An elevator pitch is a short persuasive description of who you are, what you do and what your strengths are. It might include the kind of job role you are looking for or if you make or produce anything, it would describe that. A good elevator pitch should encourage the person you are speaking to to want to find out more about you. It’s called an elevator pitch because it should enable you to sell yourself in the time it takes to travel a couple of floors in an elevator. It can take some time to craft an elevator pitch that you are happy with and that feels authentic. There are lots of examples of elevator pitches online you can research to help you when preparing to construct your own.

• Your elevator pitch should be around five sentences long.
• Start with your name (though be prepared to drop it if you’ve already met the person).
• If you’re currently working, you could lead with your job title and company, or you could summarise a project you’ve recently been working on.
• Identify one or two of your key strengths and experiment with different ways to describe them using high impact action verbs (see below) and at least one real example.
• You could build your elevator pitch around a testimonial – something positive that someone has said about your skills.
• Highlight your interests and ambitions. What inspires you? Why do you work/want to work in your chosen field?
• Check your pitch tells your story; it shouldn’t just be a list of facts and you can be both friendly and professional.
• You might want to finish your elevator pitch with an open question to the person you are speaking to. For example, what sort of skills are you looking for in interns? You might need to think of a couple of different endings, depending on the context.
• Make sure your pitch sounds like you – try it out with supportive family or friends and ask for feedback.
• Finally, practice. Your elevator pitch should be ready to go at a moment’s notice and sound authentic and enthusiastic.

Have a go at creating your own elevator pitch for an internship at The Old Vic. Focus your pitch on working in one of the following teams: Finance, Development (the team dealing with fundraising and events), Marketing, Education or one of the front of house teams running the bars, café or public spaces. How are you going to suggest that you might be the best fit for one of these teams? When you have created your elevator pitch, record it, share it with someone and then take a moment to reflect.

For more information on developing your elevator pitch, watch our film How to be a pitch with Rikki Beadle-Blair.