What's In It For Me Message Filter
Answer the audience's hidden question before making your own case
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 98%
The What's In It For Me Message Filter starts by identifying who is listening and what decision that person needs to make. A recruiter may be checking fundamental skills before passing a candidate forward, while a hiring manager may care about trainability, fit, and whether the person will work well with the team. The speaker interprets each question through that audience need, then chooses a relevant experience that resolves the concern. Instead of trying to say everything or emphasizing how badly they want the opportunity, they show why advancing or hiring them benefits the listener. The filter preserves the candidate's authentic story but changes which evidence receives emphasis. Its mechanism is audience-to-concern-to-proof: understand the gatekeeper, infer the hidden checkbox, and answer with a concise story that checks it.
Origin
Crawford used this filter when a finance hiring manager challenged her lack of finance experience; she answered the underlying concerns about transferability, trainability, and fit and received a call that day.
Core principles
- 01Every audience evaluates a message through its own need
- 02Different gatekeepers require different evidence
- 03Stories demonstrate qualities better than labels
- 04The speaker's desire is not the listener's reason to act
How to run it
- 1
Name the audience
Identify the specific person receiving the message, such as a recruiter or hiring manager. Do not treat every gatekeeper as interchangeable.
- 2
Identify their decision
Determine what the person can decide and what evidence they need before acting. A recruiter's threshold may differ from a manager's.
Watch out Centering your need for a job does not answer their decision problem.
- 3
Hear the hidden concern
Translate the surface question into the risk or checkbox underneath it. Ask what the person is really trying to know.
Pro tip A challenge about missing industry experience may really test trainability and transferable skills.
- 4
Select relevant proof
Choose an experience that demonstrates the required skill, fit, or character. Use the story to show the quality instead of naming it.
Watch out Do not unload every achievement regardless of relevance.
- 5
Connect proof to benefit
Explain how the demonstrated quality helps this person, team, or organization make progress with less risk.
- 6
Trim and test
Remove details that serve only your desire to impress. Check whether the final answer directly resolves the listener's concern.
In the wild
A finance hiring manager asks Crawford why he should hire her without finance experience. She recognizes that he needs to know whether she will be easy to train and work well with others. She reframes her cross-industry skills as transferable and emphasizes that she learns quickly and gets along with people.
→ The answer resolves the manager's risk rather than dwelling on her desire to leave her old job; he calls her that day.
Common mistakes
Answering your own need
Explaining how much you want a job does not tell the gatekeeper why advancing you helps them.
Using one message for every gatekeeper
Recruiters and hiring managers often control different decisions and look for different proof.
Claiming instead of demonstrating
Calling yourself passionate or capable is less persuasive than a short experience that proves it.
Is it for you?
Best for
Job seekers and professionals adapting one core story for recruiters, hiring managers, and other gatekeepers.
Not ideal for
Messages where the audience and desired decision are genuinely unknown and cannot first be researched.
From the transcript
“we always want to make sure we're presenting information with our target target audience in mind”
“think about it from what is the”
“talk to what they want to know”
From the episode
Marietta Gentles Crawford: Tell Your Brand Story and Transform Your Career
Marietta Gentles Crawford