Category Archives: Storytelling and Career

Rebecca Ruby wrote recently about the importance to nonprofit organizations of differentiating themselves, finding their “only-ness” (I think uniqueness is a better term). As often happens, I couldn’t help adapting Ruby’s formula for job-seekers (sorry it’s a little blurry; it didn’t reduce as well as I would have liked): Then … Continue reading →

Experience Corps, an award-winning national program, engages people over 55 in meeting their communities’ greatest challenges. Today, in 21 cities across the country, 2,000 Experience Corps members tutor and mentor elementary school students, help teachers in the classroom, and lead after-school enrichment activities. Independent research shows that Experience Corps boosts … Continue reading →

Willy Franzen blogs about entry-level jobs at One Day, One Job in a folksy, story-like way, often providing access to the employer’s own story, such as through video. From the blog’s About page: Every day we take a look at one employer and the jobs that they are offering for … Continue reading →

Malcolm Gladwell’s next book apparently will be about the challenge of hiring in the modern world. Amazon lists his next book as Outliers: Why Some People Succeed and Some Don’t, which doesn’t sound exactly like the topic he talked about at the recent New Yorker Stories from the Near Future … Continue reading →

My friend Steve Rothberg of CollegeRecruiter.com calls this* the “best recruiting video.” He says: “After watching this video, the only candidates who aren’t more likely to want to work for Whirlpool are those without souls.” What he doesn’t say is why. Because it tells a story. *2020 Update: The referenced … Continue reading →

Marci Alboher, who authors the Shifting Careers blog for the New York Times has been running a series in which she “glean[s] useful career skills from attending more arts and cultural events.” Giving a shout-out to A Storied Career as evidence that it’s “well established that being a good storyteller … Continue reading →

I learned yesterday that my book, Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling That Propels Careers, will be published by JIST Publishing.  The book was the non-scholarly companion to my doctoral dissertation, so I am thrilled to have it accepted for publication. A common goal of academics is to have their dissertation … Continue reading →

The Thank God It’s Monday newsletter from HumaNext/Communication Ideas suggests an exercise in which you ask yourself: What is the job you’d do for free? Asking that question, the newsletter says, is the path to discovering one’s life’s work, calling — or “genius,” providing the inquirer with these benefits: You … Continue reading →

From Dick Gaither, the Wizard of Work, an expert in work search training and trainer of job-search trainers, comes a set of questions for identifying accomplishments stories to use in job interviews (and resumes and cover letters for that matter). One of the most important questions any job applicant has … Continue reading →

Visit The Mistake Bank Such a serendipitous chain of events … a story, if you will … On Monday, I blogged about reconnecting with the Ning social networking group, Worldwide Story Work. While I was reconnecting, I posted a blog entry to Worldwide Story Work about an upcoming project in … Continue reading →