GHDC: Your Interviews are NOT explaining your experience

Misconception #8: You Know How to Explain What You’ve Done

Picture this: You’re in a job interview with a hiring manager and they say, “I saw on your resume that you were the project lead for Project Dingus. Can you tell me more about that?” 

What are you going to say? Are you going to make something up real quick? Or maybe you have a great story about Project Dingus up your sleeve.

You look the hiring manager right in the eyes and say, “Uh… Yeah, I was the lead on Project Dingus. We got it done on time. It was pretty cool.”

Ouch.

Listen, I’m sure you’re smart and you’re telling the truth about everything on your resume. You probably really did maybe do an awesome job or something on that Project Dingus. In my experience, however, most people aren’t good at telling stories. And they’re really not good at seeing the larger story arcs in their own lives. You may be the exception, but don’t count on it. Candidates have to spend a lot of time thinking about how everything fits together and how to package that up into a story to share at an interview. 

For example, if an interviewer asked you to share the hardest problem you’ve had to solve in the last few years, would you be able to tell a compelling story? Would you be able to explain the importance of the task? Or even make your accomplishment sound important? A great candidate needs to sound like a great hire. Talking about all your previous work as though it’s no big deal or without any sort of connection to the overall team/department/company mission can make you sound disconnected from your work’s purpose.

Most hiring managers aren’t going to easily or quickly understand the impact of your prior work without you setting up a story. They’re going to need context, characters, drama, conflict, and resolution. I can’t tell you how many interviews I’ve conducted where I’ll ask for an explanation of something on the candidate’s resume.

But, man, that Project Dingus was pretty crazy amazing.

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