If you feel landing a new job is proving harder than ever, you wouldn’t be alone.
Reuters reported that February 2024 saw the highest number of layoffs since March 2023 and the “highest total for the month of February since 2009.”
Even if you get past the AI screening your resume, the HR/talent person’s phone screen, and get in front of the hiring manager, getting an offer seems elusive.
So what can you do, especially in those frustrating day-long interviews with multiple people, that all too often end with, “We’ll get back to you!”
Let’s get two things out of the way.
- Getting to the interview stage is hard and if you are already there cut yourself some slack.
- If interviews are too far and few between, it is better to focus on the basics—network, get warm leads, tweak your resumes and cover letters to the job and company and focus on an interview pipeline.
The most common interviews take a Q&A format. The interviewer poses a specific or open-ended question to which you are expected to provided a crisp and compelling answer. This is best done with a story.
Why a story Stories allow you to make an emotional connect with the interviewer. (and people hire people they like—usually ones they can relate to.) It can also make your response interesting & engaging. It also makes you memorable and makes their job of having to make a case for you to the rest of the interview panel or hiring team easier.
Successful storytelling There are three things to keep in mind, if you want to be successful in an interview through storytelling.
- audience know your audience—who is the person that you are going to be telling a particular story to? A hiring manager or a peer in your workgroup, an internal customer, the departmental VP or HR manager?
- intent why are you telling the story? what is the action you want to listener to take/act upon. This may range from building credibility, demonstrating specific skills or strengths or moving to the next stage of the process.
- message depending on the audience and your intent, what specific message would you want your story to convey? And is it concise and specific enough for them to convey it to others without loss of fidelilty?
Do your homework Anticipate questions. A Google search will tell you the typical sorts of questions that you are likely to face for the specific types of roles & companies you are interviewing for.
For instance, if interviewing for a project manager or UX researcher role, they may ask a question such as:
- “Tell us about a time something went wrong in a project you were managing.” or
- “What has been your greatest accomplishment to date?”
Identify your story For the most high-impact (& high-probability) questions identify what story you’d tell. The most critical factor for your story is to be concise. You don’t want to meander or drown them in details. It is best to tell stories where you are the protagonist—it keeps it real. The type (and detail) of your answer to a specific interviewer will seek will vary depending on their own role.
Script the story Your story must at the very least cover four things:
- Setting Provide context for the project/problem or situation that you faced
- Target What was the plan on how you set out to achieve/address the problem
- Action What did you do, what worked or not (set back), what corrective action you took (overcome), what unexpected challenges did you face and overcome
- Result How the matter was resolved and how your team won and learnings
Practice (repeatedly) Practice telling the story, preferably in front of a mirror. Better yet record yourself on your phone or laptop. Seek feedback from friends on colleagues either on the recording or by doing a mock interview with them. Rinse and repeat.
Bonus If you are hired, ask the folks who interviewed you what things stood out for them from the interview. Even if you are not made an offer, ask the hiring manager (and/or other senior interviewer, for quick feedback or debrief, so that you can continue to improve you game.
Resources Here are two good resources for scripting and storytelling.
- from Carnegie Mellon on using this STAR story method.
- To learn more about scriptwriting check out our newsletter post.
Share your experience telling stories in interviews and how well it went.
