Galactic Activity 16

Deliver a pitch to sell yourself for a particular job role, and/or to be considered for the next stage of interviews. The presentation needs to be attention-grabbing and succinct.

Activity 16 – Spoken CV

Duration: 3-5 mins
Applicable Streams: Personal challenge, Leadership, Learning & Development, Workplace skills, Sales

Aim

In this activity you are aiming to:

Explain why a company needs to work with you, and what you can bring to them as a company

Objectives

To do this, you will need to keep the following objectives in mind:

  1. Structure the presentation so that skills and experience are demonstrated – consider using a SAO (Situation, Action, Outcome) approach or similar.
  2. Use persuasive language.

The Why…

  • This activity is an extension to ‘the pitch’. It’s a creative way of presenting your work history / skills / knowledge / work attributes and is simulating what is common in the workplace now – being asked to present a video CV as a way to get into the first round of interviews.
  • The challenge here is to NOT present your CV as a list of items that you’ve accomplished or achieved. Try other creative ways of presenting such as storytelling, and giving demonstrative examples.

Where do I start?

Google ‘VIDEO CV’ then take some inspiration from what you find. There are copious amounts of examples, ‘how to’ videos, and top tips for making your video CV sing! Be creative, find a style that suits the way you like to present and let your imagination run wild!

The How

Specific guidelines on how to tackle this activity.

There’s no definitive ‘how’ when it comes to tackling this activity – the challenge is in making something traditionally quite ‘boring’, into something that will make the listener stand up and pay attention.

Variations:

  1. Respond to your current job
  2. If you’re applying for a job – provide a copy of the job description to the audience.

Tips and traps

TRAPS:

  • Reading off your experience and qualification as a list of bullet points.
  • Not giving examples or demonstrations of your experience.
  • Falling back to traditional CV formats and simply making it a video of your current CV.

TIPS:

  • Let Google help your imagination run wild with possibilities – the challenge here is to be as creative as possible, within a style that best suits you as an individual.

Guidelines for Program Director:

It’s a good idea to Google VIDEO CV before assisting anyone with this task – the examples online should give you a good idea of the realms of possibility when it comes to compiling a video CV.

Also ensure the person isn’t struggling with the technology required to record this video.