Establish Your Narrative to Outperform Job Interviews
Imagine going on a blind date. You’re about to meet the person that might be your life partner - perhaps the parent of your children, the one you will go both to bed and to family dinners with for the rest of your life - but still, the first interaction you’re going to have will probably be comprised of the most predictable and boring set of questions: where did you grow up, what did you study, etc.
You better find a way to spice up this conversation - otherwise you’ll spend at least a few more evenings answering these predictable questions over and over.
The exact same thing applies to job interviews. After being on both sides of the interview table, I can definitely say that my successful interactions were the ones that were - simply put - fun.
The path to success
It’s widely accepted that in order to pass an interview successfully, one must have an impressive résumé, spend at least a few days preparing and then present knowledgeable answers that would dazzle the interviewer.
I humbly claim that these guidelines are distracting, even misleading, as they cloud a simple truth: the content of the conversation is just the setting for the tone, the energy and the excitement that extraordinary candidates generate.
Obviously you have to put effort into studying and improving your professional skills, but that goes without saying. If you come to an interview professionally unprepared, the conversation will probably get awkward regardless of what you say, or how you say it.
However knowledge and experience simply don’t guarantee a successful interview. One must wrap them with an intriguing story and complement it with the right energy.
What’s your story?
If interview questions had a common ancestor, it would be “tell me about yourself”. The fact that it’s as open-ended as it gets makes this question tricky and even complicated to approach. However if you prepare for it in advance, this can become an amazing opportunity to get the other person engaged and set the tone for the interview.
A good story cannot be devised, it has to be distilled (Raymond Chandler)
Crafting your story is the single most important thing when applying for a job. Prior to this point in time you had plenty of experiences, so don’t worry about not being “experienced” or “interesting” enough. Rather, the important thing is to tailor the best fitting narrative to the position (and organisation) you apply to. Once you’ve constructed your narrative’s wireframe, you can come up with ways to further exemplify it.
Hence, the process’ baseline is defining what kind of a person you would like to present yourself as. Please note that I’m not referring to what you did or achieved, but to the personal qualities you bring to the table.
For example, if you apply for an entry-level position, you should probably consider portraying yourself as a curious person. This can be further demonstrated by different hobbies you have and take seriously: cooking, traveling, wood crafting, gardening - you name it! It’s not as important what you like to do, but how excited you are about a topic, how eager you are to expand your knowledge of it and what you do in order to achieve better proficiency.
One of my best friends decided to change his career path and become a software developer. He had absolutely no relevant prior career experience, which made him speak unconfidently about himself. This feeling is commonly mistaken with dullness; and indeed he didn’t even get through the screening interviews. After reflecting on his infelicitous experience, he decided to try and talk about his academic thesis, on the physical properties of human blood vessels. As exotic as this subject sounds, once he demonstrated his passion and curiosity, his tone became vibrant - and things just clicked! Regardless of the topic itself, it characterised him as a great candidate and landed him a great role in one of the world’s most innovative tech companies.
Putting it all together
Once we decided what’s the main story we want to present ourselves with, we need to structure how are we actually going to tell it.
In my opinion, this is the tricky part. There are infinite ways to tell a story; and respectively there are many decisions to consider:
- Should the narrative be linear (i.e. chronologically ordered) or non-linear?
- If we take the chronological approach, when do we start?
- What stories best demonstrate your values? Maybe some of them are still a little less relevant?
- Where do you prefer to skip a story, and just state the bottom line explicitly? (e.g. “I love working as a part of a team”)
The process of optimising your narrative’s structure requires multiple trial and error iterations; And the key to improvement is listening to other people’s feedbacks. This allows to continuously tweak all the parameters above, so you end up leaving an impression that’s as close as possible to the description you’ve initially defined.
For example, the most basic topic to tackle is probably the first thing you tell about yourself (i.e. your story’s prologue). The interviewer wants to know who you are rather than just what you did. You’re far more than a features list (e.g. “Martin, a 45 years old financial advisor from Chicago”) and might as well use your special and unique experiences to intrigue your interviewer right from the beginning of the conversation (e.g “after getting tired from the city life in Chicago, I moved my family to Missouri, where my wife and I made a serious of investments in local businesses, including a casino and a funeral home”).
One interviewee that I’ll never forget literally kicked off the interview by telling me how he almost lost his ability to walk, after going through a parachuting accident. He was hospitalized, spent a couple of months in a coma; and only after a year-long physiotherapy treatment he was able to stand on his feet. Nevertheless he insisted on going back to military service and is now a ranked officer in one of the IDF’s elite units. It has been almost 10 years since I interviewed this guy, who was then a young ambitious soldier, but I’ll never forget his passion nor his story.
Epilogue
Before applying to your next position, spend some time reflecting about how you want to introduce yourself. Your interviewer would like to hear about you - not only about the things you did - and telling your story correctly can definitely set the tone in your favor.
Consider your interviewer as your potentially best friend, with whom you might spend the next few years. They most certainly have peculiar stories and share some weird interests too, so try to think of this preliminary interaction as a lively conversation, rather than a test.
Breath, smile, laugh - let them know who you really are. If all goes well, you both should have a great time. Good luck!
