How to Use Stories in Your Job Search, with Elizabeth Bachman

If you walk into an interview planning to share “just the facts,” you’ll be quickly forgotten. Stories are what grab our attention and stick in our memory. How do you share stories with a potential employer? Find Your Dream Job guest Elizabeth Bachman says it takes research and practice to share your story in a way that gets their attention but isn’t rambling on for too long. Elizabeth also talks about the need to leave behind the mindset that “nice people don’t brag” and get comfortable talking about the things you do best. 

About Our Guest:

Elizabeth Bachman is the go-to person for advanced training in speaking, presentation skills, and leadership. Elizabeth also hosts the “Speakers Who Get Results” podcast.

Resources in This Episode:

• For more information on how to join the next cohort of Elizabeth’s “Visible and Valued Leadership Certification Program” for executive women, check out her website at visible-valued.com
• From our Sponsor: 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 from one of TopResume’s expert writers. 

Transcript

Find Your Dream Job, Episode 417:

How to Use Stories in Your Job Search, with Elizabeth Bachman

Airdate: September 20, 2023

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.

Facts about your accomplishments matter when you look for work.

But the stories you tell about your career are what employers remember.

Elizabeth Bachman is here to talk about how to use stories in your job search.

She’s the go-to person for advanced training in speaking, presentation skills, and leadership.

Elizabeth also hosts the “Speakers Who Get Results” podcast.

She joins us from Portland, Oregon.

Well, let’s jump right into it, Elizabeth. Why do you need to tell stories at all in your job search? Shouldn’t your qualifications alone speak for themselves?

Elizabeth Bachman:

Well, the thing is that the stories make you real to an interviewer, and I don’t care how data-driven you are; if you’re a human being, you grew up on stories. The fact is that humans retain stories more than we retain facts. So the facts are important, but the stories fill it in, and it’s the stories that we remember.

Mac Prichard:

When you’re doing a job search, what difference can a good story make, especially during an interview?

Elizabeth Bachman:

Well, the first rule for any presenter and it is a performance when you go in for an interview. The first rule is to know your audience and make it about them. I have a technique called strategic empathy that I use with my clients to know what are they looking for. Who are they really? What do they really need? And then you tailor what you’re going to give them to address the need.

Mac Prichard:

I want to talk more about that and your other tips for how to use stories in a job search. Let’s step back for a moment. I just want to be clear about the value of doing this. If you’re a candidate and you don’t tell stories about your accomplishments and your career, what’s an employer gonna think about that during a job search?

Elizabeth Bachman:

Well, the stories come up anyway because, in any interview, they’re going to ask you – tell us about a great success. Or tell us about a time that you blew it and failed. That’s – the stories are your answers to the questions. The key is to find good stories that will illustrate your answers that are only a minute, a minute and a half long.

That’s the part that takes some practice. But if you can polish a story so that it comes easily out of your mouth, then you are way ahead of the person who goes, well, you know, I don’t know, I could, like, you know, well, there was this time that, and basically you’re wasting people’s time. So, a concise, powerful, polished story – that makes you sound so much more interesting, and people will remember it.

Mac Prichard:

What stops candidates from telling stories during their job search, especially during interviews?

Elizabeth Bachman:

Well, we tell stories all of the time. What happens is that people start rambling on into the story of what was happening, what was going on, and they give you way too much information, or way too much background information, and the poor interviewer is listening going, wait. But what are you trying to tell me? And you certainly don’t want to have the interviewer confused and unhappy.

Mac Prichard:

You mentioned rambling, Elizabeth, providing too much background information. What other mistakes do you see applicants make when telling stories during a job search?

Elizabeth Bachman:

The other big mistake is either not telling enough about what you’re good at or telling too much about what you’re good at. And what I like about the storytelling process that I do in my Visible Valued Program is training people to look for the things that they are particularly good at, turn them into a story, and then tell them in a way that is not rambling, that’s concise and compelling.

I really believe in planning your stories. You’ve got to be like the comedians who go to open mic after open mic and try out their material until they find something that really works. The more you can practice and tell a story well, the better and the more impressive it will be.

Mac Prichard:

Well, let’s dig into your tips for telling stories. You mentioned a number already, and one of the first ones was to know your audience and what they care about. Elizabeth, why is that important?

Elizabeth Bachman:

Well, you have to address people in a language that they can hear, and that’s a great… A lot of the work that I do is thinking about how people speak how people listen. So if you can find out from them what they’re looking for, then you can tell the story that fits that situation. Hopefully, you are prepared for stories to illustrate any of the points on your resume.

So they may not care about how good you are with data entry, but they might really care about whether you can write a press release, for instance. That happened to client of mine. So, you would be telling the press release story instead of the data entry story. If they’re worried about money, then you tell your story, and you say this is how I made so much extra money for the company or how we saved the company half a million dollars over the course of last year through the work that I did. That’s another client of mine.

Mac Prichard:

And how do you find out in advance before you walk into that interview room or even send in your application what matters to the hiring manager that you’ll be meeting with? What steps do you encourage your clients to take to get those insights?

Elizabeth Bachman:

Do your homework. There’s so much information available. Build a mental picture of who these people are, who they might be. You might not know about the hiring manager. But you can see the press releases that they have posted. What have they posted on their website? What’s being posted about them on LinkedIn, for instance?

And then you get to ask questions. Remember, you’re interviewing them as much as they’re interviewing you. It should be an equal power relationship.

This is another problem that I see people fall into often is: they come into an interview begging for a job or with the attitude, I need that money, oh my goodness, and this is the all-powerful person who is going to make a difference in my life whether I can pay my rent this month.

It puts you in a weak position. If you think of it as you’re interviewing them to see whether they would be a good place for you to work, then you can come in as an equal and show them the value that you bring.

Mac Prichard:

What questions do you recommend your clients ask when having that conversation with a hiring manager? What’s your top question?

Elizabeth Bachman:

Well, usually, the job description describes someone who is a combination of five different people. Nobody ever gets everything on the job description. So you might come in and say, what’s the most important thing that you need?

You can also read the news, and if there’s recent news, you could even ask them a personal question. Hey, I saw that you’ve just acquired this other company. How is that affecting you and the work that you’re doing? So you make a personal connection.

Mac Prichard:

Well, terrific. We’re gonna take a break, Elizabeth. When we come back, we’ll continue our conversation with Elizabeth Bachman about how to use stories in your job search. Stay with us.

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Now, let’s get back to the show.

We’re back in the Mac’s List studio. I’m talking with Elizabeth Bachman.

She’s the go-to person for advanced training in speaking, presentation skills, and leadership.

Elizabeth also hosts the “Speakers Who Get Results” podcast.

She joins us from Portland, Oregon.

Elizabeth, before the break, we were talking about how to use stories in your job search, and I want to thank you for bringing up the point about an interview being a two-way conversation. You have an opportunity to ask questions, and it’s important to remember that.

There’s often a tendency in interviews, and understandably so, to be polite. What is your best advice about politeness and storytelling in job interviews?

Elizabeth Bachman:

Well, yes, you want to be polite as a colleague but don’t be so polite that you don’t talk about the things you’re good at.

Here, again, is where I find tracking your accomplishments and then meeting with someone else to create your stories so that they can say, you can say, well, yeah, I did that thing. But I did it. It was easy for me, and the other person can say, no, wait. That’s important. Not everybody knows how to do that. So that you can talk about what it is that you’re good at to illustrate your point.

And one of the problems is that you may have been raised by someone like my mother, who said, good girls don’t brag.

So talking about what you’re good at is often difficult in the moment because, or we may have cultural training that, you know, don’t brag, don’t stick out, don’t talk about what you’re good at. That can kick in when you’re nervous.

There, again, if you are prepared for the stories and prepared by telling them, then you can talk about what it is that you’re good at. Especially if what you’re good at is not necessarily something that fits on a resume.

Mac Prichard:

Elizabeth, you mentioned talking with a friend about your accomplishments. What are other steps you encourage your clients to take to get clear about their strengths, about their accomplishments?

Elizabeth Bachman:

One of the things is to work with a friend or a coach to talk about what are the things that you do automatically that keeps things running smoothly. We are conditioned as a society to react to fires and putting out fires, and then everybody gets all excited about the firefighter as the hero, but meanwhile, the house has burned down.

Nobody talks about the person who has done all of the preventive measures so that the fire doesn’t actually happen. That is a skill, and that’s a skill that needs to be told as a story. And if anybody’s curious, contact me because I have a proprietary way of doing that. To talk about the value of things going right.

Mac Prichard:

So you need to talk about what went right on your watch in your previous jobs and have stories that support that. You need to avoid letting politeness prevent you from tooting your own horn and speaking confidently about your own accomplishments.

Are there other steps you recommend to both identify your strengths and accomplishments before you start putting together your collection of stories?

Elizabeth Bachman:

I firmly believe in doing the weekly email. I learned this from the great Cindy Solomon, who teaches that, and then I’ve added a piece to it, which is do a weekly email to your boss to say these are the three things I’m working on here Monday morning, and then on Friday you say these three things, this is what happened. But don’t do it in an email. Do it on a document first and then meet with somebody, not your boss; your accountability partner, to go through those things and say, where are the things that I’m really good at? What am I really good at?

The other big advantage to this is we all tend to discount the things that are easy for us. So, having another person recognize that helps you recognize what you’re good at. And I’ve seen that happen over and over again.

I’ve never forgotten a woman. I was sitting in on an advisory session where people were doing their bios to be board candidates, and this woman mentioned that she had founded and sold three software companies. But it was at the end of the page, as if, oh, by the way, I founded and sold these three software companies, and that was paragraph number eight. And we were looking at it, and I said, wait, wait, wait.

That should be paragraph number one, and she said, well, I don’t want to brag. And this is a very senior person who still got into the good girls don’t brag mindset and was undercutting herself.

Mac Prichard:

So you’ve identified your strengths and accomplishments, you’ve done the homework, and you have an understanding of what matters to the employer that you’re gonna be interviewing with, and you’ve started to collect stories that showcase your strengths, and you’re not afraid to talk about them, you’re not afraid to brag.

Now, it’s time to put those stories together and begin to practice them. What do you recommend doing? Should you write these out, Elizabeth? Should you rehearse? What has worked with the people you coach?

Elizabeth Bachman:

Write them out and then say them out loud. Because written language is very different from spoken language, something that makes sense on the page may not make sense once you say it out loud. And then it should only be a minute, a minute and a half.

Say it out loud to yourself in the mirror until you can get through it without giggling. Guaranteed, we’re all gonna look in the mirror, and we’re gonna say, oh dear, I’ve got a wrinkle there, or I don’t look very good in this. All of these other voices will start talking. So, practice it in the mirror until you can say it easily.

And the other thing to remember is speaking is a physical act. You have to train your lips and tongue and your breath to pronounce the words. Therefore, use your good stories in an interview. If you’ve practiced them, when you’re nervous in the interview, let the story be the one that you’ve practiced so that the muscle memory can get you through, even if your stomach is clenching and your palms are sweating.

Mac Prichard:

How much practice do you recommend for a story? Are we talking about fifteen minutes? A couple of hours? What has been effective?

Elizabeth Bachman:

I would practice them over and over again. I would look at your resume, and for every point in your resume, have a story that illustrates it, and one other useful thing is they’re always going to ask you to talk about a time that you failed. Rather than saying, oh boy, I really messed up, and the company went bankrupt, you think of something that you have solved.

So, if you can say, oh, this was a lesson I learned way early on in my career that I can do this and this, but I’m not good at the third thing, and when I tried to do it myself, it was a disaster. Therefore, ever since, I make sure that I work in partnership with someone who is really good at the things I’m not good at.

Mac Prichard:

What if you get a question and you don’t have a story ready that you practiced or prepared, but one comes to mind? Should you tell that story if you haven’t rehearsed it?

Elizabeth Bachman:

Yeah, yes. But I would say, “Wow, that’s a really good question. No one’s asked me that before. I think what I would say is…,” and then go from there.

Mac Prichard:

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

Elizabeth Bachman:

I’m very excited about filling the next cohort of the Visible and Valued Leadership Certification Program for executive women. And this is where we work on your stories. We work on helping you become visible and get past that glass ceiling. I do regular webinars about it.

You can find out about the program itself at visible-valued.com, and we’re getting ready to launch a new cohort. So if anybody’s curious, come talk to me.

Mac Prichard:

Terrific, and we’ll be sure to include that URL visible-valued.com both in the website article and the newsletter and I know you also invite listeners to connect with you on LinkedIn, and if they do reach out to you there, I hope they’ll mention they heard you on Find Your Dream Job.

Now, Elizabeth, given all of the great advice you’ve shared today, what’s the one thing you want a listener to remember about how to use stories in your job search?

Elizabeth Bachman:

Rule number one is make it about them. Who are you talking to? What are they looking for? How can you solve their problem without giving away your own power?

Mac Prichard:

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Next week, our guest will be Amy Santee.

She’s a career strategist and coach for user experience professionals.

Amy helps her clients use self-research, self-advocacy, and strategy to design careers with intention.

Strategic planning can make a big difference in workplace decisions.

And the same is true when you make choices about your career.

Join us next Wednesday when Amy Santee and I talk about why you need a job search strategy and how to do it.

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.