How To Master The Shift From Motivation Letter To Individuality Pitch

“I don’t like work. no man does. But I like what is in the work. The chance to find yourself.” (J.Conrad)

Whenever it’s time for me to challenge myself with a new opportunity this quote comes to my mind. I am a ninja at approaching work. In a way that doesn’t feel like working. Nevertheless applying for new opportunities has always been a pain for me.

I love writing about my experiences and to share it with others, but often I am a bit biased about the process. This is especially true, when it comes to writing about my skills or proving what I have achieved so far.
For some days I have been struggling about an introduction letter for a job-application until I had a little Eureka moment.

A new friend helped me to figure out, that for the wrong reasons I always feel bad while writing applications. She helped me realized that I had positively pitched about me and my achievements a thousand times before and that I still become better every time.

The conversation helped me initiating a contact by pitching my individual self, instead of worrying about a motivation letter.

After spending half a year in Istanbul, I decided to switch my focus of living from Aachen to Munich. I had some happy years in Aachen, learned a lot and am happy to finish my Master Degree at the RWTH Aachen soon.

Working for a StartUp in Istanbul, made me realize that there was something missing, before I am able to decide how life after University should look like.

Unfortunately, I had to realize that my idea of writing a master thesis in cooperation with a company was no option, due to some external circumstances. Anyhow I had already set my mind to the idea of moving to Munich and gaining what I like to call “corporate experience”.

I decided to stick to my decision of moving to Munich and find out about the details later.

Just around that time I discovered the announcement for an Job in the venturing department of a big company.

There was my chance to put into practice what I had learned by working in entrepreneurial environments as well as meta-projects and adapt it to the efforts of a multinational company.

As always there were lots of other things to keep me distracted, even though I got angry about myself and every day I wasted not applying for this opportunity.

Luckily I found the perfect opportunity to mark my arrival in Munich and its entrepreneurial scene. Working at a conference called “Bits and Pretzels” as a volunteer, I had the chance to get to knwo a lot of inspiring people and a little taste of the similarities and differences to Aachen.

During the conference, I had a conversation with an obviously successful guy who mentioned that he had never written an application letter. He claimed, that there had been allways someone who introduced him to new opportunities. Intending to tackle his statement, I asked him how often he had pitched one of his projects and where to set the difference to applying for a job. Later I realized that I was fast at criticizing him, but had been struggling with just the same attitude for the recent days.

A discussion with another volunteer initiated an idea. We talked about the small size of our faculties and that we had to explain what we study every time we talk to a stranger. We realized that this process of constant pitching had effects on us that are similar to the progess within the lifetime of a startup. The act of constant pitching helps us sharpening our identification of what we had learned, pivoting our aims and finding out what we are actually doing with our lives.

I love telling stories and I love to introduce myself to new people. There have been thousands of chances to pitch myself to foreigners or friends who have lost track of what I am doing. Nonetheless the confrontation with writing an application always felt like I had never done something like this before. A calm weekend in the suburbs of Munich helped me to reflect and shape my thoughts about this challenge.

So here are some things I realized about myself, that help me to pitch my identity for an application.

I love writing about my experiences and to share it with others. I love telling stories and I love to introduce myself to new people.

I always had a favor for Tech and people. During my studies I realized that bringing together both passions isn’t trivial.

I am excited about finding approaches to allow more people to handle technical complexity and reduce disciplinary boarders without cutting off important aspects within.

I often came closer to my aim and always stumbled across new fascinating challenges through my studies and lots of activities outside of University.

I am highly motivated to introduce myself to the next opportunity and feel highly qualified to face whatever challenges come along with it.

I would love to find out together if I am a suitable candidate for the position I am aiming for and would be really happy if you invite me to start talking.

This approach to introduce myself may look a bit strange to you

but I tried to use it as a chance to tell more about myself apart from facts you find in my CV or by typing “David Lipgens” into Google.