EEOC Tips for Employees: Elevator Speech = The Key to Being Heard

Attention spans are short, and calendars are packed. These days, we don’t get anybody’s undivided attention for long. It can be helpful to have an elevator speech, or a set of them, that sums up our discrimination story.

The first few times I told my story, I wanted to tell everybody every detail, but as my case matured, and I got more familiar with the law, I started to notice that all those details were making my story LESS powerful. So I consciously started saying less, and focusing what I DID say on what I knew was going to matter at my hearing - how NASA violated the law and how that harmed me. That made a difference in how other people responded to my story.

My EEOC elevator speech started with my claims. Our claims lay out the legal basis of your complaints - what our employer did, what laws they violated, and how their actions harmed us. Those are the things that EEOC cares about. Illustrated with an example from my case.

Your elevator speech is a teaser for your WHOLE story. If you do a good job with your elevator speech, someone will eventually ask for more details. I applied the same elevator speech principles to every story I told. Illustrated with an example from my case.

The sooner we can get past the deluge of details and emotions, and start making logical & legal sense of our story, the better our chances that someone will hear us and help us.

A good elevator speech communicates more than what happened. It says a lot about you:
You understand the difference in what matters to you as a person and what matters in terms of the law
You bothered to learn the rules and the language of the game you’re playing
You have emotional maturity, can set aside emotions and THINK logically
You respect other peoples’ time enough to keep it short and on point.
… and all of that will help you get heard!

An elevator speech has other benefits too. It can help you remember your claims. For me, it was a lot easier to remember the elevator version of my story than the legalese version.

More important than the speech itself, going through the process of distilling your story and writing the elevator version is one of the best things you can do for yourself and your case.
Certainly, by the time you’re headed into your hearing, you’re going to need the kind of clarity this exercise can give you.

When you understand your case well enough to turn it into an elevator speech, that understanding is going to make you better at just about everything we have to do, from rebutting motions to testifying to making the most of our evidence. Because you’ll be able to lay out your evidence and testimony in a logical way that supports YOUR story.

I think elevator speeches are so important that I’ve decided to ask you to write your own, for a chance at winning a free one-hour consult with the experts at InformedFED.

You can base your elevator speech on your claims, like I did… or do it your own way. The important thing is to be able to explain to someone who doesn’t work at your agency what your employer did, how that violated the law, and how their illegal actions harmed you, as clearly and concisely as you can.

Then tell me why it’s important for you to get some expert help at this stage of your process.


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EEmail entries to: [email protected]
1. SUBJECT: name, valid email & agency
2. Written entries, no more than 500 words.
Elevator Speech about your case, and
Impact of getting a consult right now
3. Federal Sector ONLY... Note: InformedFED does not accept clients from the Veterans Administration (VA).
4. Entries close November 22, 2022 @ 6 p.m. CST
5. Winner announced in my video on November 29, 2022

I will NOT publish your entry without your express permission!

---- All opinions are my own. Not LEGAL advice. Just me sharing my perspective as an employee who went through the EEOC claims process & won. I am not an expert at all things EEOC. While I do my best to be factual in my observations, viewers should assume that all observations or statements are ALLEGEDLY. *Never trust your fate to a YouTube content creator. Do your own research, pilot your own vessel. *

--- Background photo on thumb courtesy of searchable NASA Image Library: https://images.nasa.gov/