Professional development coaching: Improving your pitch to recruiters

In this article:

• Learn about the work that goes into creating a conversational and effective professional pitch for recruiting events and job fairs.
• Discover the importance of nonverbal cues.
• Get an inside look at the professional career development Master of Science in Management (MSM) students experience as they build their career path.

Does pitching yourself to potential employers come easy to you? Kelley’s MS in Management Program leaves nothing to chance. Teaching Professor Tatiana Kolovou demonstrated an effective pitch for MSM students recently during her Pitch Perfecting Workshop. We then worked in pairs to practice and improve our pitches—and our job prospects. 

What does the perfect pitch to recruiters look and sound like?  

It’s a natural conversation with minimal filler words, and it exudes confidence, warmth, and competence. Kolovou spoke with us about the importance of nonverbal cues, natural inflection, and countenance variations, and suggested replacing filler words with contemplative silence. We watched our pitches improve in real time as we followed Kolovou’s instructions for creating a naturally flowing, story-like dialogue that effortlessly incorporated the position and company of the recruiter. We worked together to determine our pitch starting point, then practiced and recorded our improved pitch at the end of the session for further reflection and practice. 

Tips for appearing more confident 

The best indicators of confidence are smiles, eye contact, and hand gestures. Our stance and posture communicate confidence as well. You want to show high levels of warmth and competence. To boost confidence and comfort before a networking event, scope out the space where these conversations will take place and know what you’re going to wear. Kolovou made it apparent that students must learn to “be okay being seen,” and understand the importance of their nonverbal communications: taking 10 minutes to iron a shirt or use a lint brush could make the difference between an interview and a forgotten interaction. 

Keep practicing 

Remember that all pitches need to have a headline along with personal supporting points, with at least one that connects with the specific position/company of the other person in the dialogue. 

This may seem obvious, but a key aspect of an effective, conversational pitch is that it is a conversation. MSM students now know we need to always end our pitch with an open-ended question to our conversation partner. This is important because of the natural inclination to feel positively about (and therefore, hire) those we feel we can communicate openly with.  

Kolovou’s workshop is a good example of the professional development coaching for MSM students that prepares us for success after graduation. She also gave us lots of recommendations for future pitch practice, such as using Yoodli AI, which gives immediate feedback on pitch videos (tracking eye contact, “um” count, etc.), and playing games with friends to talk about random things for as long as possible without using filler words. 

Thanks to Professor Kolovou for assisting with our professional development! An award-winning teaching professor, she teaches business communication and cross-cultural communication courses to Kelley undergraduate and graduate students.  

This post was written by Katie Kobold, MSM’25. Katie began the MSM program after earning bachelor’s degrees from Indiana University in psychology and English and a neuroscience certificate.