Craft your Story:
The opening question for most recruiters is “Tell us about yourself” I was in an interview panel some good years ago when a candidate interviewing for an Engineering role was asked to tell us about himself…… he started off with… my name is ABCD, a graduate of EFGH, I’m married with 4 Children, I live in Benin City and have worked for IJKL company for 5 years.
The same candidate responded to the question “What is your biggest accomplishment an why should we hire you?” with…. I am result oriented, a very good team player, I have also won the best staff of the year award twice in my 5 years with my current organization and by the grace of God I’ve been able to build 2 houses, and take good care of my family 👀
I have also encountered candidates that memorized the entire google response to these questions and this is a very good way to fail the interview because every recruiter worth their dollars can clearly tell when you’re giving a text book response, so be guided.
It’s important that we begin to craft stories around every question we expect from an interview.
You have skills and competencies that you’re applying to your current job to achieve significant results that impacts your organization’s bottom line.
When you look at the job description of the role you’ are applying for, you need to craft a good story that ties your current skills/competencies/results/achievements with the expectation of the new role.
You must understand your story in order to sell it to any recruiter, because at the end of the day we’re looking for value to solve our internal problems hence the open position.
My charge to you today is to craft your Story around these three questions:
1. Tell us about yourself
2. What is your biggest career accomplishment?
3. Why should we hire you?