Telling Stories

Imagine this scenario: you’ve been told to hire an employee to complete a marketing project. You line up 11 candidates and schedule interviews with all of them over two days — a virtual interviewing marathon. You get started. Over the next two days, two candidates sit there, just answering questions, volunteering nothing. (Yawn.) Eight recite the same bullet point items that appear on their resumes. (Snore.) One, in contrast, tells you all about the time she completed a project similar to the one you need to hire for.

Her story demonstrates her understanding of the true objectives of the project. It’s funny — you find yourself chuckling several times. She talks about several things that went wrong and how she addressed them. Her story reflects her interaction with peers, an unfailingly good attitude and the ability to learn from her mistakes. Most of all, it clearly demonstrates that she knows how to complete a project of this nature.

Which candidate is bound to stick out in your memory? Which one are you most likely to prefer? And all other things being equal — like references — which one will you hire?

As a job seeker, it’s true that you can’t spend every interview telling stories. But if you really want to stand out, choose a story in lieu of an expository answer any time you can. Keep your stories brief, relevant, and with clear “messages.” Simplify as appropriate, but keep them honest (they may well come up in reference checks). Focus on success stories and positive outcomes. Any time you can include numbers (“an audit proved that I improved efficiency by 37%!”) always do so.

Often, interviewers will ask for stories — “tell me about a time your attention to detail prevented a problem.” Sure, it can be hard to prepare for any and every such question, but you will find that there are certain topics that come up commonly. A great exercise to go through is to create a journal of success stories. If you can come up with a dozen that all happened on the job, that’s best. If you need to include some from school, church or volunteer activities, that’s fine. (Hint: if you can’t come up with enough stories, start engaging in activities such as volunteering to quickly develop some good success stories.)

At the highest level of mastery, you will have an arsenal of 15-20 success stories, which you can adapt as needed based on cues in the interview. If the interviewer asks questions that lead you to believe that teamwork is an essential requirement of an open position, choose stories that illustrate your interpersonal skills and emphasize the team dynamics. Again, don’t make anything up; just selectively accent the relevant aspects of your stories.

Telling stories makes for better interviews — generally more successful, always more entertaining.

Comments

[Louise Fletcher]

Too true George. In my former life in HR, I sat through many of the non-story interviews. I really did yawn a lot and kept a tissue handy to hide that fact! When I work with resume clients now, I ask them to develop stories like this for their resume. By writing them out, they are able to memorize them and pull them out as needed.

Job seekers should use vague questions (such as 'how are you under pressure?') as an opportunity to tell a story ("Well, let me give you a recent example of how I handled pressure. I was working to a very tight deadline and ...')

[Deb Dib]

Bravo, George. This is exactly what job seekers at any level--but especially executives--need to do to differentiate themselves, become memorable, and avoid the "yawn factor!"

As Louise mentioned in her comment, I too, have my branding, coaching, and resume clients provide me with a minimum of eight success stories headlined with Impact, and followed by Challenge, Action, Result content. They also have to translate to me the strengths demonstrated by each story.

If they balk, I ask them how the heck they plan to interview. That usually gets 'em on the right track fast!