don't care about your skills unless it can help them. So you have to sort of pitch yourself as I have all this experience and I would be happy to use it to help you.

Eliana: Yes, exactly. The amount of times that I will say to people, how do you show where you can add value? I'm always at value add, value add, value add. That is what it is about. So it's understanding what their challenges are, what they're looking to accomplish, and then showing not only can I do this, but here's how I will add instrumental value to you. So yeah, it's not about you, it's about how you can help them leveraging your skillset.

Andrew: And obviously today we're talking about how job seekers can be the solution for employers. They have a problem and you have the skills to either solve that or make it easier or work on solving it. So what do you think is the initial approach for that? Because I think a lot of job seekers, they just don't know where to start. They just send endless applications basically.

Eliana: Right. Right. I really think about it in three steps. The first step is really understanding yourself as a candidate and what your unique value is, what differentiates you in a market of a lot of sameness and highly qualified candidates. The second part of that is then uncovering what that problem challenge is or that specific goal that they're working towards. And then the third step is figuring out how to connect the two. So that's really the three steps at a very high level, and I like to often start with you and uncovering your unique value.

Andrew: And also I think it is about, it starts with you and what you actually want to do because I think a lot of people, they think I need a job and I work in X industry, so I need to send out a bunch of applications in that industry. And they're often not targeted.

Eliana: Not at all.

Andrew: And I think that having a targeted job search, and actually you don't want to narrow your field of vision so small that you only have three jobs in a summer to apply to.

Eliana: Of course.

Andrew: But you want to have sort of an area where you're like, "Okay, this is my sweet spot."

Eliana: Exactly. Right.

Andrew: So from the beginning, I guess, what do you suggest people do to figure out what they actually want?

Eliana: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the first things I really recommend people do is think about two things, your areas of engagement and your areas of disengagement, and really thinking and asking yourself, "In my career thus far, what are the projects, the tasks, the work that I have done that have engaged me the most? And what are the projects, the tasks, the works I have done that have disengaged me the most?" Right? I was enjoying this project. Why was I enjoying this project? Where specifically in the project did I spend most of my time? What came the most naturally to me? And oftentimes those areas of engagement can actually help us pull out a lot of specific skill sets that we then can advertise and leverage to think about, okay, what type of role does this best align with?

So that's a really big part of it. The other thing I'd like to think about is a phrase, your zone of genius, which I'm sure is a phrase we've all heard before, but really thinking about your unique superpower at work. And some of the best ways to think about and address that is asking yourself, what do people often come to me for and say, oh, hey Sarah, can you help me with this or ask me my advice on? That can help us, again, pinpoint specific strengths or skill sets that we might have. And that can often point us in a direction of, okay, let me use this to start honing in on what I should be targeting more.

Andrew: Yeah. And when it comes to the sort of application process, if you are cold applying and you sort of learn, okay, how do I figure out based on the job description and the company, what their main issues are?

Eliana: So I'm a big believer in efficiency and not necessarily just banging your head against a rock and making uninformed guesses. This is a situation where I would probably leverage AI and I would throw a job description into ChatGPT or something like that. I would see if there's any words that are coming up more often in the job description. I would ask it even to highlight what they think are the top three skillsets that are needed for that job and use things like that so that you can kind of pull out again more efficiently with the challenge really is.

I think that combined with, again, reading about what's been posted about them recently on social media, any recent articles, if it is a public company listening to their most recent earnings calls, all those kinds of things can help you pick out data points. And then you can see, what am I consistently hearing across this company? This might be telling me something in terms of, again, initiatives that they're focused on or challenges that they're working through. Now, let me leverage that to my advantage and figure out and showcase why my value and unique skillsets can help with those things.

Andrew: Yeah, I think those are super important. And obviously with the resume and cover letter, how do you suggest people sit down to write them when they have that information? So you know okay, this company, their big thing right now is that they want to get into AI or something like that. And you don't necessarily have experience in AI, but you're a good project manager and you could learn quickly. What is your suggestion for sitting down and actually writing those documents?

Eliana: I always joke that if you ask 10 different people what their thoughts are in a resume or cover letter, you're going to get 10 different answers. The way that I've always thought about cover letters, especially in this context, is that resumes are incredibly focused on you and what you've done and what you've accomplished. I always try to make the cover letter more so about the company, and I think even being able to recount and share with them based on what I've learned, this is what you're working towards, these are some of your initiatives. I think just showing that level of market research sets you apart from others because so many other cover letters are generic and so many cover letters are just repetitions of a resume in full sentence written form. So I like to think about it from that perspective of saying, "I know that this is what you're focused on. Here's how my background will really align with those initiatives, but this is why your company is meaningful to me. This is why I'm passionate about the work that you're doing."

Whereas the resume, again, is more so focused on you and has to be more so that highlight reel of not just what have I done, but what have I actually accomplished. So that's how I often think about it. And I don't think there is anything wrong when you are a pivoter in saying that, here's my background, but here's why I think my differentiated background actually makes me more well-versed to support you in these initiatives. How do you position what you identify as your weakness as actually a strength to them?

Andrew: We'll be right back with Eliana Goldstein.

Andrew: And we're back with career coach Eliana Goldstein. And then when you go into the interview, obviously with that mindset, do you have any tips for pitching yourself as the solution in those interviews? Because I think a lot of people, they do prep, but then they often go into an interview and just be like, "Okay, what's the question going to be?"

Eliana: Yeah, right. Absolutely. We all know the first question you're almost always asked in an interview is, tell me about yourself. And from the get go, I want you kind of planting those seeds and setting yourself up to showcase how you are that solution. So I think about elevator pitches in three different sections. The first section is a very high level overview of what you do and what you have been doing. The second part I think about is your highlight reel. What are specific accomplishments or tangible achievements that you're proud of? And then the third part, I like to connect back to the role back to the company and why you're excited, I think about those three sections in relation to what you know about the challenges of the role. So when you talk about your high level experience, what specific experience do you want to highlight that you know will be of interest to them?

What specific tangible achievements have you worked on or accomplish that you know they might be wanting you to work on and accomplish there? So it's about... In the same way you tailor a resume, you have to be tailoring your answers during an interview and doing it as early on as possible. And I also encourage people to be asking questions early on and say, what are you looking for them to achieve in the first 30, 60, and 90 days? And based on how they respond to that, you can then tailor your questions in the interview to talk about how you would do those things. So it's always about consistently getting information and optimizing your responses based on some of that information.

Andrew: And what I like is, like you said, go in there. The first thing they're going to ask you is tell me about yourself. And someone that I always like talking to is Matt Abrahams, who's Stanford Business professor. And one of the things he recommends is going into interviews or conversations with themes. So part of your prep is when you're going over the company and you say, okay, here's the problems that I think they're trying to solve. And as long as you're sort of pretty confident in that you could build your themes around those problems.

Eliana: I love that.

Andrew: And that way when you're in that conversation, as long as they don't give you anything that shows you're super off base, you can at least be like, "Hey, I am a problem solver in this area." You could literally say that and then you could sort of bring all the answers back to your themes, so that way you drive home that you are the solution for those issues.

Eliana: Absolutely. And obviously when we go into interviews, a lot of it is really storytelling. An effective interview is about telling a compelling story. I always say show don't tell. So thinking about as you prepare stories that you want to talk about, what stories are again going to be useful depending on the context of the situation and the challenges they're trying to solve, what do you know is important to them, and then how do you pick stories that are applicable to that.

Andrew: And I think something that people end up getting frustrated about is they feel like they have a great interview and then they get to the end and they say, "Hey, sorry, we had to go with a different candidate." And what I often tell people is employers basically they bring in a bunch of people and they probably narrow it down to three people who could do the job just fine. And there are all these variables that is an aura around them. It's not necessarily like can you do the job or not because they'll weed those people out early on the process. So when I hear people, "I was perfect for this role," and it's like, yeah, but there was probably three other people that they were doing final round interviews with who were also perfect. So do you have any advice for people who successfully get to the final round or something like that and they just feel like they're not clinching the job, so what is your sort of closing tactic?

Eliana: It's so hard and it's so frustrating to see clients that you just know are excellent and come to that point. I don't know if this is a controversial thing to say, but I do sometimes feel that once, like you were saying, you're coming to those end rounds, sometimes it comes down to likeability.

And obviously that's not to say that if that is happening for you, you are not a likable person. Of course, interviews are a high-stakes situation where you're not necessarily fully being yourself and things like that. And I think it's just important to take some of the pressure off because often you're not showing up as yourself because you are so nervous. So I read this once in a Reddit thread, and I really like this. Somebody said, "Imagine someone's interviewing you to be their roommate. How would you show up?" Right? So I think it's about presenting a sense of ease and a sense of comfort, taking it a little bit easy and presenting that easy, lighthearted version of yourself.

Andrew: Totally. And I like the idea of what would it be like to sit down and talk with someone like you're auditioning to be their roommate because really part of the interview is not just whether you could solve their problem, but do they want you around the office?

Eliana: Exactly.

Andrew: And if you come off as a jerk, no one wants you around.

Eliana: Nope, exactly.

Andrew: Especially in RTO times or you're returning to the office, no one wants to sit next to you.

Eliana: Exactly. Exactly.

Andrew: And then the other thing I think is also... Even if you do all of that, there's still that 10% chance that there's just something else that got in the way. It could be that the hiring manager's cousin applied for the job or something. So you could always ask for feedback and then use that as data for your next interview.

Eliana: Exactly.

Andrew: But you also have to be kind to yourself and say like, "Okay, maybe this was just out of my hands."

Eliana: Exactly. At a certain point, you have to just kind of brush your shoulders off, go on to the next one because the worst thing that we can do is ruminate and really try to figure out, "Oh my gosh, what went wrong?" So collect the data that you can that's useful to you and that can help you adjust moving forward. But then be onto the next one and just keep staying focused on what's in front of you.

Andrew: And obviously we get to probably talk about this for a while, but is there anything else that you think people really should take away from this conversation or anything that maybe I didn't ask?

Eliana: I mean, I think we talked about this, and I know this is said all the time, but the connections that you build in networking will always be the most important. I was just talking to somebody, I was at a wedding last week and he had gotten poached. He was working at TikTok, he's now at Salesforce, and he was like, "I had a friend working at the company and I knew they were interviewing a number of other people. I didn't even have SaaS experience all these things, but I had someone who was really pushing me and in my corner and really said that I'm the person for the team."

So it really does go so far. And I think that people just spend way too much time applying, applying, applying, and applying as opposed to how can I build and plant as many seeds as possible at as many companies as possible? And while yes, sometimes it feels like a longer game, the dividends that it will pay off in the future are so important. So it's like I will harp on that forever, focus on relationship building as opposed to just like, let me set a goal of applying to a hundred jobs every single month.

Andrew: Well, thank you so much for this conversation. It was great.

Eliana: Of course. Thank you for having me. This was so much fun.

Andrew: That was career coach Eliana Goldstein. If you're leaving today's conversation with a new learning to apply to your job search or career, I'd like to invite you to write about it in a review on Apple Podcast. Our team really enjoys reading what you learn from our shows, plus it helps other people discover our community. Speaking of community, remember that we're always here backing you up and cheering you on. Connect with me, Andrew Seaman and the Get Hired community on LinkedIn to continue the conversation. Get Hired is a production of LinkedIn News. The show is produced by Grace Rubin and Emily Reeves. Assaf Gidron engineered our show, Tim Boland mixed our show. Dave Pond is head of news production. Enrique Montalvo is our executive producer. Courtney Coupe is the head of original programming for LinkedIn. Dan Roth is the editor in chief of LinkedIn, and I am Andrew Seaman. Until next time, stay well and best of luck.