Story will always be king, no matter how much we love the technology.
Ethan martin, film producer
Stories are the most natural way to communicate and to connect with others. Good stories capture peoples imagination and create an emotional reaction that helps retain information. Stories are an effective and efficient way of communicating facts, experiences, and captures the attention of our listeners.
Telling stories in response to job interview questions is a very powerful communication technique. In order to be effective in an interview, a story has to be organized, brief and have a consistent format. There is a format that is taught by many Career Coaches/Interview Coaches that is easy to use and works extremely well in an interview. There are a few acronyms for the format (PAR, STAR, SOAR), however the sequence is the same. Tell your stories using the following format:
Situation
What was the situation within which the story took place. What was going on? What called for you to do what you did?
Barriers
Talk about the barriers or obstacles you had to overcome to reach your results. The barriers are the problems you faced that you overcame. Often the barriers are lack of resources (people or money), lack of infrastructure, and long established practices (and thinking) that needed to be changed.
Actions
What did YOU do specifically to achieve your results? You may have been part of a team, so acknowledge the team but focus on your specific actions. Do not be general, talk specifically about what you did and how you did it. The interviewer is listening for the things you did that she wants you to do on this job.
Results
What were the results? Again, be specific and if you have numbers use them.
Skills used
Relate the skills you used. Skills include things like leadership, persuasion, analysis, negotiation, project management, budgeting, team building, etc. These are the skills you bring to the prospective job.
The goal is to respond to an interview question with a story. For example, if the interviewer asks, “Were you ever in a situation where you were at risk of losing an important client?” You can respond, “Yes in fact I have been, this was the situation, these were the obstacles, here is what I did, and here is how it came out.” Any situation you speak about can be put in this format.
Using this approach, your story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It will prevent you from rambling and adding extraneous detail. In addition, after you tell a few stories using this approach the interviewer will be conditioned to listen for the results and the skills you used which is the “punchline” of your story.
Telling stories in an interview is a simple and effective way to communicate clearly, memorably and to differentiate yourself. It is a technique you can practice and use in an interview to respond powerfully to many of the questions you will be asked.
