How to Answer [Nearly] EVERY Job Interview Question

At this point I don't know how many people I have interviewed, but it's somewhere in the thousands. What we are talking about today is an interview strategy will put you in the top 10% of candidates in interview skills (based on my experience).

This approach is so rare, and so appreciated. Michael Rincon even commented on how his interviewer thanked him for following this approach:

I THANK PEOPLE TOO!

I will go in depth today about the Story Toolbox approach and how it will revolutionize the way you step into an interview.

How to Build a Story Toolbox

A “Story Toolbox” allows you to answer pretty much any question you'll be asked outside of direct challenges and problem solving. This is a SUPER RARE approach - very few people tell stories during their interviews and that puts them at a distinct disadvantage.

This is your chance to stand out.

What most people do, the inexperienced interviewees, when asked questions like, “What’s your greatest strength?” or “What’s your leadership style?” 

They describe themselves.

They say, “I am hard worker, team player, highly skilled…blah blah blah.” Tossing an emotional word salad of what it would be like to work together. But none of this gets down to: So what did YOU do?

According to American psychologist Jerome Bruner: “stories are up to 22 times more memorable than facts alone.”

Therefore, if you are not telling stories as often as humanly possible in your interviews then you risk becoming utterly FORGOTTEN.

Okay so the actionable advice here is to make your own story tool box. You go into every interview with a set of preplanned stories and you frame it in a way that answers whatever question they are asking. Trust me, your stories will be effective for a wide variety of questions.

Such as:

What is your greatest strength?

You can state an adjective, like my greatest strength is my creative thinking ability, Great, but ya gotta back it up with a story. This is the perfect time to talk about when you saved the day.

Here’s an example:

• “I have always been excellent at creative problem solving - whenever there is a challenge I see it as an opportunity and come up with new ways to solve it. Such as when I was a waiter at a Japanese restaurant, a family came in and the father pulled me aside and asked if I could bring his daughter a slice of cake for her birthday. We didn’t do birthdays, but I decided to get creative and had the kitchen put together a sushi cake slice while I ran across the street to buy candles. The family was thrilled, left a huge tip, and left an exceptional review on Yelp. My manager was very happy with me.”

The interviewer is going to remember you, “Oh yeah that was the sushi cake candidate, I liked him.”

What is your biggest weakness?

Instead of listing off a bogus weakness, TELL A STORY!

I like telling a moment that I messed up and then corrected the mistake and learned from it. This shows you’re humble, self aware, and comes off as authentic.

How do you respond to pressure and tough challenges?

You guessed it, tell a story! Here is my before and after answer using my toolbox

What was the biggest accomplishment in this position?

Okay people, in this one people THINK they are telling a story, but they actually are just stating facts.

This is an example of a POOR answer:

• My biggest accomplishment would probably have to be the product launch. That was what I had been working towards for the past 8 months, so many iterations, and then when it launched it hit #1 in the app store and that was such a proud moment for me.

That was not a story, you just stated some facts.

Here is my improved answer.

Okay now it’s your turn to build your story tool box.

I discuss how to create a Story Toolbox in this video and here is a free digital download worksheet to craft your own Story Toolbox.

Rock those interviews!

Wifi high five!

Madeline Mann

PS - If you want to be connected on every platform to get MAXIMUM tips just hop over to TikTok, YouTube, website, Instagram, Clubhouse (@madelinemann), and of course follow me on LinkedIn. I'll see ya over there!