Demonstrating what a badass you are with dragon-slaying stories

A friend of mine shared Liz Ryan's article with me and it includes dragons and you showing the full extent of your badassery in an interview. Both of these things are happy-making, in my opinion. Liz suggests that in an interview, you find ways to weave in dragon-slaying stories; these are the stories where you talk about how you saved the day. My buddy goes through his resume and makes sure he's got one of these stories for each skill or position on his resume. I like this kind of preparation - kind of anticipating the interview conversation. It's especially helpful if you're an introvert like me. I can come up with the perfect answer to any interview question...the day after the interview.

So yeah, developing these stories ahead of time is a great idea. As Liz explains, there are three elements to a successful dragon-slaying story: the problem statement ("what was the challenge?"), your actions ("how did you react to it?") and the impact ("so what?"). The thing is, in an interview, the person on the other side of the table probably isn't going to tee it up for you perfectly, so you are going to have to find ways to insert your stories into the conversation without it being as awkward as an eighth grade dance.

If you're in the tech space, there's a decent chance you are going to get some behavioral interview questions. In preparation for an interview, head on over to Glassdoor to look at feedback from people who have interviewed at your target company (my opinion on what to make of the rest of the info you see on Glassdoor here). This will most likely give you a good idea of the types of questions you will be asked. Or you can do some broader online research. Google or Bing: COMPANY AND interview AND question* AND (job* OR position). Lots to see.

Aside: I don't hate the behavioral interview questions as much as Liz. I actually think they can be quite helpful in teasing out competencies, especially in people whose experience is related but not exactly the same as the open position or folks with limited experience to begin with. "Tell me about a time you had to build consensus for an idea." is perfectly acceptable in an interview if you are talking to someone who was in a Program Manager role and is interviewing for a Tech Evangelist role. It strips away the interviewers perception around how TEs at their company go about consensus building; it keeps the interviewer open to new approaches that have been successful in a different context. And it gives the interviewee the opportunity to demonstrate their style, versus trying to guess exactly how the company would want them to do it. Yeah, so it might be very 1980s but lots of awesome stuff came out of the '80s. There is nothing better than a good Flashdance sweatshirt. I have never wavered in that opinion despite the passage of time.

Anyway, as you are thinking about your dragon-slaying stories, you might want to make note of the skills or competencies you feel each exhibit. As you identify jobs and companies, figure out what competencies are important to interviewers (you can tell by reading careers pages, job descriptions and searching for info on a company's culture online...some companies like Amazon publish competencies on their sites) and have the stories related to those competencies ready to go for an interview. Because these are the competencies that will likely come up in the interview. Same with skills and experiences.

I'll be coming up with some more interview prep tips for you later this week. In the meantime, if you have any questions you want me to answer or topics I should cover, feel free to drop me an email!