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Chapter 5

MASTER THE ART OF STORY TELLING

Aloof as they may seem, employers are actually begging you to get them excited. Show that you can make or save them money, solve their operational problems, or ease their workloads, and they’ll be thrilled to hire you. Merely saying you can increase productivity or get staff members to work as a team isn’t enough. You must support your claims with vivid examples. People remember best those things that are stored in their minds as pictures. In fact, the latest brain research reveals that memories are stored as 3-D pictures. That means if your words do not create any images or emotions in the minds of employers, those words will literally pass in one ear and out the other—there will be no impact or long-term memory.

Consider what happens when a person is asked to describe himself. He may declare that he is hard working, energetic, a true leader, and a person who successfully juggles multiple tasks. He may be trying to sell too many things at once and doesn’t do a good job with any of them. If he doesn’t back up any of the claims with examples, none of the points will be remembered after he leaves the interview.

Employers Will Remember You For Weeks

Using anecdotes to describe job skills is a highly effective interview technique. In less than three minutes, you can tell a powerful story that will make interviewers remember you favorably for days, weeks, or even months after the interview. Since employers know that the best predictor of future success is past success, tell stories which vividly describe your successes.

Stories Have Impact

Stories are important because they say so much about you in an evocative, concentrated way. Paul Green, founder of Behavioral Technology in Memphis, Tennessee, teaches corporations how to utilize behavior-based interviewing, a system of interviewing in which each question requires an example from the interviewee. Paul gives an excellent example of how telling stories in an interview can make a difference. While he was conducting an interview, he asked the candidate for an example that would demonstrate a strong commitment to completing tasks. The candidate described a time when he had had his appendix removed on a Thursday and was back in the office on Monday—to the dismay of everyone. His explanation was that work was piling up and he might as well do everything he could, even though he was unable to work a full day for the first week. The story provided strong evidence that he was a driven, hard-working person. The memory he created was that he was “the appendix guy.” To this day, when Paul thinks about this person, all he has to say to himself is, “the appendix guy,” and a flood of memories and emotions return. The beauty of stories is that they can evoke a recollection of many skills, qualities, abilities, and characteristics.

When telling stories, provide all of the key information. Describe the situation and the challenges you faced. Then describe your analysis and the recommendations you made. Next, describe what you did and the results you obtained. Look for interesting tidbits and details which, though not crucial for understanding what occurred, will provide a stronger visual image of what you did. We call these tidbits and interesting details hooks, because they hook the interviewer.

Hooks

Effective stories are always vivid, and they always create visual images in the mind of the employer. Whatever creates this visual image we call a hook. The hook causes the employer to remember you. A hook is any word-picture or imagery that helps a person recall a story. When the story is recalled, positive qualities you possess are also recalled. In the above example, referring to the person as “the appendix guy” is the hook.

While the hook need not be a critical point of the story, it may be. When the hook is not a critical piece of a story I refer to it as a tidbit. On page 27 you’ll read the story of James, who played a key role in enabling his ski club to build its own chalet at Crystal Mountain. The hook in the story is his reference to Mount Rainier. In recalling the story he states, “I’m an officer of a ski club that loves to ski Crystal Mountain, where you have great snow and a beautiful view of Mount Rainier.” Because Mount Rainier is considered the most majestic mountain in the United States, it is well-known and easily recognizable by people throughout the U.S. To explain his accomplishment it was not necessary for James to mention Mount Rainier. He mentioned it solely to make sure he was remembered. For people in the Pacific Northwest, you cannot mention Mount Rainier without them visualizing the mountain, even if for but an instant. From that point on, the story is associated with Mount Rainier.

Ron Saves A Processing Plant

A client shared a story with me that included vivid details and tidbits; it is a story I’ll never forget. Ron had worked for 25 years in the management of seafood-processing plants in Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. Because of his reputation for working effectively with unions, he was asked to take over a plant in the Caribbean which was experiencing serious labor unrest. Always one for a challenge, Ron took it on. One day, about a week after he arrived at the Caribbean plant, he found himself surrounded by ten workers. When they began accusing him of trying to destroy the union, he simply faced them down and reiterated the changes he felt needed to be made. When he finished speaking, he walked through the crowd and began heading back to his office. As he walked away, he knew that one of the leaders had pulled out a gun and had pointed it at his back. Although his heart was racing, he kept walking and did not turn around. He was sure that at any moment he was going to have a bullet in his back. He had never been more frightened in his life. When he got back to his office he realized he had been so scared he actually wet his pants. He said it with laughter, of course, and we both laughed together. I heard that story over ten years ago, yet I still recall it most vividly.

Whenever I recall this story, I have very strong memories of Ron. The story didn’t end there. Ron showed the workers that he could not be intimidated and that he was a man of integrity. The workers began to end their work slowdown, and they began to have confidence that he would be fair with them. Within six months the unrest was a distant memory and the plant began making a profit again. I’m not suggesting that in an interview Ron should mention his incontinence, but I’m pointing out how this detail makes the story more striking. In this story the image of being surrounded by the workers, and the image of having a gun pointed at his back, was more than enough to make it a memorable story. The key point is, by imprinting vivid images in the brains of employers, you will be better remembered and more highly regarded.

All Experiences Can Be Told Vividly

Software engineers and other technical people tell me that their projects simply don’t translate into colorful stories like the one described above. I agree with them to some extent—few of us have such dramatic stories to tell. But anyone can still tell a vivid story by emphasizing the challenges faced and by graphically describing how the problems were overcome. It’s the details of a story that create strong visual images and strong emotional memories.