What are the two most important words when you share a career story during an interview?

𝗠𝘆 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘆’𝘀 𝗼𝗻 “𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝘅𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲”.

Because a career story that is told in a dry, abstract way, without rich and meaty details, isn’t engaging and compelling. Dare I say it sounds a bit like you invented an answer because a career coach said you should have one ready…

Let’s compare. Imagine an interviewer asks “𝗧𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗺𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺𝘀”.

😩 𝗗𝗿𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗯𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁: "I’m known for being a problem-solver who can handle high-pressure environments. In my last role, I was responsible for improving team productivity and ensuring we met our quarterly KPIs. I implemented some new organizational strategies and focused on better communication within the department. As a result, our output increased significantly, and the team felt much more aligned with the company goals." 

🙌 𝗥𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘆: "I’m known for being a problem-solver who can handle high-pressure environments. For example, six months ago, the team was facing a trouble ticket backlog of over 20%, and morale was low because of constant fire-drills. Instead of just asking for more overtime, I sat in on a few review meetings to try and understand what the bottleneck was. I discovered our 'Priority 1' criteria were too vague. So I worked with some of the team to draft a new support triage guide. We then trained the team on how to use it. By the end of the second month, we'd cut the backlog to about 8%, and our average time to close dropped from 9 days to 6. Better still, in our anonymous engagement survey, 90% of the team reported feeling less burnt out because they now had clear guidance on how they should prioritize their work."

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀? Try and build a "Before” and “After" snapshot. Think of a process you improved. On a scale of 1–10, how chaotic was it "Before", and what specific number (percentage, dollar amount, or hours saved) represents "After"? Then write it up in SOAR (Situation, Obstacle, Action, Result) form. Refine it, practice it, and review it again before your next interview. You’ve got this!!!!

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