Strategy #35: Clarify Your Voice And Message

If you want to take your job pitch to the next level, you need to think about the clarity of your voice and the message you want to convey. This isn’t a simple matter of speaking clearly, using tone and intonation, pauses and stress and so forth. Nor is it about the particular words you use in your pitch content alone.

Voice and message, in the way I’m thinking about them here, transcend these things and hold the potential to inject your pitch with vim and vigour. These are the keys to creating a transformational connection with a hiring manager who holds your immediate future in their hands.         

I’ll begin this strategy on clarity of voice and message with some clarity about what I mean by these terms. When I refer to voice, I’m not only thinking about the sounds that come out of your mouth. That’s the simplest and most literal definition of voice but it’s not the only one. There’s a more expansive concept that I’m interested in here.

Voice comprises everything from the words you choose and the way you express them, all the way through to how you convey your opinions and attitudes, express your individuality and put your personality on display. Voice is an outward expression of the person you are. It shows the world that you’re different to anyone else. Unless you’re a skilled writer or actor, it’s extremely difficult to hide your real voice and, for this reason, it’s inextricably linked to authenticity. These are crucial elements of my approach to job hunting because they’re supremely effective. That’s why voice is so important.

If you’re a keen reader or writer, you might have heard of the idea of an author’s voice. This describes the unique and individual writing style they choose to employ. The best writers have an unmistakeable voice, whether they’re journalists or speechwriters, novelists or screenwriters, bloggers or training providers. Done well, a distinctive voice puts a stamp on their work, a bit like an invisible signature that identifies them as the author of the text.

The same goes for visual or auditory artists. Think about painters such as Monet, Rembrandt or Picasso, each of whom is instantly recognisable to anyone who has an appreciation of fine artworks. Composers and musicians too. If you enjoy classical music you can’t possibly confuse Wagner with Strauss, nor do rock fans mistake Metallica for The Rolling Stones. The finest film makers have a clear voice as they imprint a vision upon their finest work, ranging from Chaplin to Hitchcock, Bergman to Spielberg and countless more besides. 

Effective pitchers do exactly the same. They take conscious decisions about the format, content and delivery of their presentations and design every component for maximum effectiveness. Injecting their unique voice is an integral part of this process.       

Although I’ve been separating content and delivery in my training materials, they’re inextricably linked when it comes to voice. It’s useful to isolate each element of a job pitch in order to understand how they function as separate parts of the whole, and to hone your content-building and delivery skills as easily as possible. But I want you to be quite clear about the nature of voice which encompasses everything you do as you build and make your pitch.

Moving on to message which is an essential part of your voice. Content and message aren’t synonymous, although they’re connected in many ways. Content starts with the words you commit to paper or screen, plus any supporting materials you want to incorporate into your pitch. These things weave themselves throughout your pitch, combining with a manner of delivery to create your message. This is best epitomised by the story you want to tell, the ultimate expression of your unique and individual voice.

If you’ve been following me from the start, you might see how my Vocation Master approach to an effective job search all comes together at this point. Look back at strategy #31 for more on narrative, an essential ingredient of a distinctive voice.

To summarise this section, voice is about your stance or attitude towards whatever you’re speaking about. It presents a window into your personality and individuality. It does more to differentiate you from any other candidate for an employment position than almost anything else. It enables you to display your authenticity with genuine power and true conviction. So long as you assert control at the start of a pitch, clarity of voice and message will help take you the rest of the way there.

So much for the theory of voice and message, but how do you put them to use in your pitch? Well, here are a few ideas.

First of all, it’s essential to pick a consistent voice, if you’ve got a choice in the matter. Voice is often something that you don’t have much control over because it’s a core part of who you are as it exists at a primal level of your being. Some pitchers have such a strong voice that the idea of altering something that inhabits a basic facet of their character is unthinkable. Others, particularly anyone who’s just starting out on their work-search journey, are more likely to have the luxury of a blank page upon which to imprint their voice from scratch.

Experienced workers who haven’t thought about using a proactive job hunt, or ever constructed a pitch in the way I’m talking about, might also be in this situation. Even then, you may find yourself involuntarily steering in a direction that comes naturally to you. However, it’s a valuable exercise to consciously and deliberately think about the nature of your voice. The same goes for the message you want to convey and a personal or business story that’s most likely to serve your purposes.

If you’re floundering or perplexed, this is something I can help you with via my personal coaching programme. Just get in touch with me for a conversation about the way this works and the options available to you.   

Strategic decisions about voice might not always be within your control but the design of your message certainly is. You need to be totally clear about your message, right from the start. That’s the cardinal rule of any good pitch. A single idea usually leads to clarity of message so don’t think that chucking everything into your pitch will help. It’s very much the opposite. The most impressive presentations have one key takeaway, and one only.

Ordinary job seekers tend to have a scattergun approach and think that the more they add to their list of skills, experiences and competencies, the better. As a result, their interview presentations are chock-a-block with random facts, figures and claims that massively dilute any impact they hope to make. A lack of focus is incredibly common amongst average interviewees, and I’ve endured more of this type of poor interview performances than I can recall.

What you need to do is identify the most important part of your message and to make sure that each aspect of your pitch concentrates on hammering this home. The classic presentation structure comes in three stages. In brief, you tell the audience what you’re going to say. You then say it. Finally, you summarise what you’ve just said. Introduction, content, conclusion. That’s not a bad way of designing a pitch, and you get elements of this in my version, albeit with some bells and whistles tacked on for good measure. 

As with a lot of the other topics I’ve covered in these strategies, there’s much more to say about this than I’ve got the bandwidth to present here. Look at my website for details of my Job Search Masterclass, in-person training seminars and other resources. They’ll all help you master effective use of voice and message in an important pitch.      

In conclusion, strong clarity of voice and message will shoot the quality of your pitch sky-high. Be clear that this isn’t simply the icing on the cake. It’s one of the most basic of all the ingredients you have available to you, so don’t make the beginner’s mistake of forgetting to stir it into the centre of the mix, and right at the start. Voice and message connect with a decision maker in a way that can electrify a job pitch. Ignore their potential at your peril.   

Neil Grant, Vocation Master

If you have any comments, suggestions or questions about the issues I raise here, I invite you to contact me personally. Please get in touch via LinkedIn;

LinkedIn/VocationMaster