It’s becoming increasingly difficult to stand out when looking for a new job. You need strategies to come across as more credible and authentic than your competitors. You can achieve this by using storytelling in your resume, cover letter, and during your interview. Discover 4 simple steps that anyone can use to better present themselves to their future employer.
Why storytelling in your application?
Applying for a job is a tedious task for most people. Why make it even more difficult for yourself by coming up with a story?
Science shows that storytelling has a lot of benefits when applying for a new job:
- Emotional connection: Employers think they base their decisions purely on logic, but their emotions play just as big a role. Stories evoke emotions and help create a deeper connection with the recruiter or your new manager.
- Stand out: A good story makes your application stand out and stand out from other candidates. Compelling stories stimulate the production of dopamine in the brain, which helps the reader process information.
- Skills: Storytelling allows you to present your skills and experiences in a compelling way. Show, don’t tell is an important starting point here: don’t just say that you are good at XYZ, but also show it with a story.
- Influence: Stories can positively influence the recruiter’s opinion by creating empathy and understanding.
- Credibility: an authentic story makes you more credible and trustworthy. It is important to clearly create the context and to mention sufficient details. Something that comes out excellently in this famous scene out Reservoir Dogs (1992, Quentin Tarantino).
How does it work?
How can you best use storytelling in your application? Follow these 4 steps that will help you get closer to your next job.
1. Discover your target group: the employer
Always start with your target audience in mind and ask yourself the following questions:
- Who is reading my resume and cover letter? Who selects the candidates who are invited for an interview?
- What is happening in the organization and within the sector?
- What are the challenges and strengths of the organization?
- What specifically is requested in the vacancy text?
Try to find out what the problem is that you need to solve in your new role. Call the contact person, do research on LinkedIn, the organization’s website or the annual report. This will give you the necessary tools to come up with the basis of your story in step 2. The focus is on what you have to offer and how this fits the needs of the reader and the organization behind it.
These needs often come down to technical skills, but the required soft skills are also becoming increasingly important. Think of communication skills, innovative ability and creativity. They are usually neatly listed in the vacancy text. If necessary, let ChatGPT help you by asking which skills and competencies this employer is specifically looking for for this position.
How have you applied these competencies and skills in previous positions and with what results?
2. Your strong force
“The One Thing” by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan emphasizes the importance of focus and simplicity to achieve success. The key message of this book is that you can achieve extraordinary results by focusing on your most important task (your ‘One Thing’).
Apply this concept in your application as well. Why?
- It helps you focus your resume and cover letter
- It ensures that the employer will remember you among all other applications
So ask yourself this question:
If the employer has to remember one thing about you, what would it be?
A few examples of such an overarching theme in different sectors:
- Marketing: you are driven by innovation and growth
- Care: passion for helping others in a practical way
- Administration: love for accuracy without losing sight of the big picture
- Design: You put the customer first, but never lose sight of the most important business objectives in all the designs you create
- Sales: you know how to make products and services relevant to all your relations
Choose something that fits you AND the open position. This will be the theme of your story. All the experiences you mention in your resume, cover letter and during your interview should directly relate to this one idea and will convince the employer to hire you.
The example of a marketing employee can be further developed into the different parts of an application:
- Theme: You are driven by innovation and growth
- Cv: turnover will increase by 12% in 2023 due to an adjustment in the proposition
- Cover letter: explain in more detail what the challenge was, the context, stakeholders and the final solution
- Job interview: further explaining the above story in detail
3. The devil is in the details
When you create a good resume, you not only mention your job description, but also the results you have achieved, for example:
- Created a digital marketing campaign that led to a 12% increase in online sales in 2023
- Plan implemented to reduce supply chain costs by 25%
- Team of 4 led to achieve XYZ
This will quickly show that you are the right person for the intended position. It will also give you a nice stepping stone to weave this hard data with your personality into a story in your application letter (and during the job interview).
Setting, characters & problem
Whether you are just starting out or have years of experience, your story consists of 3 things:
- Setting: the place where your story takes place. Did you (co-)launch a product in a previous job? Your setting could be the market for this product. Or: what kind of department did you work in and what was your role in the organization?
- Characters: The people involved in and affected by your story’s main issue. Did you lead a team or have a major project? Did you work with vendors, volunteers, or interns? Stories with characters, with protagonists, demonstrably increase the production of oxytocinThis hormone has the power to influence our attitudes, beliefs and behavior.
- Problem: The issue that forces you and the other characters in your story to take action. What problem were you trying to solve together? It could be that your sales were plummeting. Or something simpler, like a disorganized process that needed to be optimized. Describing the conflict is crucial because it builds tension and raises the stakes.
Let the context sink in to give your potential manager or colleague a better understanding of how you work with others, approach challenging situations and solve problems.
4. You are the solution
Hopefully, you have captured the reader’s interest with the previous step. If you know exactly who the listener is (step 1), they will be genuinely curious about the outcome.
Now it’s time to be the hero and tell how you resolved the conflict. This is the part of the story where you can mention the numbers from your resume, but in much more detail.
For example:
- Your resume might say, “I increased online account conversion by 15% in the first half of 2024.”
- In your letter and the job interview you can expand this result into a much more extensive story.
More detailed story
“One of my strengths is the ability to move quickly and get things done in complex organizations (the big idea). My last employer had wanted to increase the number of online accounts (the setting) for years. That’s why I started implementing Google analytics, so we could see exactly where the bottlenecks were in the funnel (the problem).
To solve this, I started thinking about what the ideal customer journey of our customers (the personas) should look like. By simplifying the first part of the funnel and implementing this directly with our team (more personas), we increased the conversion of online accounts by 15% within 6 months. Not only did we improve conversion, but we also increased the Net Promoter Score as a result of this change. Something I am extremely proud of and very excited about.”
Do you see the difference? Your resume states a fact and in your letter you explain how you solve problems and where you get your energy from as an employee.
Finally, you propose to hire you for the open position so that you can also apply these skills and competencies in your new job.
Storytelling is easier than you think
If you feel intimidated, remember that you are probably already a master storyteller. Every time someone asks how you are and you answer sincerely, you are telling a story. Or when you recall a funny memory during a conversation with your friends, you are telling a story. And every time you have coffee with your coworkers, you are also telling a story about your weekend, your hobbies, or your life.
Now apply this skill to your application. I’d love to hear if it had any effect!
Sources: Radboud Repository & NCBI
Source: www.frankwatching.com
