Humans communicate best through stories. Societies rely on myths, legends and folklore to convey the essential truths and core values of their culture. So it is with communication during a job search. Hiring managers and recruiters will relate best to the candidates who can tell anecdotes and stories that support and illustrate their suitability for a role. The job seeker must prepare diligently for this exchange to have a story at the ready to demonstrate each of his or her key strengths and address and overcome any material weaknesses.
The job seeker should start with a list of salient points that are likely to emerge during the interview. These will include at a minimum the candidate’s key value proposition (as contained in her elevator pitch), objection responses and essential career chronology. For each bullet point, the candidate should brainstorm a story or two to illustrate the point she wishes to make.
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Value Proposition
Each job seeker should always have at the ready several rhetorical arguments to support his candidacy. For example, for field sales position, the job seeker may feel that his best relevant qualities are his work ethic, detailed preparation for each sales call and his ability to close. In this case, the candidate should have three stories ready to deploy as needed. They might be couched in terms of lessons learned or as a point of (humble) bragging. For example:
— Work Ethic: “In my first job as a telephone sales representative, I learned the importance of not just making 120 calls per day, because our expectation was 100, but achieving at least 40 connections and 25 quality conversations. I knew that if I achieved those inputs, the results would follow. That is how I achieved the highest monthly sales six cycles in a row just a year out of school.”
— Detailed Preparation: “I have found that detailed preparation and research are critical to sales success. While at X Company, I found that spending at least 30 minutes preparing for each sales call resulted in a first-meeting closing percentage at 65 percent when the company average was 25 percent.”
— Closing Ability: “In my last sales role, I was proud to earn the unofficial title of ‘Tough Account Closer.’ On one occasion, I was able to close an account that had chewed up and spit out three other company representatives in the previous year. I was able to build rapport, do a fresh needs analysis and win the business with my experienced ability to close.”
Note the specificity of each story and how it supports a contention of the value proposition or elevator pitch.
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Objection Responses
Of course, all is not positive when it comes to the evaluation of job candidates. The job seeker should be aware of any weaknesses or gaps in her experience and have a story to overcome each. Say for example that a candidate has a three-year resume gap, comes from a different industry or might be perceived as “too old” and therefore low energy or out of date on technology. A good story strategy can address these perceptions without coming across as defensive:
— “You may notice that there is no work history for two years from 2008 to 2009. This was a time when I was taking care of my elderly mother before she passed away. I learned so much during that period, not just about patience and compassion, which have made me a better customer service representative, but I also improved my technology skills by taking a cybersecurity class online and building websites for some local nonprofits.”
— “As a regular long-distance runner — in fact, I just ran the Rock & Roll Half Marathon last weekend — I love jobs that allow me to stay energetic all day long. That is what excites me about your open position.”
Career Chronology
Most interviewers, and all the unimaginative ones, will ask a candidate to walk through their resume from start to finish. This is another opportunity to use the power of stories to reinforce strengths or underscore compatibility. When applying for a role that requires intellectual curiosity, for example, the job seeker might say: “I left that position at Z Company because I was eager to learn more about a new function and industry. My presumption was correct, and I enjoyed a very successful six-year tenure at Y Company developing a new market for our innovative solutions.”
[See: 8 Ways Millennials Can Build Leadership Skills.]
Humans can retain the emotion and content of a story long after memorized bullet points and statistics have faded. The story “Little Red Riding Hood” has educated generations of children to avoid trusting strangers far more successfully than parental lectures on the same topic. An effective job seeker will employ storytelling and appropriate anecdotes to support and underscore his or her suitability for a position. The content of these narratives will be different for each the job seeker, of course, but the use of stories to sell oneself is a constant best practice.
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How to Tell Your Story When Job Searching originally appeared on usnews.com
