" The one who has a good idea but doesn't know how to sell it is no more advanced than someone who doesn't have one” (Abraham Lincoln). What if this quote was also true for those who have skills but don't know how to sell them? The word SELL can displease, so everyone can transform it as they wish: promote, highlight, argue, explain... In all cases, it will be necessary to convince.
Not easy when pressure, challenges and stage fright get involved. Fortunately, there are methods to increase efficiency and therefore confidence, and thus increase your chances of success.
Whether to sell a product, a service or your skills, understanding the need is the essential and essential element. It is thanks to this identification that it will be possible to prepare effectively to make a difference from the first moments. The time will then come to SELL YOURSELF, which is none other than providing proof that you have the skills adapted to expectations. Alexandra David-Ardite, human resources and recruitment expert, takes stock of these concepts.
Understand the need
It is first imperative to find out about the company, its sector, its strengths and its constraints. All means are good: personal network, press articles, social networks, company website… Why such research? To give yourself the means to properly prepare for your interview, collect key elements to position yourself and answer questions. This also allows you to approach the interview with mastered elements and thus gain confidence. Self-confidence is a real asset and requires good preparation.
Understanding the need is also based on the analysis of the elements of the position and the profile sought. They can be an advertisement, a job description, information communicated by one's network, an initial exchange with the recruiter to refine the recruitment criteria, etc. These essentially include working conditions, financial conditions or technical and behavioral skills. They are what make it possible to prepare the stages of the interview: from presentation to argumentation. Today, behavioral skills (soft skills) are part of recruitment in the same way as technical skills (hard skills).
As Julie Bordier, digital and print editorial project manager at APEC, indicates in an article published on 09/23/2020 on the APEC website: “As the proportion of people with technical skills has become significant, they make less of a difference in the job market. These are the soft skills that will add a winning element to your application. » With equal (technical) skills, this is an excellent way to MAKE A DIFFERENCE! Soft skills are more difficult to measure because they relate in particular to behavior, communication, adaptability or critical thinking. Fortunately, there are methods that make it possible to present them, make them more concrete and therefore evaluable..
Make a difference from the presentation
Convince that you are an interesting candidate and make you want to know more. This is the objective of pitch, which consists of introducing yourself briefly but effectively.
The elements highlighted, the words chosen and the articulation: nothing should be left to chance. For this reason, the pitch must be prepared, adapted to the position concerned and rehearsed. It's not about learning a text by heart or restoring your marital status. Your message should definitely not be a repeat of the CV, because then it becomes useless, or even boring. It must hook the recruiter from the first moment by delivering what the CV does not say: what brings you to be there, what has marked your career, what drives you, the results you have obtained, your vision of future for you and the company to join…
From this first phase, the recruiter needs to be reassured because the pressure is not only on the candidate's side. Terms turnover or termination of the trial period make human resources shudder, as does the shortage of candidates. Already on June 25, 2021, Frank Ribuot, President of the Randstad France group, highlighted on BFM Business that many companies were desperately looking for workers. Vacancies are synonymous with production delays, lack of responsiveness, customer dissatisfaction, loss of skills, etc. So from the presentation, it is proof of skills, supported by concrete examples, that the recruiter needs to understand that you are his solution.
Argument to convince of his skills
And now comes the dreaded question phase. There is no point, during preparation, in imagining the worst, namely a recruiter who seeks to make people feel uncomfortable, to trap, in short to destabilize at all costs. These recruiters exist but fortunately are not the majority. There will always be time to face them without them having already destabilized you before the meeting.
Still, you have to prepare yourself for the questions that will be asked. Their main purpose is to measure motivation and skills. Now is the time to get into mode STAR. This method allows you to present and argue concretely, through evidence, the benefits that you can provide.
- S as Situation: in what context did you implement this skill?
- T as Task: What work tasks were required?
- HAS as Action: what actions have you taken?
- R as Results: what results did you obtain?
This methodology is there to demonstrate technical skills, but also behavioral skills, which are apparently so difficult to prove. It makes it possible to make things concrete through real-life examples.
Example : “I am a rigorous person.” S : I had to follow a project from A to Z. T : To do this, it was necessary to validate the achievement of the objectives at each stage. HAS : I built a monitoring tool that I systematically updated every 48 hours thanks to checks and monitoring briefs that I led. R : This tool made it possible to follow each stage of the project with finesse. Internal audits have validated the accuracy of all items listed.
In a commercial relationship, we talk about a win-win relationship. In recruitment, the objective is the same. So sell yourself well!
