Powerful self-introductions and the 3 mistakes to avoid

A recent poll I created on LinkedIn revealed that two-thirds of us just “wing it” with our self-introductions. Many feel that what they say is too stiff — or they panic and don’t fuss with preparing anything at all.

That’s pretty alarming if you consider a recent study of hiring managers which showed one-third decide whether to move a candidate forward within the first 90 seconds of meeting them. Ninety seconds! For most people, those 90 seconds are spent answering this request: “Tell me a little about yourself.”

There’s an upside to that, of course. If the window closes that fast, it can also open swiftly. A well-designed pitch that’s specific to your audience, rooted in a real story, and delivered with conviction can do more in about two minutes than a polished résumé does in two pages. Research on memory and narrative, including work cited by the London School of Business, suggests that people retain roughly 70% of what they hear through a story, compared to just 10% of information delivered as a list of facts.

That clearly demonstrates a 90-second window isn’t just a warm-up, it's a real opportunity. The problem, however, is most people don’t actually compose their answer. Here are the three mistakes I see most often:

MISTAKE 1: The Canned Response

The most common pitch mistake isn't about nerves. It's delivering the same answer to every room. Think about who's actually on the other side of the table. An HR screener is listening for culture fit, communication style, and whether you'll be easy to work with. A hiring manager, especially a VP or department lead, is asking a much more specific question: “Can this person solve my problem?” These are different conversations, and a pitch that works well for one will land flat with the other.

Here's what that looks like in practice. The same candidate, two different rooms:

-- To the HR screener: "I have 12 years in operations, leading teams across three countries, and I'm passionate about building systems that grow sustainably."

-- To the VP of growth: "I've spent the last 12 years solving the kind of growth problems that tend to break operations teams. I've done it across three different markets, and I know exactly where the pressure points are before they become expensive."

Same résumé, but pitched very differently. The second version works because it speaks directly to what that person needs to hear. Before opening your mouth, stop to consider: “What does this specific person need to hear from me to say yes?” That one question will reshape your answer.

MISTAKE 2: Reading Your Résumé Out Loud

They have your résumé and read it before you walked in. If you simply recite it to them, "I started in X, then moved to Y, then led a team of Z," you're not adding anything of value. You're confirming what they already know while overlooking the one thing a résumé can never give them: a reason to remember you.

I portray this in my LinkedIn Learning course on Delivering an Authentic Elevator Pitch, a course viewed by over 3.5 million learners. In the second section, I work with a student preparing their pitch to a recruiter. The first version is competent and includes education, titles, accomplishments, credentials, all in order. But the improved version adds something personal; a story rooted in a grandad’s farm and what it taught the student about the work he does now.

The recruiter's response: "I will remember you and your grandpa on the tractor. I can look at your résumé but this is so much better."

Your résumé gets you in the room. Your story is what gets you the offer.

A well-told story does something a list of credentials simply cannot. It demonstrates who you are and how you think, while giving the interviewer something vivid enough to carry out of the room and repeat to someone else. That's the goal: Not to impress but to be memorable.

MISTAKE 3: Too Long, Too Flat

You know this tired variation. It starts with, "Well, I was born and raised in..." Fifteen minutes later, nobody is quite sure about your point. Or, there is the quieter cousin, the technically correct reply that covers everything competently but leaves no impression at all.

Two minutes and 300 words. That's the constraint I always give my students. It turns out to be a gift. It forces the most important editorial decision you'll make about your own story: what actually matters? What do you lead with, what do you cut, and what single thread ties your experience into something another person actually wants to hear?

A pitch isn't a biography. It's an argument of why you have what it takes. If you can't say it in two minutes, then you haven't yet decided what you want to say. That's not a confidence problem. It's a design problem, and design is something you can work on.

Power Up with the help of AI

Most people who try to use AI for their pitch will ask that it write it entirely. You can recognize this immediately with words that are polished but either oddly generic or unnecessarily complex. It sounds like everyone else’s pitch which used the same prompt.

The smarter move is to use AI not as a ghostwriter, but as an interviewer. When you train your AI assistant to ask you the right questions — ones about your audience, your stories, the specific turning points and moments that shaped you — then something different happens. The answers that surface are yours. The language is yours. The pitch that emerges sounds like you because it was built from your own input.

Think of it less as AI writing your story and more as AI asking better questions than most coaches do, until your own story becomes clear. That's the content side; now onto the delivery side which is equally as important. Once you have the words, AI becomes something else entirely, a practice partner that can push back, simulate a tough interviewer, flag where your energy drops, and helps you rehearse until the answer feels as natural as a conversation.

For our next Stronger Live, we'll dig into exactly how to do both live, with real prompts and a real professional workshopping their pitch onscreen before us.

Before You Attend: Here's a question worth considering this week. If the person interviewing you walked out of the room immediately after your reply, what would they remember or repeat to a colleague? If the answer isn't clear, that's your assignment. And it's very doable.

Join us on Wednesday, March 25th at 1pm EST for "Own Your Pitch" — a live Stronger workshop where together we'll build and sharpen your 2-minute story. Come with a draft, come with questions, or just come with curiosity. You’re sure to leave with something sharper than what you arrived with. Sign up for the session here.

Also, whether you attend or not, if you’d like to receive PDFs with the most effective AI prompts for building a stellar “Tell Me About Yourself,” then share your email here!

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