Tell a Short Story about Yourself

Have you heard this old marketing tip: “Facts tell but stories sell.”

In fact, a job interview is nothing but a market where you can sell yourself. By practicing this tip in responding to interview questions, you should always expand on your answer and offer specific examples wherever possible. When preparing interview, you need to craft the answers with a short story that gives specific examples of your experiences. However, your story must be short because you don’t want to ramble or take up too much time, so that your story should be brief but still make your point.

For instance, an interviewer asked, “Have you ever dealt with database crush?” You may answer, “Yes, our database crushes a lot, I know how to deal with it”. That might be a correct answer, but not a good one. You really should take this opportunity to sell your database backup/recovery skills. A better answer could be:

“Yes, as the DBA I deal with database issues on daily bases. I’ve developed a robust Oracle backup and recovery plan and procedure for dealing with unexpected database problems. In fact our database crushed last Monday due to network infrastructure upgrade, but I was able to recover all the data from redo logs within an hour. I have the skills and experience to recover database crush with minimum business interruption.”

In today’s IT job market, often dozens of highly qualified candidates fight for each opening. What should you do? You must try whatever make you stand out and be remembered. One way is to tell a short, impressive, and accountable story, that should greatly increase your odds of getting the job offer.