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How to Talk About Your Strengths in a Job Interview, with Gregory Heller

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It’s easy to tell a hiring manager about the specific successes you had in past positions. What’s not so easy is describing how your strengths led to those successes. But Find Your Dream Job guest Gregory Heller says it’s crucial to explain how those successes can transfer to a new job, and you do that by addressing your strengths that made them possible. Gregory suggests getting clear on the top 3 strengths you possess and practicing sharing them in an interview. He also recommends using informational interviews to gain clarity on what the companies you’re interested in are looking for in a new hire. 

About Our Guest:

Gregory Heller is the senior associate director of MBA career management at the  Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. Gregory also hosts the podcast,  Conversations on Careers and Professional Life. 

Resources in This Episode:

Transcript

Find Your Dream Job, Episode 379:

How to Talk About Your Strengths in a Job Interview, with Gregory Heller

Airdate: December 21, 2022

Mac Prichard: 

This is Find Your Dream Job, the podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want, and make a difference in life. 

I’m your host, Mac Prichard. I’m also the founder of Mac’s List. It’s a job board in the Pacific Northwest that helps you find a fulfilling career.

Every Wednesday, I talk to a different expert about the tools you need to get the work you want.

Find Your Dream Job is brought to you by TopResume. TopResume has helped more than 400,000 professionals land more interviews and get hired faster. 

Get a free review of your resume today. 

Go to macslist.org/topresume. 

Do you struggle with promoting yourself when you talk to a hiring manager? 

Today’s guest says if you want to stand out from your competitors, you need to understand and tell employers what you do best. 

Gregory Heller is here to discuss how to talk about your strengths in a job interview.

He’s the senior associate director of MBA career management at the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. 

Gregory also hosts the podcast, Conversations on Careers and Professional Life. 

He joins us from Seattle, Washington.

Well, Gregory, here’s where I want to start. Do many job seekers struggle with talking about their strengths in a job interview? 

Gregory Heller: 

I find that many job-seekers talk about what they’ve done, and what they’ve done doesn’t necessarily highlight how they did it well. So, yes. I think that many fail to really articulate the strengths they contributed to their past successes. 

Mac Prichard: 

Why do people, well, I don’t want to use the word fail at this, but why do they struggle with it, Gregory? 

Gregory Heller: 

You know, sometimes I think people get into this mindset that they’re being interrogated, rather than interviewed, and that puts them into a mind state where they want to get all the details right, and they focus on the details of, again, what they did, rather than focusing on how they did it. 

Now, I work with a lot of people who are really trying to pivot careers. So, they may have been a software engineer or a QA Tester, or maybe they were a consultant, and now they want to be a product manager or a finance manager, or a consultant. The things that they did in the past, the actual day-to-day what they did, don’t really transfer directly over to what they want to do. So, what’s critically important is to articulate how they did whatever they did in the past, how they did that well, and that’s where strengths come in. 

Mac Prichard: 

What advice do you have for a listener who’s trying to understand how to tell a story of what they’ve done in the past in a way that explains the how rather than the what? 

Gregory Heller: 

Yeah, that’s a great question. So, what I typically tell people to do is to take a step back and to think about what people have told them they can do well. Think back to annual reviews, compliments that you’ve gotten from clients, customers, or colleagues. Those often provide some keys to the how more than the what. 

And then the next thing is to consider using some type of assessment. Now, at the Foster School, we use the CliftonStrengths from Gallup. So, all of our students go through and get at least their top five CliftonStrengths. And this gives us some language that we can use across the board with those students. I’ve also used it with other folks, privately, outside of the University, and it is really helpful because, so often, the things that we’re really good at come so naturally that we often miss them. We don’t realize that that is what sets us apart. 

I’ve always been really good at storytelling. But it took the self-awareness that that’s actually something that I’m good at and other people aren’t as good at to really understand how I can leverage that, how I can lean into it and invest in it, as a strength that I can then showcase with the people that I work with. 

Mac Prichard: 

There’s a lot to unpack there: strengths, knowing your strengths, doing self-assessment, telling your story in an effective strategic way. I want to explore each of those points. Before we do that, Gregory, I just want to go back to our topic, which is why it is so important to tell employers about your strengths. Why does that matter so much? 

Gregory Heller: 

If we get bogged down in the details of past projects, it can be easy to miss how we are going to succeed in something that- typically, we don’t want to make a lateral move. We don’t want to go from being, you know, let’s say it’s product manager to product manager, just at a different company. We often want to be making a move that moves us up or that moves us out into something completely different. 

So, we need to really understand how we have been successful, how we can apply what we do well in a new setting, and for the hiring manager to understand that ,oh, this is a person who is really good at building relationships, or this candidate has exceptional collaboration skills. The way this person approaches problems is creative and unbounded by the conventional wisdom within an organization. That’s the kind of person that I want.

So, if we can articulate those things that we’re really good at, not just that, oh, I was able to manage this project within ten percent of its budget and timeline. That doesn’t tell us how we managed the project. You know, if we managed that project because we built strong relationships, we motivated the team, we kept people on track by checking in with them and unblocking, you know, anything that was stymieing them; those are things that we can do in other contexts, in another role, and they’re really clues to how people succeed. 

Mac Prichard: 

Well, let’s talk about how to know your strengths, and in your experience, you work with so many students and graduates at your university. Do most job-seekers have a good understanding of what their strengths are? 

Gregory Heller: 

I would say that most people that I’ve worked with have a good idea of one or two. The things that they are most good at. Yet, they still often fail to articulate those when they begin preparing for interviews. It’s when we get beyond those, again, one or two things that we really feel like are our superpower that we may not notice as well. 

Like, one of the things for myself, I mentioned earlier: story-telling, communication. I mean, I’ve worked in that business. That’s how I’ve made my money. But some of the things that I didn’t recognize as much were the way that I understand individual people and tailor my communications to those individual people, or to understand what they need, and then be able to give them what they need. Find for them the specific thing that they need. And when I became aware of that skill, I was able to really lean into and develop it more and to just leverage it more. 

So, I think that when you get beyond, again, these top things that you’re aware of, there are some additional ones that have often contributed to your past successes, and by examining, really unpacking, you know, okay, here’s an accomplishment that’s on my resume. How did I make that happen? What was it about me that made that success that the person next to me would have done differently? So, those are some ways to begin to identify what those strengths are that set you apart so that you can really highlight them in an interview setting. 

Mac Prichard: 

Those are excellent questions, and you also mentioned earlier the value of using a self-assessment tool, like the Cliffton Strengths Finder, and talking to your colleagues, and looking at past reviews. Any other tips for getting good at self-awareness and self-assessment, Gregory? 

Gregory Heller: 

You know, I think, without doing, you know, a paid assessment, and the CliftonStrengths is not particularly expensive, so I think it’s a worthwhile investment, and I don’t get any kickbacks, trust me. But, what I would say is, even talking to people that you know, friends and family, sitting down and asking them, what do you think I do better than anyone else? What do you think sets me apart from the rest? 

And you could do this with past colleagues or current colleagues, you know, right now, as we record this, a lot of people in the tech industry are finding out that they’re gonna be looking for new jobs. You can take the time to ask your colleagues around you. You know, what do you think I did really well? What do you think sets me apart? 

So, that’s a way to engage other people, and I think that, you know, if we take, like, the lessons of folks like Wayne Baker and Adam Grant, you know, you just need to ask for help, and people are willing to help you. That can really give us more of a sense of the things that other people see in us that we don’t even see in ourselves. 

Mac Prichard: 

This is terrific, Gregory. We’re gonna take a break. When we come back, Gregory Heller will continue to share his advice on how to talk about your strengths in a job interview. Stay with us. 

Your resume is a terrific tool for talking about your strengths. 

If you’re uncertain how to do this, go to macslist.org/topresume.

A professional writer at TopResume will review your resume for free. 

Go to macslist.org/topresume.

You’ll get detailed feedback you can use to showcase your strengths and tell your career story. 

Or you can hire TopResume to do this work for you.

Go to macslist.org/topresume. 

Now, let’s get back to the show.

We’re back in the Mac’s List studio. I’m talking with Gregory Heller.

He’s the senior associate director of MBA career management at the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. 

Gregory also hosts the podcast, Conversations on Careers and Professional Life. 

He joins us from Seattle, Washington.

Gregory, before the break, we were talking about how to talk about your strengths in a job interview, and we talked about the value of self-awareness and self-assessment, and you touched on this, but I want to just make sure we explore this point more. How important is it to understand how your strengths helped you be successful? Tell us more about that, Gregory. 

Gregory Heller: 

I like to think that when you are in that flow state in a job, you are performing well, and things feel like they’re coming, not easily, not just completely simple, but they’re coming naturally, and when things are coming naturally like that, it can be hard to recognize what are the ingredients to your success. So when you’re thinking about a new job at a new organization, you really want to think about what are the ingredients that you’re going to bring to success in that new role at that new organization. 

So, that’s where I think it’s really key to unpack what made you successful. To really analyze that in your past accomplishments, and then think about how you map those strengths to the new challenges of the new role by doing a close read on the job description by looking at your notes from, hopefully, the informational interviews that you’ve conducted with people at that organization. 

So that, when you are in that job interview, you’re really thinking about what does this person need to hear from me to feel confident in making the decision to recommend me for hire or to hire me? And if you articulate to them how you will succeed in this new role, it will be easier for them to make that decision. 

Mac Prichard: 

So, you walk into the room with the self-awareness that has allowed you to understand what your strengths are, and you’re prepared to discuss them. How, Gregory, do you see successful candidates get that understanding of what matters to an interviewer? So that they can make those connections between what they’re good at and what the employer needs. 

Gregory Heller: 

So there’s two or three things. One that we really recommend people do is informational interviews. These are conversations with people at the organization who you may know, they might be a friend of a friend, and that can help you really understand what isn’t written on the job description that the organization really cares about. Also, looking at that organization’s website for what their values are, what their leadership principles may be, listening to interviews. You know, if these are large organizations, interviews with senior executives, and how they talk about what they find valuable in their people at the organization.

And then, practice is so critical, and when I think about the job interviews that I’ve gone into, and most of my jobs have come through personal networks, so I’ve had that warm introduction. But, I think about going into those job interviews, I actually didn’t do a lot of preparation. I’m gonna be honest. So, don’t do as I did, do as I say. I think I really relied on my ability to tell a good story, my communication skills to, in the moment, articulate how I was going to be successful in that organization. 

But I think, for a lot of people, taking the time to practice with someone, a friend, a colleague, a family member, a coach, you know, work with a coach if you can. I think it’s very valuable. You will go into that interview with so much more confidence, and if you understand what has made you successful in the past, I like to think about Amy Cuddy’s book Presence and some of the studies in that book which talked about priming. The idea that you can prime yourself to appear more confident and have a greater impact on the people you’re speaking to by thinking about, reliving in your mind successes that you’ve had in the past, and if you do that in a way that really highlights what those strengths are, you go into that interview with more confidence. 

If you’re practiced, and you know how you’re gonna articulate your strengths and how you’re gonna answer the questions you’re likely to get, you’re going to feel more confident, and if you come across as more confident, that’s going to have an impact on the interviewer. 

Mac Prichard: 

What are some of your specific practice tips? Do you have people talk to a mirror and respond to possible questions? Do you have them roleplay with you? You mentioned perhaps working with a family member or a friend. What’s been most effective in your coaching of the students at your graduate school? 

Gregory Heller: 

I think the most important thing is doing it with someone. Now, once you have practiced with someone else and you’ve gotten some feedback from that person about what really resonated with them, what was too much detail, that sort of thing, then you can practice on your own, and sure, you can practice in front of a mirror, but I mean, that’s like nineteenth-century technology right there. 

We’ve got so many fantastic tools available to us, from LinkedIn’s interview prep to Yoodli.ai, which I’m sure we’ll put in the show notes. It’s a fantastic tool for recording yourself and getting some just objective metrics on your presentation. 

Mac Prichard: 

And how much preparation, how much practice do you recommend? You have an interview coming up. It might be an hour. Are you gonna spend three or four hours getting ready? What’s worked for your students? 

Gregory Heller: 

Yeah. So, yeah. It might be an hour. But it also might be the next three to five years of your life. Right? So, I think you want to, if you really want the job, you need to be realistic with yourself how much time you are going to need to practice, and I think it’s very individual. Because some people are naturally more talented with communication, and they’re more comfortable in terms of self-confidence, and other people need more time. But I think that you know, typically, I would say to someone, at a baseline, you need probably a two-to-one preparation. 

Now, if you’re in an active job search where you are applying and interviewing at a lot of jobs, some of that preparation is going to do, I don’t want to say double duty, triple duty, quadruple duty. Right? If you’re practicing, you know, how you answer, tell me about yourself or a time you failed, those kinds of questions they’re going to be useful across all the interviews that you’re in. So, it pays dividends, basically. In an active job search, the preparation that you do pays dividends across all of the interviews that you will go on. 

Mac Prichard: 

A final recommendation you have for how to talk about your strengths in a job interview is to do an after-action review after you talk to an employer. What’s the value of doing this, Gregory? And what’s the best time to do it? 

Gregory Heller: 

Yeah, I’m glad you asked. So the value is this; humans have a negativity bias. Right? 

So, the longer you get from that interview, the further in time away from the interview, and you don’t hear something positive or negative, you’re going to think that you bombed it. Right? More and more. Oh, I should’ve said this. Oh, man, why didn’t I tell them that? And you’re gonna have a really negative feeling about that interview. The moment you walk out of that interview is the moment at which you’ll have the most accurate recollection or impression of how that interview went. 

So, I suggest to people, even when you’re in, like, a multi-interview loop, like four interviews with fifteen minutes between each interview. Take a couple of those fifteen minutes to say what went really well. Like, where do I feel like I did really well? Where do I feel like I need to shore up my performance in the next interview? What questions did I get asked? You know, specific questions. And then, what follow-up questions? And did I nail the key points that I wanted to make going into this? What my strengths are, why I want this position, how I’m gonna perform well in this position. Right? 

So, if you take the time to say like, did I hit those points? You’re gonna have an accurate representation of how that went. You’re going to be able to go into that next interview, whether it’s in ten minutes or the next day, or a week away, with a clear idea of what you need to change or what you need to double down on in that next interview. 

So, that’s why I say to do that after action review. It can really help you improve your performance, and not that I’m a big sports person, but using sports analogies really helps here. You know, you’re not going to go to the driving range with a blindfold on and just hit balls and not see where they go. You are going to look at, did that ball go to the left? Did it go to the right? Did it fall short? Did I hit behind it? Did I hit over the top of it? And you’re gonna correct on the next swing. So that’s really what I’m getting at here, is the opportunity to review your performance and course correct. 

Mac Prichard: 

Well, it’s been a terrific conversation, Gregory. Now, tell us, what’s next for you? 

Gregory Heller: 

Well, as I alluded to earlier, you know, the news is full of reports of layoffs or downsizing in big tech. I like to think of it a bit more of a correction because if you look to a couple of years ago, we’re still, these companies are still bigger than they were then. But, at the same time, we’re seeing so much investment in clean energy, clean tech, decarbonization, renewables, electric vehicles. 

I think that there’s tremendous growth in the job market there, and I really look forward to helping my students and others get connected with companies in those spaces to work on what I think is the greatest challenge that has faced humanity. Not just in my lifetime. But that is getting off of fossil fuels and addressing the climate crisis. 

Mac Prichard: 

Well, thanks for sharing that, Gregory. I know that listeners can learn more about your work by visiting your podcast; that is Conversations on Careers and Professional Life. The URL is conversationsoncareers.com. We’ll be sure to include that in the show notes, as well as the website article about your interview, and you also invite people to connect with you on LinkedIn, and as always, I hope that if they do reach out to you, they’ll mention they heard you on the show. 

Now, Gregory, given all the great advice you’ve shared today, what’s the one thing you want a listener to remember about how to talk about your strengths in a job interview? 

Gregory Heller: 

Write down the three to five things that you think you uniquely bring to that job, and make sure that you have a way that you can articulate those things- strengths- in your interview answers. 

Mac Prichard: 

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Next week, our guest will be Mark Kajitani. 

He’s a nonprofit human resources consultant, a speaker, and the director of people and culture at Oregon Public Broadcasting. 

Equity at work involves issues like equal pay, opportunities for promotion, and fairness in the workplace.

So before you say yes to a job offer, you want to understand how an employer approaches equity. 

Join us next Wednesday when Mark Kajitani and I talk about how to know where a company is in its equity journey. 

Until next time, thanks for letting us help you find your dream job.

This show is produced by Mac’s List. 

Susan Thornton-Hough schedules our guests and writes our newsletter. Lisa Kislingbury Anderson manages our social media.

Our sound engineer is Matt Fiorillo. Ryan Morrison at Podfly Productions edits the show. Dawn Mole creates our transcripts. And our music is by Freddy Trujillo.

This is Mac Prichard. See you next week.