We all are familiar with the concept of that 30- to 60-second “speech” known as the elevator pitch. A “typical” elevator pitch goes something like this (read it aloud and check the second hand on your watch):

Hi, I’m Tyler Jones. I copy edit, proofread, and fact-check nonfiction trade books and periodicals. What publishers know and appreciate about me is my competency in style conventions, my ability to reconcile them with house style, and the way I ensure the language of the piece is appropriate for the target audience. With my capacity for tact as well as professional firmness, dealing with subject-matter experts and in-house editors is a breeze for me. The result of all that is a timely turnaround of my projects, and new quality publications get released on schedule. I am currently looking for a role as a developmental editor, where I can apply my writing acumen as well as my publishing-business savvy.

And check—yes! All this can be rattled off in the time frame “allowed.” And there are some people out there who do just that, at every networking function, in every small-group conversation they join.

Having their lines memorized may give those people the necessary confidence, or make them especially proud of their “expertise.” And presenting yourself so “fluently” is sure to make an impression…right?

Well, an impression it will make for sure, only not the one that was intended. People will be just plain overwhelmed. Worse yet, in most situations they will probably find this approach off-putting, and perceive this type of “master networker” to really be saying: “OK, enough of me now. So what do you think of me?”

But…this is the elevator pitch! It’s what you are supposed to do in networking, isn’t it?

Yes, you do want to have an elevator pitch, but not one where you just hit “Play.” A canned pitch, memorized and regurgitated with the exact same words in the exact same order, is a buzzkill; that “elevator” will only go down, and fast.

No, your elevator pitch is a tool. Here are some pointers on what makes this tool effective.

Rehearse the gist, not the words.

You can word each key piece of information in various ways. Jot down your information in sentence fragments, and review it periodically so it will come to mind the moment you need it.

Practice the delivery of your information: in front of the mirror, with family, with friends, and with fellow networkers during meetings. That way, your exact words will vary naturally.

You may also notice how the order of pieces of information changes over “trial runs.” So you went from saying what you do straight to saying what you are looking for, instead of talking about the unique ways you do things? OK, maybe that was appropriate in that situation. The order in which you touch on your talking points is not chiseled in stone, no more than your exact words are.

Give the other person a chance to chime in.

At some meetings, people in attendance take turns standing up, one at a time, to introduce themselves. That’s the only situation I can think of where you want to deliver your entire elevator pitch, or most of it.

In all other situations, elevator pitches take more of a conversational form, speaking turn by speaking turn. Ask questions that invite the other person to expand: “So what do you do?”; “What brings you to this event?”; or “What are you most interested in?”

The other person’s answers may come with cues that allow you to direct the conversation back to all the wonderful things you have to give. Having the gist of your elevator pitch ready will make it easy for you to know a cue when it comes your way.

Less can be more.

So you just met a person, went back and forth with her five times, and didn’t have a chance to get the “communicate-with-tact-and-firmness” part of your elevator pitch in? Then maybe there wasn’t a good cue for that. Sometimes there is just no apparent connection across industries, roles, pursuits, aspirations, or even towns.

Trust your gut and your best judgment: if a conversation doesn’t get off the ground, don’t force that last talking point; it would probably fall flat. Every so often, the most gracious move is to say something like: “Well, it was nice to meet you. Now what say we find out what the others in the room are talking about?”

To sum up:

The elevator in your office building doesn’t go all the way up and down all the time, does it? Rather, people get on the elevator at various levels, and stay on for varying spans of levels. Therefore, you don’t want to be concerned with delivering your entire elevator pitch. What is much more productive is to use each of your talking points as ammo, one at a time. If it’s on target, reload. Oh, and give the other side a chance to take their shot as well.

When I facilitate the career-center workshops on networking, I usually begin with a brief networking-conversation opener, leading up to the question, “What do you do?”

About half the time, I get answers such as: “I was a research associate, until I got laid off.”

With an answer like that, you set an overall negative tone. You didn’t answer the question of what you do, not even what you used to do; you pinned yourself down to a position, and with a look back, still struggling to move on. That makes you a has-been. What would make people want to network with a has-been?

Here’s a variation on the type of answer just quoted: “I used to be a research associate. Now I am looking for a job as a developmental editor.”

On the surface, this sounds like goal orientation. But look at it closely: It goes from a look backwards on to something not yet attained. The worst-case takeaway message here is: has-been topped off with never-has-been. Again, do you think people will be lining up to network with someone projecting that type of image?

The person networking with you learns nothing about you from a past job title. And if indeed you got laid off, then chances are the job doesn’t even exist anymore; it may have shipped off to China, it may have been consolidated, or it may have been just plain eliminated.

The question “What do you do?” invites you to showcase the signature type of impact you make. The question goes to what you strive to accomplish. It begs to be answered with action-oriented verbs, not with static position titles—least of all, with position titles of jobs you no longer have.

Instead, focus on what you have actually done: how you have applied your competencies, how you have achieved results, and what expanded skills you have come away with. Now you may think: Wait a minute—that’s still a backwards perspective. How is that the present, let alone a look ahead?

To transcend the past, talk about what you do in the form of a story that says: “Here’s the type of endeavor I engage in, evidenced by a consistent, progressive record of accomplishments I have been building on. Here I stand ready to make my next contribution.”

Now let’s look again at the job seeker above who is looking to move from research to developmental editing. Instead of evoking in the listener the tiresome associations with all the tediums of career change, the story told in terms of action and impact could look something like this:

“I produce textbook chapters and journal articles. Specifically, I ensure the substantive content is sound and the narrative is compelling and coherent before a piece is published. To this end, I thrive in liaising among subject-matter experts, peer reviewers, and editorial professionals, until things add up. Incidentally, I am currently available for new opportunities.”

Now that sounds a lot more positive, and it is a much more spot-on answer to the question of what you do. You touch on the treasure trove of your accumulated assets, not as faded glories but as resources from which to benefit for future challenges. This type of answer is much more likely to keep a good networking conversation going.

In one of the workshops offered at the North Shore Career Center, we have a module on goal setting, where you make a “Contract with Yourself.” I can’t give away too much here, but at the basis of this “Contract with Yourself” is the concept of SMART goals:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Timely

You are most likely to succeed when your goals meet these SMART criteria. From what workshop participants have reported back about the congruency of goal and actual outcome, it seems people tend to think “SMART” when they pit their goals against what they can do today, then tomorrow, then by the next deadline.

Say my goal is to “increase my brand visibility.”

Let’s look at this in SMART terms:

• The goal is vague in substance; therefore, it is hardly specific.
• There are no metrics involved; therefore, the goal is not measurable.
• With no tangibles provided or bars set, the goal is not really attainable.
• The goal does have some obvious intuitive appeal, so let’s say it is relevant.
• But it doesn’t specify a time by which it should be attained—it doesn’t even specify when to start. Therefore, the goal is not timely.

Now say my goal is to “write a blog post on best networking practices, and post LinkedIn and Twitter updates about it, by tomorrow.”

Again, let’s take a look, in SMART terms:

• With topic (substance) and media (form) clearly identified, this goal is specific.
• The posts are either there or not there, so that makes the goal measurable.
• Assuming I know the subject matter and I am comfortable navigating the media, this goal is attainable.
• It looks like this goal is relevant toward my overarching ambition of increased brand visibility.
• I am planning to do this by a certain deadline, which is close enough to suggest when to get to work, so this goal is timely.

The attainable and timely parts are in a particular functional relationship. Note the goal was not to “write a blog post on best networking practices by the end of next year”; that would seem attainable, but hardly timely: assuming a project of this caliber takes a day or two to complete, this time frame would be too noncommittal—at this point, it’s almost two years before I would even have to begin.

On the other hand, the goal was not to “write a book on best networking practices by tomorrow,” either. I hope we don’t have to belabor the cliché of “biting off more than you can chew” here. (In this context, note some people understand the R in SMART to stand for “realistic” rather than “relevant.”)

So what if the goal were to “write a book on best networking practices by the end of next year”?

Hmm…sounds somewhat realistic (with attainable and timely within apparent proportion of each other), but writing a book is a very complex project. You would have a hard time knowing how far toward attaining your goal you are at a specific point in your endeavor, say after you have: done research on a topic; interviewed a subject-matter expert; written a draft of the first chapter; and so on.

So measurability would be an issue, for one. Even so, let’s be optimistic and say you finish the book five months before (!) the end of next year—then where do you go from there? “Freeze” it? Try to go above and beyond? Or cut yourself some slack for having “over-achieved”?

It is better to break down complex, long-range goals into smaller goals, one at a time. That’s exactly how it’s done in the “Contract with Yourself” workshop module mentioned above; it makes each goal more attainable. In the case of writing a book, sample goals could be: “Do research on the ‘sandwich-message’ concept tomorrow”; “Make appointments to interview subject-matter experts next week.”

That way, you can calibrate and set the next goal accordingly. A more overseeable time span also helps make a goal specific and, therefore, determine whether it is relevant.

True SMART goals are timely in that you can see the contingency between time and action more clearly. Not only does that help establish good habits, it leads to measurable outcomes occurring with greater frequency, thereby providing more frequent reinforcement—another goal attained, building on the one attained before. Now how is that for “smart”!

If you look around in the first couple of weeks in a new year, you will notice folks who have been downing pizza and fries suddenly nibble on steamed broccoli and cauliflower. Gyms suddenly fill up, as if people were racing to become alternates in the upcoming Winter Olympics.

It’s New Year’s resolutions at work: eat better; exercise more; maybe both. Oh, and then, of course, there are those career-minded folks whose New Year’s resolutions might center on kicking their personal branding and their career ambitions into high gear.

And what usually ends up happening? Well, as the year turns from “new” to “no-longer-new,” the New Year’s resolutions fade in the distance. And people often hardly even notice, because by then the behaviors related to the resolution have pretty much faded as well.

Do you find you can relate to this at all? If so, then don’t berate yourself; it’s normal, really. Here’s why New Year’s resolutions are bound to fail:

The timing of New Year’s resolutions is extrinsic and arbitrary.

We are accultured to associating the beginning of a new year with a “new beginning, period.” The truth is, though, 24 hours from now we’ll each be the same person we were 24 hours ago. None of us will have any more or less of any inclination to start or stop any of our accustomed behaviors. Does a new calendar on the wall really mean all of a sudden you have new staying power?

New Year’s resolutions are an excuse for putting things off.

Yes, let’s slack off as the year winds down. It’s the holidays, isn’t it? And with all the turkey, pumpkin pie, and eggnog by the fireside, who feels like serious self-improvement work anyway? Hey, the year is almost over, and we’ve got all year ahead to be good, and follow through—right?

I rest my case…keep reading.

There is an illusory correlation between “a lofty goal” and “a year to do it.”

Just committing to doing something feels like taking action already. The resolve even grows stronger as the New Year draws closer. That even glosses over the fact you haven’t really acted on anything, yet. (See above.)

And then January is here, and yes, at first you are full of verve as you set out to implement your plans. Yes, it feels different, but that’s the idea, isn’t it! Until “different” turns into “difficult.” Over time, you feel the impact of how abruptly you tried to make big changes.

That’s when self-imposed new habits falter. And the rest is history.

Better to think SMART!

Goals you set stand the best chance of coming to fruition when you keep them realistic and manageable. You can make that happen with the tried-and-true SMART approach: Specific; Measurable; Attainable; Relevant; and Timely.

Example: “I will be a more efficient and productive networker.”

That sounds good. At the same time, it sounds vague. You may not even know where to begin to become an “efficient and productive networker.” Give it a SMART makeover!

Possible results include the likes of:

• “I will attend the two major Chamber of Commerce networking events next month.”
• “I will follow up by e-mail within 24 hours with the person whose business card I just got, using a ‘sandwich message’ (offer-ask-offer).”
• “I will review my contact log and, by the end of this week, get back in touch with three people I haven’t contacted in more than six months.”

Perhaps the best thing of all is: any time of the year is a good time for SMART goals. Oh, but if you want, you can still plan to make the New Year the time to step up your personal branding. You’ll have your SMART goals to back you up on these plans!

In these past couple of weeks at the One-Stop Career Center in Salem, Mass., the usual holiday cards from business connections have been trickling in: tokens of appreciation for another year of fruitful collaboration, along with good wishes for the coming year. The sources of these holiday cards have been as varied as they come: nonprofits, recruiters, staffing agencies, educational institutions, and private enterprises.

And that’s all good. We value good business relationships, and there is wisdom and prudence in the tradition of acknowledging that whatever another source contributes to an overarching goal—workforce productivity, in this case—is every bit as important as what we do. Or maybe it’s just a good tactical move.

Besides those season’s greetings, there have been other gifts coming into our office. These gifts came from clients who found jobs: homemade goodies, very much befitting the season. All combined, those goodies, even when divvied up among all office staff, easily exceed my ballpark idea of the total “allowance” in calories for all twelve days of Christmas.

But these gifts go to show something else. We received them courtesy of the time and effort those clients invested in making them and getting them to us in person. Although that may have been in thanks for the time and effort we put into our services, it is clear they didn’t have to do that. We had done our job, without asking for gingerbread and snickerdoodle cookies as “consideration.”

These gifts reflect networking at its best. The best networking moves are those that cater to the recipients’ needs. Perhaps what our Career Center needed was some holiday cheer, and those goodies brought it in. Networking moves that are the result of time and thought are the most effective, and will be remembered.

I certainly come across hundreds and hundreds of Career Center clients each year. Guess who are the ones I will be most likely to remember by name. The benefits of good networking can be reaped year-round. On that note, as has been said so many times before: make it a good Holiday Season!

So you are about to send out that “infomercial” letter and flyer. And of course you are determined not to leave it at that, right? You are going to stay on the ball so your pursuit maintains momentum. Depending on the nature of your job, it may be your daily bread and butter to initiate and sustain business conversations.

If you happen to be a job seeker (currently employed or not), then that is certainly the case; meaning, it is in the nature of your job (the job being “job seeker”). When you first initiate business conversations, it usually is in the form of a cover letter and résumé—a qualified, specific instance of an “infomercial” letter and flyer.

In any case: following up is important. The sources you contact may have hundreds of other projects on their plate (or, specifically, hundreds of other résumés to sift through), and it is critical for you to keep, or regain, their attention. Much of your “competition” won’t even follow up (because they’ve let it slack or because they’ve moved on), so this tenaciousness can only work in your favor.

Take control: Say you will follow up, and how, and when.

Not only do you establish protocol with a proactive announcement, you anticipate that the other side won’t be contacting you in the meantime. The announcement has two benefits: for one, it lets the other side off the hook, by communicating “It’s OK if you don’t respond—I’ll get back to you regardless”; and for another, it leaves the door open for you to move on to the next step in the conversation, even though they may not have responded.

My favorite announcement goes something like this: “I will follow up on the phone within two weeks of this letter.” Assuming you first made contact in writing, they have formed a first impression based on the quality of your writing. Now here’s your chance to get a first impression of your voice into the mix—to refresh, enhance, and “broaden” their first impression of you. (Unless they said “No phone calls”; that should be respected).

If you are anxious about calling, or worry about bothering them in the middle of something: don’t call them during their workday—call early in the morning, before they even get there. Voice mail systems usually come with date stamps, and it will make a good impression you called at 6:43 a.m. Successful people take care of business before breakfast!

Just make sure your voice mail goes on no longer than 30 seconds. Nobody wants to listen to longer voice mails; every second they spend listening feels like five as it is. Oh, and Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays are generally better for doing your follow-up than Mondays and Fridays, which tend to be the busier days of the week.

When you say you will do something, follow through with it.

Did you notice the sample follow-up announcement above included the phrase “within two weeks”? That means you can follow up as soon as one week or as late as two weeks from now. That’s about one week’s worth of a “buffer” you can give yourself—plenty of leeway to allow for weekends, holidays, or days you may be caught up in other things.

The main thing is you do what you said you were going to do. This will get across that you are a person of your word, which will reflect well on your professionalism. No matter what your interaction with that source may be like in the future, it can only work in your favor that they first got to know you for being purposeful, organized, and reliable.

It used to be common for job seekers to spell out what they were looking for. The place to do that was the “objective,” oftentimes an entire paragraph with earnest-sounding statements involving the likes of “grow in synergy with the rest of the team” and “take my potential to new levels of achievement.”

That was yesterday’s approach! Today, the common understanding is that the “objective” is to get the job; that hardly needs to be expressly stated, right? And what is more: the “objective” is all about what you want, and what you envision for your career.

But the job opening doesn’t exist to satisfy what you want. It exists because the company needs something done, they need it done the day before yesterday, and they weren’t able to fill the position internally.

That’s where you come in: the product that is you, with all the wonderfulness of you. Now allow the company to see how their team is going to be better and stronger for having you be part of it. Speak to their needs!

Instead of an “objective,” give your résumé a succinct professional headline. The headline should capture the role you are going for—it should suggest a close match between you and the position. Your professional headline probably is the first thing employers notice about who you are professionally, so let it be the first thing to identify you as a match for their needs.

Generally speaking, the vantage point you want to adopt in the entire application and interviewing process is that of a consultant: Make it a point to elicit and qualify the employers’ needs, then shift gears and discuss how you can help the employer with those needs. Adopting this type of a consultant’s approach will also help avoid making you look like another desperate applicant begging for a job.

Again, job openings exist because employers need things done. These things usually fall into one or more of the following categories:

1. Make (more) money
2. Seize an opportunity (or solve a problem)
3. Save money, time, or both
4. Recruit, train, and develop staff
5. Develop relationships with other organizations or the general public
6. Retain existing markets and customers
7. Develop new markets and customers

In all regularity, it comes down to a combination of several of these—all the while keeping the boss and other team members sane.

Design the presentation of your relevant qualifications and accomplishments to show you understand the urgency on the employer’s part. That goes a long way in sending the right general message to the employer: instead of communicating desperation (“I need a job! You get it?”), you will be communicating assurance (“You need xyz. I get it!”).

Yes, being in need of a job is not pleasant. For employers to hire you, though, they first have to see you are actively aware of their needs. That will give them the confidence that you will turn out to be a good hire—someone who doesn’t just show up for the paycheck but someone who will take on each new round of challenges.

Some of my LinkedIn workshop participants proudly show me the logos they have in their profiles of all the groups they have joined. And yes, it is a good thing to have groups to go with your profile. Groups boost the size of your network, and whoever visits your profile can see that at the very least you know about this LinkedIn feature. The groups you choose also provide clues about subject-matter areas you find intriguing.

But joining a group only is the beginning of the beginning. As with all things networking-related, the key to getting the most out of your LinkedIn groups—up to and including, ideally, your next professional purpose—is to give it a fair amount of time and thought.

Create an intelligent presence on the group page.

Here is your chance to be visible to other people who share key interests. Join discussions where you can contribute value. Reinforce and validate, or urge caution and moderation, but don’t publicly vilify or deride someone else for their contribution.

Many groups allow polls. You can cast your vote, and look at aggregate results—the percentage of votes for each answer option, and the distribution of LinkedIn member demographics across poll respondents. No one, however, will know how you voted—unless you also post a comment and choose to have the comment display what you voted for.

You can post your own discussions and create your own polls; the latter is done by clicking on the three gray horizontal bars you find in the right-hand corner of the “Start a discussion…” field. Here is your chance to position yourself as committed, proactive, original, and intelligible (and whatever else you want your brand to be recognized for). If a discussion you start garners enough comments from other group members, you may even be showcased as one of the “top influencers in this group.”

Target, and approach, contacts of value to you.

You are interested in contacts at XYZ company. You spot people on LinkedIn who work there. If you are not yet connected, then for the most part your only option of approaching another person directly is through a personalized invitation to join your network.

The effectiveness of invitations for the purpose of first building rapport is questionable. The subject line is fixed here (“Join my network on LinkedIn”); the personal note has a 300-character limit (that’s barely more than two Tweets); and the core message inevitably is to ask a stranger for a leap-of-faith acceptance of you into their network. This all can add up to a certain awkwardness.

That’s where groups come in. LinkedIn users who share a group can message each other directly with full-fledged InMails (although this has to be done through the group page). See if you and the person you would like to get in touch with already share a group. If that is not the case, look at the groups this person is part of, and join one of those groups (preferable an “open” group—one where you don’t have to wait for manager approval of your request to join). Once you, too, are part of the group, you can approach that person, and build rapport without the initial “gamble” of asking to be a connection of theirs right away.

Use the “proprietary” job/job-discussion postings on the group page.

Recruiters sometimes make it a point to avoid the big-ticket job sites such as Monster and CareerBuilder. Job postings there often result in a deluge of responses, with many job seekers submitting applications in a manner equivalent to throwing pasta against the wall, seeing what sticks.

That’s where profession-specific LinkedIn groups come in. Recruiters sometimes figure that job seekers in LinkedIn groups make for higher-“quality” candidates than the general job-seeker population “out there”: the pool of group members is essentially self-selected. Moreover, in the case of “closed” groups (those requiring manager approval of your request to join), members presumably have undergone a minimum of vetting.

The LinkedIn group, therefore, may be one of the few places a job opportunity gets publicized. What is more, you can see who posted it. View that person’s profile to see what their role in the application, interviewing, and hiring process may be. Look also at the “Viewers of this profile also viewed” box; it can provide you with leads to people with a key say in the process.

And when you see an “Apply Now” button in the job posting, it means your application will go directly through LinkedIn, rather than be redirected to some black-hole application website. That is off the beaten path by comparison with applications submitted the (by now conventional) online way.

Then, suppose a recruiter finds your application interesting, looks you up on the group page via the “Members” tab, and clicks on “See activity.” It can only work in your favor when your activity shows you have been contributing with quality and consistency.

People experience successes as well as setbacks, and form explanations for both. According to Martin E.P. Seligman, a thought leader in the psychology of optimism and pessimism, this happens along three basic dimensions:

1. Individual causation:

• Internal—I made that happen.
• External—Other people or circumstances made that happen.

2. Stability over time:

• Permanent—It always happens that way.
• Temporary—It only happened that way this time.

3. Consistency across types of events:

• Universal—That’s the way it happens in all areas of my life.
• Specific—It only happens that way in this one area of my life.

Imagine the following scenario:
You have been working very hard to show the higher-ups at work you are ready to take on a dangling multimillion-dollar account. Eventually, the higher-ups do assign the account to you.

So how do you explain that? Maybe something like this:

• Internal—I was the best choice for this account.
• Permanent—I am skilled and resourceful at overseeing big accounts.
• Universal—I can compete successfully for many big projects.

That sounds very favorable in terms of your own contribution to this success. It also sounds like you are on track for continued success. This explanation is pretty optimistic.

Then again, maybe your explanation sounds something like this:

• External—Maybe the others didn’t try very hard.
• Temporary—Maybe I was this lucky just this once.
• Specific—I certainly wouldn’t have that kind of luck at other things.

That doesn’t sound too favorable in terms of the role you, yourself, played in this success, does it? That diminishes the chances of future success right there. This explanation is more pessimistic.

Now imagine the scenario going differently:
You have been working very hard to show the higher-ups at work you are ready to take on a dangling multimillion-dollar account. Eventually, the higher-ups assign the account to someone else.

So now here you are, explaining a setback instead of a success. Let’s see how the first approach (internal, permanent, and universal) is working now:

• Internal—I went about it the wrong way.
• Permanent—I don’t think I’ll ever figure it out.
• Universal—Anything competitive doesn’t work well for me.

Oh. That’s not very uplifting. What worked well in explaining a success seems to backfire when explaining a setback; not exactly what would motivate you to try again.

Let’s see about the second approach (external, temporary, and specific):

• External—Other, more urgent matters kept distracting me.
• Temporary—I don’t usually get so distracted from things that are important to me.
• Specific—This is the one goal I did not attain.

Hmm…this time the second explanation sounds friendlier; you are more encouraged to keep at it, despite the setback. In this case, the second explanation allows you to keep up an overall optimistic attitude.

There clearly is a pattern here. How much you weigh your own contribution can turn out very favorable in explaining a success: you, yourself, made it happen; the outcome is the rule, not the exception; and you have a similar competency level in other important areas.

Setbacks, on the other hand, are more tolerable if: you can identify causal factors outside your person; those factors don’t usually affect you that way; and those factors wouldn’t be an issue in other areas.

As Seligman points out in his book Learned Optimism, people form habits of their patterns of explaining things. These habits can cause a person to generalize explanations in a more optimistic or in a more pessimistic light, and these generalizations can become pervasive across areas of life.

For people at certain career junctures, maintaining optimistic habits can become especially crucial, as pessimistic habits can become especially detrimental. Mind you, this is not to say you should be in denial when faced with roadblocks. “Optimistic” does not mean you should whitewash difficult realities.

What does “optimistic” mean, then? That becomes apparent when you consider its relation to “optimal”: this means “the best under the circumstances.” Circumstances, in turn, often come with a great deal of ambiguity, especially in things career-related. Whether you feel encouraged or discouraged overall can go a long way in how you deal with such ambiguity, and how you take action on it.

How about you? Do you tend to get mired in pessimistic explanations for successes? For setbacks? Maybe for both?

Then the good news is: habits can be re-learned! Try the following sample successes and setbacks.

• Success: You won the chess tournament.
• Success: Someone who works at one of your target companies accepted your invitation to connect on LinkedIn.

• Setback: You came in last in the mile run.
• Setback: You never heard back from XYZ Company after applying for that job.

Challenge yourself to explain successes in the most internal, permanent, and universal way possible, and setbacks in the most external, temporary, and specific way possible. And feel free to leave a comment, too!

It was sometime in the 1990s that hiring managers were looking for more effective ways to identify strong candidates by their résumés. That’s where soft skills—personal skills you use in approaching your work and the people you work with—made their big entrance.

Soft skills have always been of major importance on the job, and have always factored into performance reviews big time. So it would seem logical to trumpet these important skills on your résumé. Right?

Not so fast. There are a gazillion résumés out there these days, with job seekers professing qualities such as: “bottom-line–focused”; “results-driven”; and “customer-service–oriented”; not to forget “excellent verbal and written communication skills.”

The trouble with flat-out claims like these is (at least) twofold. For one, employers regard most of these competencies as a given; most people would list these claims as assets for most positions. Meaning: claims like the ones mentioned above are going to do little to set you apart from the rest.

More importantly, though, they hardly sound convincing by themselves. Employers who first read your résumé haven’t seen you at work—in real time, with real people, on real challenges. They will read a soft-skill claim such as “proactive self-starter” and think: “Says who?”; or, “Duh! What job seeker wouldn’t describe him- or herself that way?”

The trick is to choose—and embed—soft skills wisely. Start by googling lists for soft skills (a.k.a. personal skills or people skills), then identify some four skills you feel you possess in particular—skills that distinguish you.

Next, look at your executive summary (or summary of qualifications, or whatever else you call the “mini-résumé” section immediately following your professional headline). Here you already provide a broad overview of the more or less tangible and verifiable aspects of your profile. Now make sure they also reflect your distinctive competencies you just identified, so the reader gets clues about the way you approach your work and the people you work with.

Sometimes you don’t even have to expressly state the soft skill in question; the presentation can be more effective if you can point at results stories, which imply the soft skills behind them.

Here’s one example:

• Developed staff potential to increase productivity by 25% per year and staff retention by 40% over 8 years.

The soft skills are between the lines: It takes astute judgment of employees’ strong suits, considerable capacity for maintaining motivation and enthusiasm, and a significant amount of persistence to achieve results like these.

Here’s another example:

• Advanced community projects by initiating and fostering purposeful networking among 30+ local businesses, institutions, and government agencies.

The soft skills behind this accomplishment: a great deal of proactivity and tenacity, superior rapport building, active listening, the ability to elicit and qualify the needs of others, and persuasive and convincing communication to get the movers and shakers from other organizations enthusiastic about joining in concerted endeavors.

You can still expressly mention some of the critical soft skills by name; chances are your résumé will first be read by screening software, and that software will have been programmed to screen for specific soft skills. But the way of intertwining soft skills with (hints at) results stories is a very effective credibility builder. And it has another benefit:

Soft-skills presentation will pique the readers’ curiosity if it is connected to results stories. In the interview, they will probably follow up on that at some point:

“Okay, so tell me about a time you built staff to meet your department’s needs”; or, “Give me an example of how you developed a network within the community, and what effect that had.”

This type of behavioral question (recounting how you have done something in the past) is increasingly popular with interviewers. And since you should anticipate this type of question anyway, won’t it be kind of smart to feed the interviewer exactly those questions you want to be asked?