When important new opportunities arise, it is crucial to have an effective personal statement to share, both oral and written. To have such a summation, you have to know who you are. Do you?
I tell my adult literacy students that you have to understand yourself, and to document your mission in life, before you can engage effectively with others. Whether it’s the start of a new friendship or the pursuit of that all important next position or project, being able to articulate well a goal and your ability to achieve it moves others to help fulfill your wishes.
A great way to start this journey of self-discovery and sharing is to create a short form personal statement, or an “elevator speech”. You never know when and where an important new career or social opportunity may arise. It could be from the stranger standing next to you in an elevator. Thus every educated, ambitious person should have such a cogent little explanation of him or her. I mean a summation of what you do and why you do it, up to six simple sentences that you can speak in up to 45 seconds, i. e. before the elevator ride is over. Fortune favors the prepared, great communicator. So be ready, any time, any place, to share the “Tale of You”.
That condensed essence of your persona should appeal to both the head and the heart of the listener. Telling facts about you – the what (from the head) – should combine with your most fervent feelings ands beliefs – the why (from the heart). Stating only facts can be very dry and boring, while expressing only emotions can be off-putting and unconvincing.
Many people tend to share facts readily but leave out the emotional foundations that make those facts meaningful. So rather then saying, for example, “I am an interior designer who specializes in color for residential environments”, how about, ” I design homes interiors and am intoxicated with colors that enliven daily life.” Put the power of strong feeling behind what you say. Enthusiasm is very attractive.
Once the condensed “Tale of You” is down and memorized, it’s time to move on to a longer form statement. And that most definitely should be written. It is too long to remember for many of us. In addition, often applicants must submit a written personal essay for a school or job acceptance they are pursuing. Typically such a required writing sample is limited to one or two pages, say 500 words maximum, with translates to no more than about eight paragraphs.
To organize your thoughts for the long form personal statement, begin by brainstorming past experiences. These should show your growth toward your stated goals and/or your demonstrated success in achieving them. An easy way to structure these chapters in the book of you is a three part structure: (1) Situation, (2) Action, (3) Outcome. The “Situation” is a significant problem or challenge that faced you, for example securing acceptance to a highly selective program, creating a scientific or artistic breakthrough, completing a difficult project on time and under budget, etc. The “Action” is what you actually did to satisfy the demands of the situation, your strategy and tactics to win the game, sell the product, learn the lesson, complete the assignment, convince the audience, etc. The “Outcome” is the direct consequence of your actions, i. e. the tangible benefit to the school, consumer, company, audience, and so forth, any targeted constituency that benefited from your behavior.
The benefit should be quantifiable, usually in terms of money, time, approval rating, or some other mathematical metric broadly recognized by society at large. Your emotional feelings are secondary. That you enjoyed the process is nice to tell; but what really appeals to your recipients of the tale are what others thought and the benefits they recognized. Here’s a real example from my own “success stories” I have used in the past for career advancement:
SITUATION
H&N (my engineering company employer years ago) desperately needed new work as traditional markets declined. A Request For Proposal appeared from Unocal Corporation for the design and engineering of prototypes and site adaptations for gasoline service stations combining additional businesses such as care washes and fast food restaurants. No one else at H&N was interested. (We had not done that type of work before.) I decided to go for it.
ACTION
I created the proposal in response to the RFP and conducted the short list interview. (The hidden subtext is, “Hire me and you’ll find out how I did it!”)
OUTCOME
H&N won the program, besting several more experienced competitors, and worked on it for several years, designing prototypes and adapting them to over 200 sites throughout the Western US, realizing more than $10 million in revenue.
That example states the basic facts, such as the years of work on many sites and the large amount of revenue that resulted. But it couches them in an emotional context. Company survival was at stake, yet colleagues were indifferent about this prospect. In other words, it was a desperate situation and I took a major risk. It’s a great story and the best part is, it’s true.
In your own long form personal statement, a good writing strategy is also three part: (1) a compelling opening paragraph, (2) a body of several paragraphs that tells success stories to illustrate your opening, and (3) a concluding paragraph the summarizes the whole and reiterates strong interest in the reader / opportunity for which the statement is being submitted. The opening paragraph can be a modified form of your elevator speech, plus a transition to the explanatory stories that follow. It states the basic “You”. This part should be 50 to 100 words. In an essay of 500 to 1,000 words total, next you can tell about three to five different stories, using one to three paragraphs for each. So, set the situation in one paragraph. Then describe your actions in the next paragraph. Conclude that particular story in the third paragraph with the quantitative results and possibly your feelings about what happened.
For enhanced readability, I like paragraphs that are relatively short, 50 to 100 words. Othewise the reader can get lost and frustrated. I also favor simple declarative sentences, the kind with a straightforward subject and predicate in the active voice (“I completed the work on time.”), not the passive voice (“The work was completed by me on time.”).
Complex sentences with subordinate clauses should be used sparingly. Use them only if you really understand how to organize the logic expressed. Otherwise grammatical mistakes often arise, such as modifier confusion. For example, “Working steadily, the project finished two weeks early.” is incorrect. Who is working, the project? It should read, “Working steadily, I finished the project two weeks early.”
Of course grammar is the subject of a much longer conversation. Just remember to keep your writing as simple and as short as possible, while still conveying the essential meaning. The overworked reader will thank you.
Once you have your essay in hand, read it out loud, preferably to someone else. I have found that is the best way to spot errors and to tighten up the language.
Personal statements, in both short and long forms, are powerful communication tools to further your life. They reveal, both to you and others, who you are and why. As such these messages are tremendously informative and motivating both to the messenger and the message recipient alike. If well thought out and prepared, The Tale of You should be endlessly fascinating. So have a personal statement ready. The future wants to know you!
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