STORYTELLING
IN THE JOB INTERVIEW

1. Deal with your personal story

If you haven't thought about your story yet, start thinking about what skills you have. You can follow these steps:

Ask colleagues

Ask current and former colleagues what skills they admire in you. Think about what you do well and are proud of.

Look at your old application documents

Get your old application documents and look over your performance reviews to see what skills your managers have praised.

What makes you stand out from your colleagues?

Think of your current job. What can you do that no one else at your current organisation can do as well?

What are you particularly good at?

Think of every previous job. What tasks and responsibilities did you have? Again look for areas where you excel.

Find examples

Next, add evidence to support each strength you’ve identified. One easy way to do this is by looking at how much money you have saved the organisation. If your role doesn’t provide this opportunity, share examples that demonstrate the successful application of your skills. Arm yourself with several examples – ideally at least one for each skill, prior experience, area of responsibility and any other competency in which you excel.

Browse through previous applications

Read your old application documents. In these cover letters, you will find well expressed thoughts which you have long forgotten and you may use for the interview.

2. Give structure to your answers

By structuring your answers, you can ensure they remain substantial without your point getting lost. A beginning, middle and end are essential – so use the STAR technique here: S to set the situation, T to describe your task and involvement, A to tell of your action, and R to show off the results! Here is an example of a typical interview question answered using the STAR structure:

Question:

“Can you think of a time where you demonstrated a problem-solving attitude?”

Answer:

• (Situation) “Yes, whilst I was employed X company, I was responsible for digitally promoting a portfolio of X products.
• (Task) One week, our online sales for a particular product were 25% lower than usual.
• (Action) Therefore, I created banner adverts for these products to go on our homepage and email signatures. I also increased our social media activity promoting these products. I encouraged internal teams to “like and share” this activity. I also launched an email campaign to go out to a targeted list of customers for that product.
• (Result) Consequently, by the following week, online sales for this product saw a 40% increase and have remained steady ever since.

3. A separate USP for each application

It doesn’t matter how long your list is, because you’ll then tailor from it a USP that is relevant for the particular job you are applying for. If you are applying for several jobs, create a USP that suits each organisation, its industry and its culture. This can then become your default list that you return to throughout an interview when answering questions. It’ll ensure your answers are relevant to the job you are applying for, and will help if you are asked a question that you aren’t sure how to answer.

Do not underestimate the importance of an individual USP for each single position you are applying for. Be open and honest. Practise a clear and appealing way of expressing yourself to arouse the interest of your counterpart. Take the hiring manager on your career journey to convey a good understanding of your skills and to convince of your suitability for the position.

4. Practise and improve yourself

You don’t want your story to come across as overly-polished, but trying a few practice runs with trusted friends and family can help you to get valuable feedback. These trial runs will also help to build your confidence and personal style.

5. Be yourself

Don’t pretend to be someone that you’re not. Storytelling should be authentic and help you to demonstrate your personality – so don’t copy someone else’s style or try to be a comedian. If you are naturally extrovert and expansive, this will already come across in the way you express yourself. If you are naturally quieter, more introverted and a little quirky, then that is ok too. Remember, it’s vital that you are matched with a job that will genuinely suit you. By showing your character in such an honest and memorable way, your interviewers will get a true sense of how you would fit culturally and individually within the company and the wider team.

Follow these steps and you can find the right balance using appropriate anecdotes. Like this, you can present yourself in a professional way and show your personality.