Your Whole Story Matters
Individuals entering the workforce for the first time after college often spend hours summarizing their internship experiences, leadership roles and academic achievements into bite-sized bullet points. The competitive market for entry level positions drives students to the online thesaurus to find unique words to differentiate themselves. In reality, most high performing college students have such a long list of credentials that it can take more than a buttoned-up resume to stand out. Fortunately, those same high performing students are acutely aware that their resume will only take them so far and prepare rigorously for the interview process. Unfortunately, what is less obvious to these aspiring consultants, bankers and engineers (to name a few) is that their whole story matters when it comes to marketing themselves to a potential employer.
In the last 2 years, I have guided many talented, multi-dimensional students in planning their transition into the workforce. In addition to doing self-assessments and goal setting exercises, we dedicate time to fine tuning their personal narrative. What has continued to surprise me is how often students want to downplay the experiences that they did for no other reason than personal satisfaction. The fear of appearing frivolous or distracted prevents them from seeing how their outside interests can indeed be net positive. Between the Computer Science student who deferred college by a year to be a professional ballet dancer to the Mechanical Engineer who parlayed a video game hobby into their own mini-esports empire, budding professionals often have unique stories they could and should share.
A friend conducting an interview for an entry level job asked a candidate to share something about themselves that was not on their resume. The candidate told him about a Black Jack club that he started as an undergraduate. He went into great detail about the process of recruiting and organizing the members, administering the rules, etc. His summary showed great attention to detail, passion for building fellowship and a drive to see something to completion. The interviewee felt it was irrelevant to his qualifications for the job. To the contrary, his story made an impression. More importantly, it demonstrated for the candidate that his true self was being valued by this potential employer and there could be a good cultural fit.
Of course, there is a right and a wrong way to elaborate on these unique experiences and those in the throws of interviewing may benefit from the following tips:
First and foremost, there is a time and place to share. In other words, don’t lead with being the number one ax-thrower in the country when interviewing for an accounting job- especially if you spent last summer interning with an Accounting firm. However, it should certainly come up if you are describing the ways you prioritize your time and have managed your different responsibilities throughout college.
Second, you need to be able to talk about how your unique experience affected you personally. It’s nice to know it made you happy but it’s more interesting to know what it meant to you. For example, if you are getting your pilot’s license while interviewing for management consulting positions, talk about what motivated you to complete 30 hours of flight training or share a story about a flight that reinforced your love of flying airplanes. By delving into your “why”, you bring your soft skills to life.
Lastly, keep it simple. The more eccentric the hobby, the higher chance the interviewer will have no context when it comes up in your interview. In a few sentences, you want to provide background, highlight your role and share what it means to you. It’s best to avoid jargon that requires elaborate explanations. Write down your narrative ahead of time and practice what you want to share. You want the words to come to you quickly and, when you know so much about one thing it can be hard to naturally boil it down. Also, on your resume, use language that does not force the reader to use google. If you are not sure if what you wrote is straightforward, give it to someone else to read.
I wholeheartedly believe there is value in everyone’s whole story. However, like most things worth sharing, the challenge is in telling the story in the right way and at the right time. Hopefully, a few of these tips will encourage our next generation of leaders to meet the challenge.