See a photo of Jane, her bio, Part 1 of this Q&A, and Part 2.
Q&A with Jane Freese, Question 3:
Q: Your discovery of applied storytelling for business and job search sounds a lot like mine in that it came about during an academic program. Can you tell that story and the story of how you developed that knowledge into a workshop?
A: I took a course in storytelling for information professionals through University of North Texas. It was my last semester. I didn’t expect that storytelling could be applied to job seeking. I found, to my surprise, a tremendous amount of information about storytelling in business.
Interviewers want to know who you are. Storytelling is a wonderful tool for
making job applicants memorable. Facts can be presented on the resume and application, but the cover letter and interview is a job-seeker’s opportunity to create a more rounded representation of his or her values, experience, and character.
Books by Katharine Hansen, Stephen Denning, Robin Fisher Roffer, and Annette Simmons were helpful in developing the objectives for my workshop. By using examples from the life stories of people such as Nelson Mandela, Harlan Ellison, and Ida B. Wells, to name a few, I advance five storytelling objectives:
Identify emblematic moments for use in telling a story.
- The value of using details in storytelling.
- The value of being authentic.
- Acknowledging lessons learned.
- How stories can implicitly reveal a person’s character.