If you're going about your job search right way, you're not confining yourself to Internet. Instead, you use Internet to get job leads but also venture out into real world, talk to people, go to networking events, etc. One of most critical things about effective networking is being able to succinctly communicate why someone should be interested in you. Especially in social settings, peoples' brains tend to be on low power setting so a long and complicated explanation about your profession and specialty won't work. It's for this reason that something called an "Elevator Pitch" was invented.

An Elevator Pitch is a concise, tailored, benefit-focused description of your career background. Elevator Pitches are used most often by entrepreneurs looking to raise venture capital to fund a new business. Venture capitalists are busy people and they receive countless business plans, many of which they never get a chance to read. Smart entrepreneurs recognize this logjam and that their best chance of getting an investor interested may be to summarize their complex business into a short, conversational speech.

Another way to think of an Elevator Pitch is that it's like a TV commercial for why an employer should buy you, but in a conversational format that someone would enjoy listening to. What if you ran into president of GE, IBM, or some other company you wanted to work for in an elevator and they casually asked what you did? Having an elevator pitch ready is key to getting someone like this interested in you.

Although elevator pitch should be designed to fit within 15 to 60 seconds' speaking time, you should be able to continue talking if person does not stop you. The goal of an elevator pitch is generally to get person to agree to let you follow up with them (or their assistant). You might close an elevator pitch by asking if you can follow up with person about potential job opportunities and exchanging business cards.

Studies have shown a majority of interviewers do not have a scientific way of determining who would do best on a job. Instead, most simply use their own biases to determine whether they think person is smart and would "fit in" with rest of people at company. Deciding on this basis is really no better than flipping a coin, and it tends to favor people who are good interviewers rather than good employees.

Nevertheless, this is reality of most interviewing situations you'll run into. As a job seeker, a good way of dealing with this is twofold: presenting yourself well so you can do as well as possible with interviewer's superficial biases, and at same time presenting interviewer with facts and substance that would back up idea that you could be a good fit for job -- regardless of whether or not interviewer asks you to provide that information. The second point does not mean you should be disrespectful with interviewer; this could cause you to score low marks on their superficial grading scale. Rather, you will often need to take some initiative to steer conversation in a direction that would give you an opportunity to share facts that would bolster case to hire you.

CREATING A GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION

There are several things you can do to create a good first impression:

1. Have a good looking, error-free resume. Even before interviewer meets you in person, they're starting to form a judgement of you based on your resume: its content, writing style, whether there are any spelling or grammar errors, etc.