Recruitment Demystified: The Power of Storytelling

//Disclaimer: All opinions are my own//

Why is storytelling important?

People have been telling stories from the dawn of humanity. Our brain is wired to process reality as a meaningful consequence of events (and look for patterns in them); it also has a mechanism that allows listeners to synchronize their perception of time and space with a storyteller. In other words, we re-live the stories we hear together with the narrator!

A good story allows people to connect emotionally, go past facts and numbers, and talk about meaning and experience.

That’s why good storytelling is important to the success of an interview: your interviewer will remember you more vividly, and will be more convinced if you can provide the why and the how in addition to the what.

Paint a picture

Consider an example: you are an engineer and you’re asked about the biggest challenge you had to solve. You can go ahead and say “I revamped our container infrastructure”.

It may seem like a sufficient answer to you, but your listener will be puzzled, they’ll have a million questions in their head: Why did you need to do it? How did you do it? Was it hard? How long did it take? How did you convince others that this massive effort is worth it? Did you have any setbacks? What were the signs of success for you?

You see, when I’m talking about storytelling, I don’t mean an acting challenge, the drama, the theatre. I am talking about giving the context or painting a picture. Helping your listener make sense of what you did. In other words, “a story is a vehicle that allows you to put the facts in an emotional context”.

This may be a hard task: taking all the knowledge you have in your head, and putting it into a few well-organised sentences. That’s why it’s always worth spending time before the interview thinking of situations that showcase specific skills or competencies. Alternatively, you may have a brag document where you record your achievements and resolved challenges as they happen. Either option is good because it helps you organise your thoughts and reminds you what a great professional you are. My advice is to review the brag doc every couple of months, and edit each episode: as time passes, the emotions you have about a project will subside, and you will see ways to improve your storytelling: cut the excessive detail or add information that is essential to understand the story.

Editing and length

While some candidates tend to be too concise, others can give you way too much, their story may be longwinded, they may repeat themselves, provide superfluous and unnecessary details, and not check if their listeners can follow them.

The story is only good if all its details are relevant, and it reaches the conclusion before your audience gets bored and falls asleep. In the interview situation, this is even more important: as a candidate, you have only limited time, and your interviewers have a list of skills they need to evaluate before addressing your questions. If you notice that you spent 10 minutes answering the first interview question, you may be doing something wrong. It’s always better to have a high-level overview ready and provide further details and clarifications if your interviewers ask for it.

Motivation – How personal should it be?

Another difficult balance to find is the amount of “real you” to bring into a discussion. I want to be clear: I advise against lying in the interview. But, on behalf of most interviewers, I’d like to say that I don’t want to hear textbook answers to questions about your motivation and interests. Hearing that the company you want to join is “reputable” doesn’t tell me anything about you personally, or about why getting this job is important for you. So instead, you can use your storytelling powers, and give a short, but meaningful explanation starting with “I”, where the “I” wants to get and how the “I” can do it in the company you applied for. Maybe you’re already a successful product manager – but you may have some limitations because of your current employer’s market share. Maybe there are new methodologies you want to explore; maybe it’s about the scope or more advanced products. Use the question to tell a little story of your future success to your interviewer.

Final tips

A STARR method is always a good way to organise your story. Alternatively, you can think of it as Exposition – Turning Point – Resolution; or use a more complex Freytag pyramid. Just remember – life is too short for boring stories. If you’re passionate about your work, if challenges are exciting for you, your interviewers will feel it and will join you on this journey.

Good luck!