3 killer stories to get you hired

One of the best pieces of advice I got when I was planning to pivot from being a college professor to a marketing strategist was to prepare three killer stories for networking coffees and interviews. These stories would illustrate that I actually had the skills, knowledge and experience to do the most important aspects of the job I wanted. I’d have them ready to pull out of my metaphorical back pocket at various parts of a conversation.

This is terrific advice for people doing a career search, but it's also great because you can also apply it to your brand or business. The stories can be your elevator pitch, your business proposition and even the content on your website.

Don’t think you have any killer stories to tell? Come on. You do. Open a Word doc and start typing.

1. Identify competencies. First, what are three main competencies of the position or career you’re looking for? Mine were strategy, creative problem solving and account management. (Granted, these have shifted for me since I first planned a career field change 10 years ago, but they are still integral competencies in my work.) Yours could look really different – maybe they’re research skills, project management and writing, for example.

2. What isn’t obvious? When identifying the competencies, consider looking beyond your strongest skills and experiences — the things that are obvious on your LinkedIn profile. I was obviously very strong at qualitative research and analysis. I’d taught graduate level coursework in that area and published a lot of qualitative research. My killer story didn’t need to be about that — particularly since I wasn’t looking for a job that was focused on research. My most challenging story to tell was about account management since I hadn’t managed an account for a company since early in my career and needed to find something more current and relevant to discuss.

3. Write 'em up! Literally type them out (or handwrite if you’re into that). Think about actual examples of when your work or actions demonstrated the competencies you identified above. Then memorize them because unfortunately, it looks weird to pull out actual pieces of paper to read in the middle of a chat with someone.

4. Learn to bring them up naturally in a conversation. Don’t be the person who monopolizes a networking coffee with stories about yourself. Pepper them in to the conversation if and when it makes sense and aligns with what the other person is talking about. You might just tell one of those three killer stories, and that's OK.

Here's how it might work:

Them: I love my work because it’s different every day and I am constantly problem-solving for my clients. Right now, I’m working with a client who is trying to expand their consumer audience to a demographic of Gen Z from Millennials and it’s been really challenging for them to see how differences in age equal differences in where they get their information. We’ve been using TikTok.

You: That’s great – I love TikTok for its ability to tell fun, short stories that can build brands. I recently managed a big grant-funded research project that looked at how different generations use TikTok to get news and current events. My team and I surveyed 1,000 people and analyzed more TikToks videos than we could count – and got some great results that we’re publishing and sharing at conferences over the next few months.

What did you do there? You showed you were listening and making sense of what they said. (And everyone wants to talk to someone who listens and doesn’t just wait for their turn to talk.) Even though your story was a little bit different than what they were talking about, you framed it naturally enough to connect. You demonstrated your knowledge about audiences and social media, and you showed you

a) work with a team of colleagues,

b) managed a large project and

c) had successful results. (Yay!)

Killer story! Not too many details. If the person you’re talking to wants to learn more about the details or the outcomes, they’ll ask. No need to go on and on. In fact, it is a good time to stop talking and ask them a follow-up question.

If you’re looking more broadly at your next career (like “something in marketing” or "something in business"), you might have to develop more than three killer stories so that you can pull out just the right story as the situation calls for it. Start with three and work up to it, and figure out which kinds of stories you’re lacking as you meet people for coffee. You’ll be a killer storyteller in no time.

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