Telling Stories in Job Interviews
By John Millen
Some of my friends and clients are seeking new employment now, either by choice or with a nudge from their companies.
A few weeks ago, I was giving job-interview tips on Zoom to my client and friend Megan (not her real name), a mid-to-high-level leader with years of solid experience. I asked her to tell me a business or personal story that would impress a recruiter.
She went quiet. I could see her getting a little bit frustrated before she said, "I don’t have any stories. I can’t remember anything that would work in a job interview."
Here are four tips I gave her that might also help you or someone you know:
1. Overcoming obstacles
I told Megan to take her time and think about a situation where she had to overcome some major obstacles but managed to achieve success.
Megan thought for a couple of minutes when I saw her light up and smile. She described taking over a new territory that no one wanted because several of the sales reps were considered beyond repair.
Meeting individually with the "damaged goods" reps, Megan realized that these sales people had desire but had never been properly trained or held accountable for results. She focused on weekly coaching and accountability meetings and in 18 months had built the number-one territory in her division.
2. Paint a mental picture
I told Megan that’s a perfect job interview story, one we call, "The Hero’s Journey."
It’s kind of like Rocky, it’s like Star Wars, it’s overcoming the odds in a business context.
We worked on painting vivid mental pictures of the people and settings in her story. Megan recalled how down people were. She described their low energy levels and even negative body language and how all of that changed over 18 months.
3. Commit to finding stories
Megan committed to finding more stories like that one. When we got back together a couple of weeks later, she had six stories she thought might work.
Because human beings are hardwired for storytelling, in most cases your best answer to every question is a story. In fact, the whole point of a job interview is for the prospective employer to learn about you, to understand your story.
With this in mind, I recommend you take the time to review your professional life and create a list of the stories that might be relevant in a job interview.
4. Describe yourself with adjectives
If you have trouble thinking of stories, I would have you first write down three adjectives or phrases that you would like the interviewer to use to describe you when you have finished the interview.
For instance, based on the job you are interviewing for, you might want to convey that you are great at driving results, adapting to change and developing leaders.
You get the idea. When you have the three phrases, start looking for stories in your work history that prove each of these descriptors of you, especially under conditions where you had to overcome hurdles to ultimately achieve results.
When you have the stories under the three descriptive phrases, find the best story for each phrase and make a point of using them to answer the interviewer’s questions.
Types of questions
To develop a clear picture of you, human resources professionals and other leaders are trained to use various types of questions: informational, behavioral, competency and others.
There are many ways to answer these types of questions, but often the most effective answer will be a story. So, find and develop your stories to win in your next job interview.
To come back to Megan, she called me on Friday night with the good news that she got the job. I congratulated her and she said she was going to dinner to celebrate with her husband.
If you’re facing the prospect of a job interview, there is nothing more important for you to do than to collect and organize your stories, mostly about business, and some relevant personal stories.
Use these tips for your next job interview and you too might soon be celebrating.
