Activity

Pitching to Attract Talent

Do you remember you made a People plan for your venture in Lesson 3? It is now time to execute that plan.

In this activity, you will go back to your People plan and look at the roles that you have identified for immediate
hiring. You now need to gear up to hire for these roles. However, hiring is not as easy as it sounds – especially for
a new venture like yours. For people to join you, they need to be really interested and convinced that joining you
will give them the opportunity that they were always dreaming about. For that, you need to pitch your venture
and your potential really well.
AdvancedCourse inEntrepreneurship

Note: Keep in mind that in your practice venture, you may not be in a situation where you need to hire
candidates. But, make some assumptions and use your imagination to carry out this mock pitching session. You
really need to polish your pitching skills and all opportunities such as these are invaluable and a great learning
ground.

Once you have completed this role play, you need to take your learnings from this activity further. For that, take
up Milestone3 Task1: Craft a Pitch Strategy to Attract Talent where you will create a pitch strategy to hire your
A-team. This will help you go for the actual hiring process as and when you need to.

Instructions:
1. This is a role-play activity.
2. Regroup into your teams of five.
3. Each team should identify a candidate and an interviewer. The interviewer should be someone who can
play the role of founder/co-founder convincingly and represent the venture.
4. This activity will continue through 2 sessions and is divided into 3 rounds: Round 1, Round 2, and Round
3.
5. Each team will get a chance to pitch and learn.
6. In Round 1, each team carries out the mock pitching internally. While two from each team play the
interviewer and the candidate respectively, the other three members note down their observations in the
Observer sheet. You will end this round with a debrief within your own teams.
7. In Round 2, the Facilitator selects one of the teams (comprising an interviewer and one candidate) and
asks them to carry out another mock pitching session in front of the rest of the class as audience. At the
end of the role-play, the Facilitator conducts a detailed debrief.
8. Round 3 is the final role-play round where the Facilitator again selects another team (comprising one
interviewer and one candidate) for the role-play. At the end of the role-play, the Facilitator conducts a
detailed debrief and shares the takeaways from the session.
9. While your team is playing out the roles of the interview panel and the potential candidate, the other
teams will observe, record, and later critique your role-play.
10. Your aim is to pitch your venture well so that the candidate gets convinced to join your venture.

Building the A-Team

© Wadhwani Foundation Page 1 of 5 www.nen.org For Students’ Use
V01
 Activity
Pitching to Attract Talent

11. The role-play activity is done over 2 sessions. The Role-play activity table below shows the time
distribution among the various rounds.
12. Use the Interviewer Prep Sheet table given on Page 2 and the Candidate Prep Sheet table on Page 3 to
strategize for the interview process. The interviewer and the potential candidate will use the tables
relevant to them.

Session - I Prep time for all teams All teams fill up the 20 minutes
Interviewer Prep Sheet and
AdvancedCourse inEntrepreneurship

the Candidate Prep Sheet

as relevant.
Round 1 All teams go through the 10 minutes
mock pitching internally
Debrief within teams using 20 minutes
the Observer sheet

Session – II Round 2 Class level – Facilitator 10 minutes

selects a team
Class level debrief 10 minutes
Round 3 Class level – Facilitator 10 minutes
selects a team
Class level debrief 10 minutes

Note: Since this activity will continue in the next session as well, do remember to bring this handout with you
when you come back for the next session.

Preparation (20 minutes):

1. Identify the interviewer and potential candidate from among the team members
2. Decide which role you want to hire for looking at your People Plan.
3. Ask the identified candidate to leave the group. The remaining team members should help the
interviewer prepare for the pitch. If you are the Interviewer, brainstorm with the other members in your
panel and list down the points that you will address during the role play.

Interviewer Prep Sheet

Question Talking points

Building the A-Team

© Wadhwani Foundation Page 2 of 5 www.nen.org For Students’ Use
V01
 Activity
Pitching to Attract Talent

What skills are you seeking in Have you already handled a team? If yes,
the candidate? What are the programming languages have you mastered?

How will you pitch your venture Greetings! We are the developers of Trippy Ph, the quintessential all-in-one
AdvancedCourse inEntrepreneurship

to the potential employee?
Philippine Travel App. Our team will revolutionize the Philippine travel
experience for foreigners and locals alike.
Our mission is committed to promote the country’s tourism and aid in the
development and success of local industries by providing a fully customized
and hassle-free travel experience to tourists in the Ph. Furthermore Trippy
inc. envisions itself to spark a new era of Philippine travel by being a
catalyst in the amplified growth of the country’s tourism industry and other
local industries.

What will you offer to a  A culture where employees are encouraged to share ideas and
promising candidate so that individual opinions.
he/she finds it difficult to  A workplace where coworkers feel like family or friends
ignore?  Benefits customized to meet employee needs.

WIFM (what is in it for the Not only do you get to work in an environment where you can thrive on
candidate?) and exercise your field of expertise but you also get to be a part of an
organization that aims to help local tourism and tourism-related industries.

If you are a Candidate, use the Candidate Prep Sheet below to list how you will sell yourself and what points you
would want the Interview panel to clarify.
Candidate Prep Sheet

Question Talking points

Building the A-Team

© Wadhwani Foundation Page 3 of 5 www.nen.org For Students’ Use
V01
 Activity
Pitching to Attract Talent

How will you introduce yourself

and highlight your work
experience?

What are your expectations

from the company?
AdvancedCourse inEntrepreneurship

Why do you want to join this

venture?

If you are the observer, use the Observer Sheet below to record your observations:
Observer Sheet
Question Talking points
What went well?

What could have gone better?

Building the A-Team

© Wadhwani Foundation Page 4 of 5 www.nen.org For Students’ Use
V01
Activity
Pitching to Attract Talent

If you were the candidate, would

you join the venture?

If your answer to the above

question is “no”, as an
interviewer, what would you
have done differently while
pitching to the candidate?

Building the A-Team

© Wadhwani Foundation Page 5 of 5 www.nen.org For Students’ Use
V01