While behavior-based responses are especially well suited to storytelling, you can tell stories in response to many other types of interview questions. One of these is the “question” that lends this book its title, “Tell me about yourself,” which career writers Shelly Goldman and Wendy Enelow suggest is a great question to be asked because it “gives the candidate total control of the interview process” and is “a wonderful vehicle to build rapport.” Having interviewed 66 corporate human-resources executives, recruiters, hiring managers, and career experts for their book, Insider’s Guide to Finding a Job, Goldman and Enelow learned that those who make hiring decisions often like to learn some personal information about candidates. Thus, in the sample responses to “Tell me about yourself” that follow in upcoming entries, you’ll find several instances of a more personal approach.

With storytelling well established as a way of responding to behavior-based questions, at least one scholarly study (by Ralston, Kirkwood, and Burant in 2003) focuses on how to measure and improve the quality of stories told in the interview. The authors present a set of criteria for an effective story to be used in a job interview:

• Internal consistency: Is the story cohesive? Does it avoid confusion and disjunction? Is the narrative consistent with the skills, abilities, and values the job-seeker wants to portray?


• Consistency with facts the listener knows to be true: Does the story conform to what the interviewer is likely to have experienced or knows about the environment the job-seeker is describing? Is it familiar and believable?


• Relevance to question asked and claim being made: In essence, does the story answer the question being asked? Does it provide appropriate evidence to support the skill, ability, knowledge, or characteristic the job-seeker is claiming?


• Univocality: Is the story unambiguous? Does it lead to just a single conclusion or interpretation?


• Detail that supports the claim being made: Is the story revealing? Does it, in the words of Ralston, Kirkwood, and Burant, "provide telling details of plot, characterization, and action that enable listeners to see for themselves what the point is?"


• Reflection of the job-seeker's values, beliefs, sense of self/others, or emotional outlook: Does the job-seeker tell the story with sufficient passion so that it conveys a real sense of the applicant and how he or she might fit in with the employer's organization?

SOAR: Situation, Obstacle, Action, Result

Situation: I once received a call from a patient who had a brain tumor for which he needed a very expensive and hard-to-get medication. In addition, he was having all sorts of insurance billing problems. He was literally driving from pharmacy to pharmacy looking to see which one had the medication in stock, but he had no luck. Obstacle: I called a couple of pharmacies for him and was able to locate one; however, its satellite link went down, and the pharmacy refused to dispense the medication without successfully billing the patient’s insurance company electronically. Normally we have nurses on call 24/7 for emergencies like this; however, I knew a company nurse would have told the patient to pay the several thousand dollars at the initial pharmacy I had found and seek reimbursement. There is no contingency for patients who don’t have the money. Action: After a very exhaustive search, I located a specialty drug supplier that agreed to have the medication delivered by private carrier overnight. I gave the patient my personal cell number and asked him to call me if he did not receive his medication within 24 hours. Result: A day later, I received a call from the patient’s mother, thanking me for helping her son get the medication he needed for his brain tumor.

STAR: Situation, Task, Action, Result

Situation: Our company had just won a major outsourcing contract, resulting in spinning off 2,600 employees into a subsidiary within the parent organization. Task: The company needed to develop an entire set of HR processes for this new subsidiary. Action: I identified and developed all the processes, and then I created a resource intranet site containing powerful text and visuals illustrating the final version of all processes. I used the intranet site as the basis of a comprehensive training program for the spin-off company’s HR team. Result: The site became an ongoing reference tool to use long after the training. Having a documented process has been a valuable tool for the HR team. Corporate auditors can clearly see that we have defined and followed our processes.

Another possible formula for telling stories in an interview is what scholars Sandra Morgan and Robert Dennehy describe as “the traditional framework of universal steps displayed in myths, hero stories, classic fairy tales, ethnic stories, and many of your own family stories.” The authors cite these “five sequential components” in a good story: (a) setting, (b) build-up (“trouble’s coming”), (c) crisis or climax, (d) learning, and (e) new behavior or awareness; in other words, “What did you learn?” and “How did you change?”

Example:

Setting: One of my customers wanted to get involved with digital printing, and since I knew our company had the technology and the capabilities, I set up a meeting to discuss this new technology. Build-up: I pulled all the sales sheets from the intranet, gathered up samples, and prepared for my big opportunity. As I prepared, I made an initial call to the VP of Sales for that particular business unit and let him know I had set this meeting to discuss the digital products. Crisis or climax: What I did not know was that the customer was eager to proceed with this technology. The morning of the meeting, the customer had called in its own clients to lay out the project and launch date. As I walked into the meeting and the questions started, I knew I needed some help. Learning: I explained to the group that I wanted to get the correct answers to these technical questions and would they mind if I brought in the VP of that division. After a few minutes, I was able to track down the VP, and we succeeded in pulling together the resources and staff to immediately start working on this project. The reps from the client company were very impressed with the fact that I admitted I did not have all the answers and that I wanted to make sure they received the right information. I learned that it’s best to be forthcoming and not try to fake my way through an important meeting or presentation. New behavior or awareness: We are now producing monthly programs for this client using the digital print technology, and revenue for 2005 was $100,000 and projected at $200,000 for 2006. I’ve subsequently made it a point to anticipate contingencies better than I did in that situation - but also to know that I can bring in other resources when I have gaps in my knowledge.

SCARQ: Situation, Challenge, Action, Result, Quantified

Situation: I had recently changed stores and become the new store’s manager. Challenge: The store had never had engaged in community involvement or support and therefore had a rather tarnished image at the corporate level because the company is very committed to giving back to the community. Action: I met with my staff and challenged to them to come up with a relatively high-profile idea that would help the community. Under my leadership, the staff and I decided to raise money to buy high-tech fire helmets that would allow fire fighters to see through the smoke. Result: We met our fund-raising goal and earned a lot of positive press in the local community. Quantified: The $10,000 we raised was more money than had ever been raised by any store in the chain.

Situation: A major bicycle corporation had been trying to collaborate with the state bicycling organization to create and establish a 25-unit bike path signage program. Hindrance: Because no one really knew how to get the program off the ground, it had been stalled for three years with no action. Action: I joined the committee overseeing the project and immediately brought a fresh perspective to the group. I researched signs I saw in another community and talked with manufacturers in the field. I ensured competitive pricing for the signs and suggested solutions for weather protection and anti-graffiti measures. Results: The sign program was implemented just six months after I joined the committee. Evaluation: I see these signs everywhere I go, and it gives me joy to see them. They bear testimony to my ability to execute a vision and get things done.

Situation: Before I started in my most recent position, the city was paying a block premium rate to keep insurance companies in the black. When I came on board, I sought and demanded a full eligibility audit on enrollment figures. Impact: This sole action generated immediate cost savings in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. I received public recognition for this action by the mayor and before the city council. I also discovered that other standard cost-containment strategies were never incorporated into benefit plans, which always made the city the primary carrier. I introduced a policy that eliminated this practice, which also positively impacted the city’s benefit cost outlays. Analysis: Having gotten these costs under control, I could focus on optimizing benefits packages for city employees.

Situation and More: When I worked as a data-entry examiner in health-insurance claims, I was measured on two metrics, production and quality. My production was excellent; I keyed as much as 180 percent above expectations. However, my quality, as measured by keystroke error was always dipping below the 98.5 percent level of acceptance, and I was not satisfied with that performance. Action: I started to look for ways to work smarter. I learned to develop the habit of copying and pasting quickly. I developed macros and hot keys for repetitive keystrokes, and I trained myself to slow down when I started keying complicated information such as letter and number combinations. Result: As a result of these improvements, my manager and I both observed a steady increase in my quality; I began to hit 100 percent every month. Tie-in (which SMART originator Susan Britton Whitcomb describes as a theme or pattern that can link to key components the employer seeks, as well as communicate enthusiasm or job knowledge): This result set a pattern for my career in which I never had to settle for less than exceptional performance because I knew I could always find ways to improve.

PAR: Problem, Action Result
Problem: My marketing plan for the admissions office of my college included placing some advertising in national print media, but we didn’t have the financial resources to make that happen.
Action: I knew that one of our corporate partners wanted to promote its diversity initiatives. I proposed we develop a print advertising campaign co-branding the recruiting message.
Result: The final pieces delivered dual messages of recruitment for prospective students and recruitment/placement of potential diverse employees. Through this campaign, both messages were successfully received with increased admission interest and placement at the company. The project also launched more advertising initiatives at the school.

PARLA: Problem, Action, Result, Learning, Application
Problem: During my Peace Corps experience as a volunteer in Guatemala, absolutely nothing ever went right. From no water and electricity for three weeks to getting to the health center on time by foot, donkey ride, and a canoe - to weighing a baby on a fish scale, hanging the scale from a thatched roof, and the roof coming down on me. Or putting on a conference in rural Guatemala and only one nurse shows up, and only briefly, too!
Action: I adjusted my attitude. I learned to adapt to conditions unlike anything I was accustomed to. I made up my mind to embrace the reality of life in Guatemala and the needs of those I served.
Result: Despite the frustrations, I began to make a difference in people’s lives. For example, along with my team, I helped to ensure that more native children received inoculations against disease. The next time I put on a conference, I had learned enough about communicating with the local population to assure better attendance.
Learning: I learned that expectations sometimes lead to disappointment and that I need to keep my expectations realistic. I bring that philosophy to all aspects of my life, especially blind dates, and live by the divine principle that everything happens for a reason, and 99 percent of the time, it is to learn a life lesson from it.
Application: Now, when I facilitate a meeting of professionals, and certain individuals show up and some do not, I don’t get upset as much because the energy of those who attend enhances my facilitation and helps me learn.

SAR: Situation, Action, Result
Situation: Recently my firm was facing a huge turnover problem, especially in our technical staff because of lack of growth within the organization. No defined path was shared with the employees. To address the situation, I not only had a huge task of defining grades and identifying and compartmentalizing our employees’ growth needs but also a race against time.
Action: I knew the tasks would be time consuming, but I set a deadline for each piece. I aggressively collected information on the employee growth needs by sending questionnaires via emails and reaching out to the workforce. I compiled the data and determined short-term and long-term achievable goals. I developed a small-projects subset of the bigger project. I designed a system so that we could track each other’s project and meet every day. The most prominent finding was lack of challenge at work. I decided to implement a leadership program, effectively identifying the top 10 to 25 percent of workers suitable for the program based on the performance reviews, peer-reviews, and qualifications. I set an aggressive target of 15 days each for each zone to complete this part of the survey.
Result: I met the deadlines, and by the end of a second month, we were ready with the budget for the training program, targeted pilot training group, location, and a trainer selected. We rolled out our first training on effective leadership, and by the end of the quarter, data showed that employees were now engaged and challenged. As a result, turnover was cut in half.

Career experts frequently advise job-seekers to structure their stories based on the same formulas, expressed as acronyms, suggested in Chapter 2 as overall structures for developing career stories:

CAR: Challenge, Action, Result
Challenge: In my last leadership role, we had a challenge with our receiving process. It would take five shipping-and-receiving associates about two days to process an average-sized shipment. I quickly recognized that with the holidays approaching, the size of our shipments would double, and our process had to change.
Action: First, I addressed the overall stockroom organization and completely overhauled it. I collaborated with my stockroom manager to organize and label all products in every row. I directed rows to be organized by type of product. We were then able to sort boxes of product as they came off the trucks according to which row they went into. We had stockroom associates in each row and a runner who could carry boxes of product to their designated row.
Result: Receiving time was cut from two to three days to less than six hours from the time the truck hit the dock.

CCAR: Context, Challenge, Action, Result
Context: After Hurricane Katrina, our company was down for weeks. Challenge: My subordinates are commissioned employees who still needed to collect a paycheck. Our print shop was up and running; however, the post office was not equipped to handle bulk mail, which is how our newspaper is distributed on Wednesdays. On weekends, our paper is distributed to stores. At this time we were doing neither.
Action: I suggested to the publisher that we distribute the paper to stores on Wednesdays. We all collaborated to come up with selling points for advertisers; for example, offering special discount to roofers, carpenters, and lawn-maintenance businesses in our services-offered advertising section.
Result: Revenue started flowing again, and my team members got paid.

Typically, career experts advise candidates to respond to behavioral-interview questions with stories. "Your examples are best told through a story format," writes Carole Martin in Boost Your Interview I.Q. "The more interesting and relevant the story is, the more the interviewer will want to hear further examples."

And just what is a behavioral interview? In use for about the last two decades, it's a behavior-based interview approach that increasing numbers of employers are using to screen job candidates. The premise behind behavioral interviewing is that the most accurate predictor of future performance is past performance in similar situations. Behavioral interviewing, in fact, is said to be up to seven times more accurate than traditional interviewing, according to Schmidt and Conaway in their book Results-Oriented Interviewing: Principles, Practices, and Procedures.

Behavioral-based interviewing is touted as providing a more objective set of facts to make employment decisions than other interviewing methods. Traditional interview questions ask you general questions such as "Why should we hire you?" The process of behavioral interviewing is much more probing and works very differently.

In a traditional job-interview, you can usually get away with telling the interviewer what he or she wants to hear, even if you are fudging a bit on the truth. Even if you are asked situational questions that start out "How would you handle XYZ situation?" you have minimal accountability. How does the interviewer know, after all, if you would really react in a given situation the way you say you would? In a behavioral interview, however, it's much more difficult to give responses that are untrue to your character. When you start to tell a behavioral story, the behavioral interviewer typically will pick it apart to try to get at the specific behavior(s). The interviewer will probe further for more depth or detail such as "What were you thinking at that point?" or "Tell me more about your meeting with that person," or "Who were the other people on the team?" or "Lead me through your decision process." If you've told a story that's anything but totally honest, your response will not hold up through the barrage of probing questions.

Employers use the behavioral interview technique to evaluate a candidate's experiences and behaviors so they can determine the applicant's potential for success. The interviewer identifies job-related experiences, behaviors, knowledge, skills, and abilities that the company has decided are desirable in a particular position and then structures very pointed questions to elicit detailed responses aimed at determining if the candidate possesses the desired characteristics. Questions (often not even framed as a question) typically start out: "Tell about a time..." or "Describe a situation..." Clearly, these questions call for stories in response.

"Evidence shows that behavioral description questions require respondents to tell stories and that storytelling is now critical to applicants' success in employment interviews," write scholars Ralston, Kirkwood, and Burant, whose research in Business Communication Quarterly (2003) of other academic studies of storytelling in behavioral interviewing suggests that stories told in interviews garner attention, serve as a way to make the applicant memorable, and describe past behavior in an appealing way.

Unlike with resumes, cover letters, networking, and portfolios, the integration of story with employment interviewing has been a well-known and highly touted technique for some time. Career author Frank Traditi, who titles his article on the subject, “Why Storytellers Get the Job they Want,” recommends success stories about overcoming significant challenges.

In focus-group research conducted for this book, participants were asked to evaluate a set of story-based interview responses compared with responses that did not contain stories. Of participants preferring the storied responses, comments included:

• The story responses presented more information.
• The story responses incorporated the job-seeker’s personal style into handling business.
• The job-seeker who gave the story responses communicated/sold herself in a very positive light.
• The storytelling respondent was the more memorable candidate since “I would have had more time to get to know her through her answers and the time I spent with her.”
• The story responses were quite the opposite of those without stories in that the storytelling job-seeker expressed herself in a “colorful” manner. She incorporated into her stories terms that employers like to hear during an interview - reliable, trustworthy, loyal, team player, creative.
• The storytelling responses allowed the interviewer to see how the job-seeker took on a task and handled it.
• The non-story responses, although concise, did not impress upon the interviewer how the job-seeker could benefit the organization, nor did they provide a sense of his personal style and ways of handling the day-to-day situations that may arise.

The one caution these participants had about the storied responses was to make them as concise as possible and not too wordy. Participants wanted details - but not too many. “Although one does not want to go overboard when talking about [oneself],” one participant said, “it is important to incorporate the needs of the employer with the qualities of person being interviewed.”

• Barrett, H. C.: Electronic portfolios as digital stories of deep learning
• Nelles, Rick. (2001). Proof of Performance: How to Build a Career Portfolio to Land a Great New Job. Manassas Park, VA: Impact Publications.
• Quintessential Careers: Career Portfolio Tools and Resources for Job-Seekers
• Satterthwaite, Frank & Gary D’Orsi (2003). The Career Portfolio Workbook. New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Wortmann, Craig: Beyond bits and bullets: Turning strategy into action through stories. WisdomTools.

In response to the types of questions below, present artifacts that show your creativity and innovation.

• Have you found any ways to make school or a job easier or more rewarding or to make yourself more effective?


• Give me a specific example of something you did that helped build enthusiasm in others.


• Give me an example of a time you had to persuade other people to take action. Were you successful?


• Give me a specific example of a time when you sold your supervisor or professor on an idea or concept. How did you proceed? What was the result?


• Tell me about a time when you came up with an innovative solution to a challenge your company/class/organization was facing. What was the challenge? What role did others play?

In response to the types of questions below, walk the interviewer through the presentation, perhaps showing the PowerPoint slides you developed, visual aids you used, and photos of the actual presentation.

• What has been your experience in giving presentations? What has been your most successful experience in speech making?


• Describe the most significant or creative presentation that you have had to complete.

In response to the type of question below, show an artifact that illustrates exceptional effort.

• Tell me about a time when you had to go above and beyond the call of duty in order to get a job done.

In response to the types of questions below, show project deliverables, timelines, photos, praise from supervisors, any awards earned.

• Recall a time when you were assigned what you considered to be a complex project. Specifically, what steps did you take to prepare for and finish the project? Were you happy with the outcome? What one step would you have done differently if given the chance?


• What was the most complex assignment you have had? What was your role?


• Describe some projects or ideas (not necessarily your own) that were implemented, or carried out successfully primarily because of your efforts.

In response to the type of question below, show a project sample with the accompanying piece of written communication.

• Describe a time when you had to use your written communication skills to get an important point across.

In response to the types of questions below, present artifacts that illustrate your decision-making skills.

• Give an example of a time in which you had to be relatively quick in coming to a decision.


• Give me an example of a time you had to make an important decision. How did you make the decision? How does it affect you today?


• Tell me about a time when you had to make a decision, but didn't have all the information you needed.

In response to the types of questions below, show two or three diverse artifacts that illustrate your adaptability and multi-tasking skills.

• By providing examples, convince me that you can adapt to a wide variety of people, situations and environments.
• Tell of some situations in which you have had to adjust quickly to changes over which you had no control. What was the impact of the change on you?
• Describe a situation that required a number of things to be done at the same time. How did you handle it? What was the result?
• Tell me about a time you had to handle multiple responsibilities. How did you organize the work you needed to do?
• Describe the system you use for keeping track of multiple projects. How do you track your progress so that you can meet deadlines? How do you stay focused?

In response to the types of questions below, show the interviewer the research you've compiled on the organization. Obviously, you need to tailor this portfolio section to each employer you interview with. This intelligence-gathering will demonstrate you've done your homework. If asked about suggestions for the organization, you can be prepared to point to your research as you share a few ideas for the employer.

• Tell me what you know about our company.


• Why did you decide to seek a position in this company?


• What suggestions do you have for our organization?

In response to the types of questions below, point to artifacts that illustrate your problem-solving skills.

• Tell me about a major problem you recently handled. Were you successful in resolving it?


• Give me a specific example of a time when you used good judgment and logic in solving a problem.


• Describe a time when you were faced with problems or stresses that tested your coping skills.


• What steps do you follow to study a problem before making a decision?


• We can sometimes identify a small problem and fix it before it becomes a major problem. Give an example(s) of how you have done this.


• Describe a specific problem you solved for your employer or professor. How did you approach the problem? What role did others play? What was the outcome?

In response to the type of question below, show artifacts that illustrate your best selling points and why the interviewer should hire you over any other candidate.

• Given the investment our company will make in hiring and training you, can you give us a reason to hire you?

In response to the type of question below, show artifacts that illustrate successful team projects.

• How would you describe yourself in terms of your ability to work as a member of a team?

In response to the types of questions below, show artifacts that demonstrate the qualifications and personal characteristics that will enable you to succeed in your chosen career.

• Do you have the qualifications and personal characteristics necessary for success in your chosen career?


• What quality or attribute do you feel will most contribute to your career success?

In response to the types of questions below, take the employer through a success story illustrated in your portfolio.

• How do you determine or evaluate success? Give me an example of one of your successful accomplishments.


• What has been your most rewarding accomplishment?


• What is the most significant contribution you made to the company during a past job?

In response to the type of question below, show artifacts that demonstrate the skills and accomplishments that are keys to success in your chosen career.

• What do you think it takes succeed in this career?

In response to the types of questions below, show artifacts that demonstrate the skills and accomplishments that are foundational to reaching your goals.

• What will it take to attain your goals, and what steps have you taken toward attaining them?


• Describe what you've accomplished toward reaching a recent goal for yourself.


• Give me an example of an important goal that you had set in the past and tell me about your success in reaching it.

Next in the series showing how a portfolio can be used to tell stories in response to specific job-interview questions:

In response to the types of questions below, show artifacts representing the origins of your interest in your career, perhaps through a class, organization, project, or person.

• What influenced you to choose this career?
• Why did you decide to seek a position in this field?

With today's entry we begin a series showing how a portfolio can be used to tell stories in response to specific job-interview questions.

In response to the types of questions below, show examples of school projects with real-world applications, as well as other evidence of student success (transcripts, awards, descriptions of extracurricular activities, etc).

• How has your college experience prepared you for this career?


• How will the academic program and coursework you've taken benefit your career?


• Which college classes or subjects did you like best? Why?


• Are you the type of student for whom conducting independent research has been a positive experience?


• Describe the type of professor that has created the most beneficial learning experience for you.


• Do you think that your grades are an indication of your academic achievement?


• Give an example of how you applied knowledge from previous coursework to a project in another class.


• What are your standards of success in school? What have you done to meet these standards?

These days, it’s not easy for the jobless to stand out from one another. Even those lucky enough to land interviews have a tough time making themselves memorable to hiring managers. That’s why some individuals have turned to extreme job-hunting tactics.

From wearing sandwich boards that announce their job objective to sending singing telegrams into target companies, job seekers are getting pretty creative in their pursuit of jobs. And while these strategies certainly get job seekers noticed, they haven’t won the support of many career experts. Katharine Hansen, author of the recently released book Tell Me About Yourself, believes there are better ways to make a positive, lasting impression in the job hunt.

“Extreme job-hunting is risky because it smacks of desperation,” Hansen says. “While employers in this economy can understand the desperation, many simply won’t respond favorably to extreme tactics, thus ultimately rendering them less effective.”

Instead, she encourages the job seekers she counsels to stand out through storytelling. “Rather than deploying far-out approaches, job-seekers can turn to a technique almost as old as human history—storytelling. Most job-seekers know they can use stories to respond to interview questions, but they don’t realize they can also apply stories in resumes, cover letters, portfolios and in networking to make themselves memorable and create vivid pictures of their skills and accomplishments.”

According to Hansen, an engaging, articulate story about an actual experience can do a handful of things a sandwich board or singing telegram cannot, including:

• Establish your identity
• Reveal your personality
• Boost your confidence
• Make you memorable
• Establish trust
• Illustrate your potential
• Provide explanations
• Reveal your response to change
• Demonstrate your communication skills

“Consider that many job seekers vying for the same position you seek probably have qualifications that are similar to yours. But will they be describing those qualifications to employers in evocative story form? Probably not. If you do, you’ll distinguish yourself from those who seek to sell themselves to employers in less engaging ways,” notes Hansen.

Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career is available at all major bookstores and from the publisher (www.jist.com or 1.800.648.JIST). The author, Katharine Hansen, is immediately available for print, broadcast and online interviews. To speak with her, contact Selena Dehne.

JIST Publishing is the leading publisher of job search, career, and occupational information materials. As America’s Career Publisher, JIST has helped millions of people focus their education and career goals to achieve success in the world of work and beyond. JIST’s authors are the nation’s leading experts in the fields of job search and career information.

Interviewer: Are you a team player?

Lani: Yes. Let me show you an example in my portfolio. I was project coordinator for the Arizona State Lupus Control Program, and Arizona had never had a lupus grant. A $60,000 grant (including my salary) funded the 25-member advisory committee I formed to write a Lupus state plan. My vision was to integrate a team of professionals and heal lupus in Arizona by interweaving Western medicine with Eastern and Native American medicine. [opens portfolio and shows photos of diverse individuals collaborating with each other] I gathered, interviewed, and invited physicians, Native American healers, chiropractors, Reiki masters, orthopedic surgeons, the chief of military medicine physicians, senators, private researchers, professors, and physicians to join together to heal Arizonans by integrating healing and medicine [shows copy of the Lupus state plan]. I led the writing of the plan, which was distributed to the legislature and the U.S Congress. Our U.S. senator wrote a letter [shows copy of letter] praising the plan’s philosophy.

Use your portfolio to tell stories in response to questions about specific problems and work situations, answering the questions while showcasing corresponding work from the portfolio. “The portfolio can be used more to highlight an example of a topic or question in the interview,” states a career expert from the Quintessential Careers research. “The candidate should think of the individual parts of the portfolio as examples in the interview, rather than trying to incorporate the whole portfolio to be worked in somewhere. I think of the portfolio in the interview as a teaser. Once you pull out something as an example, then I might wonder, ‘what else do you have in that portfolio’ Then I want to definitely see it, or at least more of it.”

Be proactive in presenting your portfolio to interviewers in response to interview questions. You can begin your responses to many interview questions by saying, “Let me show you an example in my portfolio of exactly what you’re asking about…” Don’t overdo it, though; time is often constrained for interviews, so limit your portfolio presentations to responses that illustrate your best and most relevant skills and accomplishments.

Job-seekers can use a print portfolio in job interviews to showcase a point and illustrate the depth of skills and experience using storytelling. Presenting part of your portfolio is especially useful at the beginning of the interview, particularly in your storied response to the “tell me about yourself” “question.

Example:
Interviewer: Tell me about yourself.

Keith: After graduating from high school, I began attending the local community college. After about a year I became very bored. I was also very lonely because all of my friends had moved away. I realized that I was growing restless and could no longer focus on my classes. I decided that it was time for a change. I withdrew from all my classes, and gave all of my clothing to my friends and the local thrift store. [opening his portfolio to a page of colorful travel photos] I bought a one-way ticket to Hong Kong and broke the news to my parents who understandably were dumbfounded. Within two weeks of making my decision, I was on my way to Hong Kong. I had no plan and no luggage except for a small school backpack. [pointing to photos that illustrate his adventures] For nine months I traveled around Southeast Asia and experienced adventure after adventure - from trekking in the Himalayas to appearing in a Thai movie and sitcom [pointing to photos that show those specific experiences], I experienced more then most people experience in a lifetime, all at the age of 18. Looking back on the whole experience, I still find it hard to believe that I did it. I now know that I am capable of doing just about anything I put my mind to and that I have no problem with stepping out of my comfort zone.

The day is finally here. My book, Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career, is released today. The blog you’re a reading serializes an earlier edition of the book. This content is similar, but the book is new and improved.

Here’s a description from the publisher:

With layoffs on the rise and the job market flooded with competition, individuals can no longer rely on traditional methods to yield career success. Now, more than ever, they must turn to strategies their competitors have not yet discovered.

Such groundbreaking strategies are packed into Katharine Hansen’s release, Tell Me About Yourself. This innovative guidebook unveils how to use the incredible power of storytelling for career advancement.

Echoing the most commonly asked job-interview question, Tell Me About Yourself shows readers how to answer that question — and all others — in a way that conveys a true sense of who they are and what value they offer the employer.

This book also introduces storytelling as the key to excelling in other job search activities, such as writing resumes and cover letters, networking, creating portfolios, and developing a personal brand. Readers learn how to execute these crucial steps impressively and successfully. Hansen also teaches readers how to use storytelling on the job to capitalize on opportunities to advance throughout their career.

The book’s mission: To guide job-seekers in a powerful use of storytelling — telling stories to advance your career, whether by moving up in your current organization or landing a job in a new organization.

Hope you’ll consider joining the book’s fan page on Facebook.

You can order the book here.