March 10, 2022
So you got invited to an interview at your dream company. Awesome!
But maybe you find yourself in the category of many, many others who dread interviews or think “I’m just not good” at them. If that’s the case, I have great news for you.
It’s really, really simple to use this easy but powerful hack for your interview and get your dream company to beg you to join them. And it’s accessible to everyone and applies to situations beyond interviews.
Want to know what it is
Storytelling!
Yes, that’s it. You must learn how to incorporate your storytelling properly so your interviewer doesn’t fall asleep. Fortunately, we’ve put together a few tips on how to use storytelling effectively to ace your job interview. Keep reading to discover how.
You can’t just dive right into a story. First find what your dream company is looking for in a candidate.
For example, what are the core values they look for in their candidates?
Find out by doing the following:
Imagine you were interviewing with Amazon. Type into Google: “Amazon corporate values.” In less than 15 seconds, you’ll land on their website and find “Amazon strives to be Earth’s most customer-centric company.”
Wow, that’s pretty bold, right? Chances are that, in some way or another, you’ll be asked something like: “Tell me about a time you helped a customer overcome a major problem.” Bam! That’s your opening to get right into storytelling.
Go on Linkedin and find out who’s working at your dream company. Drop them a quick note, asking if you could pick their brain for a few minutes. Most people LOVE giving their opinion about anything, really, and would be more than happy to help you out.
Here’s an example template of a LinkedIn message:
Hi [name],
Long time, no talk! Looks like you’ve been doing huge things at [explain person’s situation in 3-4 words].
I just got invited to a round of interviews at [insert company name]. Yeah 🥳! I’m super excited about that and want to make sure that I’m as prepared as possible.
Would you be free to have a quick chat sometimes (virtual or in-person)?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the interview process and understand what [insert company name] is looking for.
Hope you find some time!
Talk soon,
[Your name]
You’ll be surprised how many people will be more than delighted to help you. When you talk to that person, be sure to ask questions like:
Ask people you know (from college or a group of friends) who have interviewed with your dream company what questions they were asked.
You don’t know anyone, well, ask 10 good friends if they know someone who interviewed at your dream company. Drop them a quick note, similar to the note above and ask them about their experience. It’s that simple. It may feel uncomfortable at first, but you really have nothing to lose. In the worst case, they’ll say no. Too bad. But most people will be happy to tell you about their interview experience – even if they didn’t get the job.
If you don’t know anyone, see if you can find any questions/themes on public forums such as www.glassdoor.com or www.interviewkickstart.com. For any bigger company, you’ll find hundreds of reports on the interviews they give to candidates.
Here the goal is to find out what your dream company really looks for in their candidates. You may even find out the exact questions that were asked in the interviews.
Based on your research, you should have a good overview of what matters to your dream job. Ideally, you’d pick a few potential questions that cover these themes.
While you’ll have to tailor the questions to your specific company, there are 4 very commons questions that you can expect from most companies:
What most people do when they hear this question is walk through the highlights of their CV.
For example: “In 2015, I graduated from Columbia University in New York. After that I started at BCG in Boston, bla bla bla.”
That’s standard. But with standard you’re standing out from the rest.
But what can you do instead?
Instead of walking through your CV (which they should have already read), share a story about a specific moment that has shaped who you are today. Is there a pivotal moment that explains why you do what you do?
Use this moment and craft a story around that. Where were you before this moment, what happened at the moment, and what was the result?
You may be asked this question to see how you solve problems. If you have a job, talk about a challenge you faced at work. If you are a recent graduate or don’t have a job yet, use an example from school or volunteer work. Tell us about that challenge. How did that challenge impact you? What steps did you take to overcome it? And what was the outcome?
An employer might ask you this question if they are thinking of hiring you for a leadership or management role. To answer, think about a time when you were in charge of a project or took on extra responsibility. If you are just starting your career, think about experiences you had in college or during an internship.
Similar to the prompt above, think about a major challenge that you faced in this leadership position. What was the problem? How was the impact? What did you do to overcome the challenge? And what was the result?
Even if the question does not explicitly ask for a challenge, you should make sure to include one. Stories without a challenge are not, particularly, exciting.
Everyone makes mistakes.
Interviewers know that. But they want to know how you deal with your mistakes. Do you try to ignore them or do you learn from them?
It is a good idea to think about some mistakes that you have made in the past. But be careful about which one you choose to share with the interviewer. You want to pick something that is not too small or not too big. If your mistake is too small (/ insignificant) your interviewer may question your truthfulness. Obviously, everyone makes mistakes. If your mistake is too big (/ revealing too much), your interviewer may conclude that mistakes like that are no-go for the role.
Examples of mistakes:
These are just some examples to get you going. Now, you go ahead. Think what mistakes can I use my experience?
But once you’ve picked a mistake, briefly explain the situation, and then talk about everything you did to fix the issue. Remember that the emphasis of this story shouldn’t be on the actual mistake you made—it should be on the steps you immediately took to fix it, and then what you learned from it.
You know that teamwork is important in the workplace. You need to show that you can work with other people. This means being able to cooperate and getting along with others.
Think about a moment you helped solve a problem that struck the group.
Examples:
What are some examples of when you worked well with other people? What was the challenge that the team was facing? What was your role in overcoming that challenge? What was the result?
Pick the ones that are the most relevant for your dream job and find the stories you want to tell for each question / theme.
Let’s get the brain juices flowing!
This is a really simple and fun exercise. On your computer or on a piece of paper, create a table.
The column on the left shows the theme or question (e.g. “Tell me about a time you overcame a challenge) and the remaining columns are for your different stages/experiences.
These stages could include:
Next, pick the first question or theme and start thinking about experiences within each stage.
Is there anything in a particular stage that could make a good story?
At this point, just note down anything that comes to your mind. After you’ve exhausted the first question, go to the next question and think about all your experiences in the different stages.
Here are some guidelines to follow:
When you get to the end, look through everything and decide which experiences are worth thinking and writing about more extensively. When you don’t hold back, the mind does some pretty amazing things!
Every story has multiple structures to choose from when it’s told.
However, having coached hundreds of people for their interviews, I noticed that the simple Situation-Complication-Resolution (SCR) method works best.
Situation: Describe the situation you were in prior to the challenge. Where and when did the story take place? What was your task? Who else was involved and what do we need to know about them? Keep this part very concise, only giving enough context to let the interviewer know what’s going on.
Complication: Describe the challenge that the main character(s) encountered. What was the problem? Why did it matter? How did this challenge affect you or your team? This is the most important part. That’s the part where you go into the emotions.
Resolution: In sufficient detail, describe the steps you took to handle the matter, while keeping the emphasis on YOU. What actions did you take, and what was your unique contribution? When discussing a project, avoid explaining what the team or group accomplished. Instead, focus on what you did. Also, describe the effect of your activities. What happened when it was over? What did you achieve or discover?
Now, go ahead.
Pick an experience from the exercise above and craft a story following the three steps.
Don’t worry too much about getting it perfect. This round is about having a first version of your story.
Would you like to learn more about effective story structure that you can use in your interviews or in business? Check out the 6 STEPS TO CRAFT A POWERFUL STORY.
You’ve got a story in place. Now, it’s time to add a few elements that make it even more interesting to listen to. Here are some ways you can do this in a natural way:
When a story includes dialogue, we can see the event happening in front of our eyes.
Dialogue can come with just one sentence; 2-3 sentences are great as well. Just don’t have a full-blown conversation.
For example: Instead of saying the customer was very happy with the results, say, “My customer called me 4 weeks later and said, ‘Philipp, thank you so much. With you help, I just landed a speaking at the US Digital Marketing Conference.’”
Dialogue is very simple but powerful.
Sometimes, you may not remember exactly what the person said. In such cases, it’s fine to say how the dialogue could have sounded.
When you bring in emotions, your audience will hang on every word you say. Add emotions by letting your listeners know what the main characters felt in your story and what their hopes, goals, and worries were in the key parts of the story.
While the feeling in your story (e.g. sadness, happiness) should be truthful, feel free to heighten the emotion to make it more engaging for your audience.
Your story often involves multiple characters, challenges, and actions. If you include every single detail, it becomes too long. Stick to the information that the audience MUST know (even if that means cutting your BFF from the story).
Your story should not be longer than 2-3 minutes. Anything longer than that will be too much. Share less so the interviewer can ask questions to go deeper if he/she wants.
Interested in learning how to spice up your story? Check out the 7 ELEMENTS OF GREAT STORYTELLING
It’s super important to practice to make your storytelling impactful and worth remembering. I’ll start with the DON’Ts and then the DOs.
DON’Ts:
❌ Think that you can just wing it – if you want to be effective with your story, you’ve got to prepare. Period.
❌ Rehearse in front of a mirror – it’s not natural and will only make you more self-conscious.
❌ Learn every single word by heart – this can make you appear less authentic.
DOs:
✔️ Rehearse speaking out loud while walking outside. Yes, people may look at you, it may be awkward, but that’s great for learning as it provides an additional stressful situation.
✔️ Record yourself on video – very few people like seeing themselves on video, but it’s a very useful exercise. Pay extra attention to the flow of you story, your tonality, and your body language.
✔️ Rehearse a minimum of 3 times before the interview. Ideally, one time with someone else who can give you feedback.
Okay, you’ve learned a lot up to this point. But what does it look like in a real-life example?
This example comes from Julia Winkler, a Team Lead at Oracle. She used this story in her interviews when she was asked: “Tell me about a time you helped a customer overcome a major problem.”
“In August 2017, our agency was hired by one of the top three tech companies in Germany. We were asked to help the sales org improve their social selling. What that meant: Help them find and engage with target customers via social media such as Linkedin, Xing, or Twitter.
“One week later, I met with the CMO – let’s call him Tim – in Munich, Germany. In his office, I asked him, ‘Tim, What do you think is preventing you from selling more via social media?’
“He responded, ‘Look, Julia. We’re dinosaurs. 99 out of 100 people in my team would much rather pick up the phone and call someone than send a message on Linkedin. They just don’t feel comfortable using social media.’
“I said, ‘Interesting. Quick follow-up, Tim: how many times have you posted something on Linkedin in the last month?’
“He responded, ‘Well, I haven’t posted anything this month…’
“After that, I asked, ‘Got it. And how many times have you liked, shared or commented on a post?’
“Cautiously, he smiled, ‘I see where you’re going.’
“I said, ‘Look, I’ve been analysing the social media activity of your management team. I’ve compared the numbers to the numbers of your competitors. It turns out that your team is 63% less active on social media.’
“And I followed up with, ‘Tim, if you want to drive change in your organisation, your management needs to lead the change.’
“The same day, we agreed on a plan to move the company towards social selling. First, we would train the management team. We would then convince them about the importance of social selling and make them feel comfortable using social media. Only once they were fully on board, we would move to the rest of the organization.
“Over the following six months, we trained their entire sales organization in Germany on social selling.
“Two years later, I met Tim for a virtual coffee. We talked about how the program had been going. At one point Tim said, ‘Julia, our social media activity has doubled since you came onboard. We’re now making billions through leads from social media. Thank you so much.’”
Julia’s story gave a real-life example how to use stories in your interviews. But beyond that, her story has, hopefully, shown you how effective storytelling can be. Storytelling helps you connect with people on a deeper level. It helps share your skills and experiences in a way that is memorable. It helps you stand out from all the other candidates.
Interested in bringing your business storytelling skills to the next level? Check out our storytelling keynotes, workshops, and 1:1 coaching.
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