Examples of Value Propositions in Job Interviews
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008What is a “value proposition”? The best description of a value proposition is the personal career branding that the person brings with him or her. It is his or her distinctive blend of skills, qualifications, expertise and accomplishments. In essence, it is what you bring to the table for the employer.
In marketing terms you could say that you are the “product” and the potential employer is the “target market”. The concept of value proposition is really nothing more than your own unique sales pitch to land the deal. This time you are what’s being sold, and the deal is your own future employment.
Your goal is to create a marketing message or a value proposition about yourself through your resume, cover letter, letters of recommendation, and references as well as your appearance, actions, voice, attitude and mannerisms that makes the potential employer want you. Wrapped up in a neat package and it becomes your value proposition.
How do you create a strong value proposition?
You want to present your best features to the potential employer. You want to make the best market presentation of yourself.
There are five key areas to look to in order to do this:
a) identify and arrange your transferable skills – look over what you bring to the table, and categorize it for the potential companies that you could reach out to. This helps you “target your market”.
b) research your target companies – find the companies through networking, newspapers, online job boards etc. that appear to have the best matched or the most suitable positions being offered for your transferable skills.
c) match your skills to those companies’ requirements – review your resume and customize it specifically for those companies and the positions they have to offer
d) “showcase” your added value – highlight and speak to with the most strength those skills and qualities that you have which most suit that position. Some experts in the area of value propositions suggest that to help you showcase you can create a section at the top of your resume entitled, “Profile Summary,” “Summary of Qualifications,” or Career Summary,”. This will help to catch the attention of the interviewer.
e) ensure your marketing message of you is consistent – whatever you say about you throughout your cover letter and your resume: keep it to one or two key marketing messages throughout the documents. Don’t say on one page you are reliable, then say on the next that you took a two-year sabbatical. Keep it consistent throughout.
Underneath it all, however, is going to be your own unique ability to show the interviewer that you can bring more to the job than what the potential employer is expecting. In essence, you want to create your documents, appearance and traits all to be a true marketing of you.
Make sure you create a value proposition that can easily show the answer that is foremost in the interviewer’s mind: Why should he or she hire you?
If you do this, then you have clearly identified your value proposition, and more than likely “closed the deal”.
