The Fearsome Job Interview

The Fearsome Job Inerview

     Job interviews can be terrifying process', however there is a little known skill set that can assist all you job hunters out there as you begin your quest for a potential career. What I'm talking about is narrative. Narrative can be used as a skill set for all of you to use in order to sell yourselves as the best possible version, and fall upon your interview as a storm of charm and capability. 

     The above statement, might seem confusing to most of you non-English majors out there, so first I will take a moment to explain what it is I mean by narrative as a skill. Narrative and what most people call storytelling are fairly synonymous. It is a skill used for crafting a story. Now first cast out all the bias that arises from this statement, storytelling goes much further beyond the telling of ghost stories around fires, in it's most simplistic definition narrative is successfully relaying information in a manner that is pleasing and enjoyable. In relation to the Interview, what it will mean to all of you students looking to enter a career, specifically is relaying information about you in a manner that is confident, pleasing and presented in such a way that all of the best qualities about you that are being sought are appropriately illuminated, through speech and body language. There will be no information here about resume's due to the fact that everyone and their dog already has an internet post on constructing a proper resume. 

     Finally, before jumping straight into How to use narrative as a skill set, some of you might be questioning, why narrative as a skill set is useful in a business world? It's a fair question, corporations run off of numbers and computers, where is the importance of the word in all of this? The answer is simple, communication, "all forms of human communication are essentially stories" states Chulguen Yang in his article Telling Tales at Work: An Evolutionary Explanation written for the Business Communication Quarterly. In this article he researches, and examines that human evolution has distanced itself from that of all other creatures due to the fact that we have the ability to create rule based communication and fiction. Later moving on he examines that storytelling is firmly rooted in the evolution of the human brain, and because of this it has become an integral part of how we think and communicate. Meaning that all aspects of human life relate to storytelling in some form or another, which is why you must cast away your bias, because storytelling is not always spinning tales. It is creating meaning in words, the subtle nuances of language and tone that convey various meanings to both the speaker and the listener. How exaggerating one word over another creates sarcasm or obedience. That is why narrative as a skill set is important, you want your potential employer to see you as the best possible candidate, your boss to see you as the one who should get that promotion, and your clients to see you as the best possible option. All of this can be done through mastery of narrative, because mastery of narrative gives you a mastery over language.

     Took long enough but now it is time to examine how narrative can positively effect your future job interviews. One final warning however, as mentioned above, narrative does not mean telling stories, which means while exaggeration can be used in moderation, never, ever lie on a resume or in an interview. A practiced interviewer can spot this immediately, and if not background checks are run on most if not all applicants that a company desires to hire, before the process of it begins, and if your story doesn't hold out under scrutiny, you will never be hired. Most would see that as common knowledge but you would be surprised how many people attempt this regularly. 

     Enough sidetracking, on-wards to narrative in the interview. First, during introductions. Storytelling goes beyond simple word structures, sometimes costumes and acting need to be used, the story of you as an applicant begins with your appearance. Appear in the costume and character of you who already has the job, probably sounds familiar but bears repeating. Wear a nice button up shirt, preferably freshly ironed that morning, its easy to do and takes only about five minutes and its worth it for your appearance, a pair of nice dress slacks or skirt, dress shoes and socks and preferably some sort of jacket or blazer. Personal appearance is important too, put some time into your appearance, comb your hair, brush your teeth, all that good stuff. Because just like in a story, you first need to develop a character. However looking nice isn't the only part of first impressions, body language is also an important part of your character, no slouching, wandering eyes, or weak handshakes, present yourself as confident and personable, walk with purpose as you approach the interviewer, look then in the eye and give them a firm handshake, and most importantly, don't forget to smile. All of this may seem like advice your mother would give you, and this is true, your parents have gone through this all before, their not just being bothersome, they are trying to give you insight. Simple as it all sounds, it works, as most people have heard at some point, the first impression is the most important, after you start on this good foot, you need to keep progressing on it, in order to complete a successful interview. 

     As you proceed past the introductions, you must be extra careful about your speech and voice. In order to maintain the appearance of calm professionalism, it is important to form productive speech habits, the most important of all is eliminating the word like and the sound umm. Both of these words are verbal crutches, they make it appear as if you have no idea what you truly desire to say and need that few seconds given by these filler words in order to gather your thoughts. If you can eliminate these words from your speech patterns, it will make you both look and sound more appealing to your future employer. I will end the subject of speech here, since entire books could be written on the subject, however if you wish to learn about more useful speech patterns, check out the Ted talk given by Julian Treasure entitled How to speak so that people want to listen. There is a lot of useful tips he gives on how the subtle nuances of speech, an aspect of storytelling, can be used to present yourself in a better image.

     As you progress through your interview, storytelling begins to take on a role more similar to the bias you were asked to cast off. Most structured interviews will as what is called a past behavior question about what you did in a particular situation, in a collaborative piece for the Journal of Business & Psychology, authors Bangerter, Corvalan and Cavin examined how storytelling plays a large role in these situations. A past behavior question is meant to elicit an account of the applicants response to a particular situation, and "producing such an account involves telling an story about what one did in such a situation". As some applicants have different job experience, especially among fresh into the job market college students these can also consist of potential exeriences, like "Imagine you receive a phone call from a client who is angry about an error on their bill. What do you do in such a situation." ( Bangerter, Corvalan and Cavin 594). Here you must craft a story on how you would deal with this situation, by retaining the client, solving a problem and showing your interviewer how capable and calm under pressure you are as a worker. These behavioral questions are an important part of a job interview, for it gives the interviewer an insight into you both as a person and a worker, so it is vital that you can navigate this situation successfully and put forth the greatest image of yourself possible.

     Hopefully all you job hunters out there can see this and take away some insight and information that will assist you as you search for your career out there in the big wide world. If you did please leave me a comment on what helped/suggestions you have or email me at caf266@nau.edu. See you at work ; ).