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 to answer during the interview is the behavioral question “Can you describe your most notable professional or work-related achievement(s)?”

This question poses a couple of problems for many job-seekers. First, too many interviewees are uncomfortable talking about their achievements and feel like they’re “bragging.” A fact isn’t bragging! If you’ve had a hand in any type of work-related accomplishment or achievement, it’s not bragging … it’s a fact … once you can support it!

Our second problem is that too many employees overlook their small accomplishments and think the interviewer is only looking for big achievements. Don’t think an achievement has to be humongous to get an employer’s attention (Saved the company $10 million). Most of us haven’t been in a position to generate anything close to an earth-shattering, multi-million dollar achievement. But, we’ve all had the opportunity to have a hand creating any number of small, work-related accomplishments and achievements, such as: improving safety, doing the job quicker, saving money, improving customer service, etc. But just telling the interviewer you had an achievement isn’t enough. The interviewer wants a complete story. This seven-step questioning process I use with job seekers has proven to be a big help getting people to comfortably talk their achievements in the interview:

1. Describe an achievement
2. What was your role in the achievement?
3. What problems were you trying to solve?
4. How did your involvement benefit the company?
5. How did your involvement benefit your co-workers?
6. How did your involvement benefit customers?
7. What three key skills did you use in achieving this success?

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 which I am conducting Q&As with gurus of the storytelling world (I am officially announcing the project here on A Storied Career this month).

John Caddell wrote to me about the blog posting. Though he claimed not to be a guru, he was interested in doing a Q&A. The idea with the Q&As is to ask some general questions but also a couple of questions tailored specifically to the interviewee. To compose specific questions, I usually start with a book or Web site written by the interviewee.

John Caddell’s e-mail said his site was called The Mistake Bank. Intrigued, I visited The Mistake Bank, which is also a Ning social networking group and “a place to share stories of mistakes people have made in their lives and careers.”

What an awesome idea! Here are career stories we can really learn from. Lord knows, I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my career. Caddell writes:

The Mistake Bank idea came out of trying to create a story library of mistakes that people could consult when they underwent some change – say, a large investment, a new company, a new job, etc. And where people who were retiring could leave a bit of a legacy. Now that it’s in place and starting to grow, I’m finding, not surprisingly, that there are all sorts of interesting side benefits as well.

If I may preview a piece of one of John’s responses to the Q&A (which will appear in early October), he describes one of those side benefits:

As far as side benefits, when someone (especially someone prominent) admits to a mistake, it has this neat result of making him/her human to the rest of us. “Hey, she may be a world-renowned organizational-behavior expert, but she messes up just like the rest of us.” I think that’s beneficial to the workplace, and to society.