Hey there!

Things are almost unpacked in the new house and that means I'm about to go full-steam ahead on a new venture. I'll write about that at the end though. This week I bumped into some fresh ridiculousness in the world of interviews.

"What new skill did you pick up during the pandemic?"

I go on and on about poor interviews in my book and material, and this question is a great example of a bad question. Not only does it imply there was a lot of care-free time during the world's longest March, but also implies that you should have been bettering yourself as well.

There are a lot of questions that fall in this category though, and the way to handle it is through storytelling. The idea here is you tell a story for 2 minutes that highlights some attribute, quality, or whatever. It only has to be plausibly related to the question that was asked!

People love stories and they have a profound effect on the listener that allows them to quickly develop a relationship with you. If you think interviews are about showing of skill, I can assure you that people can justify a million ways not hiring someone that they don't like no matter how much skill they have.

So what do you do? I personally like to develop stories like this:

1. Identify the quality or attribute
2. Find a moment where I was challenged with #1
3. Describe the struggle and approach
4. Talk about how I learned or grew from it
5. Find a question to ask at the end

If your brain works like mine you might find your brain wants to jump to #2 and talk about something that was a challenge. That is totally fine! Just identify that quality you want to highlight through that story and keep going.

Now that last one about a follow-up question helps turn the story into a conversation. Without the question, you might wind up completing your story with your interviewer going, "Ok, thanks." So by asking a question you get them talking and grow that likeability.

That is how I recommend going about dealing w/ questions by telling stories. For those of you who hone this, interviewers who ask bad questions like that don't stand a chance.

Ok, now related to all of this I am going to start putting serious effort into an online class to equip tech folk to master everything they need in getting the jobs they want. If you'd be interested in it, let me know. But please consider answering this question:

What is the biggest pain point you have getting the job you want?

Have a great weekend!

Sincerely,

Ryan