Interviews or evaluations are tough, but storytelling helps. Here’s how to use the SWOT matrix to help you prepare 4 stories you can use to answer common interview questions.
This is an episode that I was planning for later in the year, but I’m doing it now because of all of the government employees who have recently lost their jobs and suddenly and abruptly are finding themselves job searching. This episode I hope will be helpful for when it’s interview time. I’m going to talk about four stories you can share in a job interview.
Hi everybody, this is 10 Minutes to Better Patient Communication, ranked #20 in the Top 100 Podcasts in Social Sciences, giving you inspiration and strategies to improve engagement, experience, and satisfaction since 2017. I’m Dr. Anne Marie Liebel, a researcher, consultant, and educator with expertise in communication and education. I’m here to dig into some of what we might take for granted about communication in our professional lives. If you want to strengthen the work you can do in your professional sphere, this is a place for you because communication touches everything. We’re here to learn, get inspired, and most importantly make the difference we got into our jobs to make.
Now you may know this show is about actual questions and issues raised by actual professionals, and I was coaching somebody a while ago on self – evaluation, and I thought this would be good episode to run maybe in the late fall. But no. The last few weeks have shown this is the least I can do to come out and support some of the civil servants who have found themselves in this just crazy position. Please take good care of yourselves. Please prioritize your health and the mental health issues that come along with sudden job loss.
When you are ready to get back on the horse and go ahead and apply, I hope this can be helpful when it comes to interviewing. Because it’s an uncomfortable kind of scenario in the best situation. All this talking about ourselves can be incredibly cringey. We don’t like hearing our own voices, right? It gets our imposter syndrome flaring up. So I want to try to get you back on more comfortable ground. Because we can be more comfortable when we’re telling stories, especially stories about something we’re passionate about.
So I’m going to suggest four stories specifically, and the way I’m going to suggest this is through something you’ve probably heard of before, the SWOT analysis. Or “SWOT” analysis. Where S stands for strengths, W for weakness, O for opportunities, and T for threats. It’s used to analyze like a whole business or a unit within business, but I’m going to go ahead and take it kind of off script because I think we could use it to think about ourselves, and some of the stories we could tell about ourselves when we have to self -evaluate or when we’re going into an interview.
So I’m going to go through each of those letters and suggest some stories that you might tell, give you some things to think about, and then I’ll wrap up with some tips.
Strengths
Okay, first of all, S for strengths. Yes, this is where you’re going to tell stories about your strengths. And that can make people uncomfortable right off the bat. But remember, there’s no wrong answers to “tell me about yourself. Tell me what you do well.” If something like that makes you uncomfortable, you might be more likely to talk about your most significant achievements.
Thinking about achievements is nice because that allows you to shift to a project or a problem, and the strengths you used to do something great there. Accomplishments are natural stories too because there’s a beginning and a middle and an end. And that’s what you want to do, is be able to tell a story. Accomplishments usually also come with some of their own data. So give yourself a chance to think about what you consider some of your significant achievements in your last role.
And slow down the train of what happened. Let yourself think about: what was the beginning? How did that start? What was going on, middle of the way through? How did I wrap it up? What happened in the end? All the steps it took to get you there.
This can be tricky to do, especially if you’re really good at your job, because you just did it. But slowing this down and getting to some of the steps and the details can really help people appreciate your expertise. Not everyone knows what you know. And of course, if you have other folks working with you, give them flowers in this story, too.
So for S, I’m also going to suggest you have a little bit of a backup story because it’s about strengths. Do yourself a favor and as cringey as this might make you feel–it’s okay, no one will know, you’re just going to write it down for yourself–get yourself a couple answers to this question: What have people said they like about working with you? Because they have! So go ahead and remember it or find those emails or find those messages.
It’s good to have these in your pocket especially if you get real nervous or self -conscious, because talking about these good things people have said about you gets you outside your own head. You are telling the truth. Someone did say that thing about working with awesome you.
Weaknesses
Okay, second story, W, weaknesses. Ugh! This is particularly ugh. No one likes talking about our weaknesses, so I hope you like my approach. I suggest you think about something you thought would be easy for you, but wasn’t. Maybe it’s part of a project, maybe it’s a task, maybe it’s an interaction.
I like this approach because it’s an automatic story setup. Here’s the setting, here’s how it started out, here’s me going into it, here’s what I thought I was getting into, and then bam! Unpleasant surprise. It’s a great storytelling chance for you, right? You can talk about how you handled it in the moment if you want to. You could share some thoughts you’ve had about it since, or you can limit yourself to what you’ve learned. How you know this is something you want to work on because it’ll help you in the future, and leave it at that.
Now S and W on the SWOT chart are like internal tasks or internal traits. So we’re done with the internal, your internal world now, so you can relax! O and T are about the external world. So let’s get into them.
Opportunities
O is opportunities. Here, go to town. Give yourself a whole lot of these, right? Any work situation you think would be a good stretch for you. Or a good place for you to put your energy and your attention. Or work situation you’re looking forward to. Here again, give yourself several opportunities to talk about and I’m going to suggest that repetition is your friend.
I was in a storytelling workshop recently and one of the presenters said this, “Repetition is your friend even when it feels ridiculous.” I thought that was such a good point, not just the reminder about repetition, but that it can feel ridiculous, but it feeling ridiculous should not stop you from doing it.
So especially in an interview, when you’re talking about the image of the professional that you want this person to have, this opportunities that you are looking forward to, don’t limit yourself and also keep repeating yourself. Okay.
Oh, and also, if you’re a little stuck here. Hey, I’m going to go ahead and make a plug. It’s always nice to talk about how you’re going to improve your communication. Maybe there’s a group of people that I really want to get better at communicating with–suppliers, or I really want to get better at communicating with my mentees. Or you could pick a part of your communication. I want to be better with those emails after a meeting. I always drag those out, and I really want to get better at those. So always a good thing to talk about improving your own communication.
Threats
Okay, T, last one, threats. For this one, I’m going to suggest this is a good chance to show off. And here’s why: Threats are what you notice that’s coming down the pike, and how you’re going to deal with it if it does.
So what threat stories do is show that you are watching the field. You are paying attention to your profession, you’re paying attention to your market, you’re paying attention to your industry. So think of a potential situation that’s outside of your control, that could cause trouble for you, your team, your division, your whole industry. The point is that you’re keeping your eye on it, in case you have to manage it. So in the threat story, you’re going to acknowledge this thing. Whatever it is, you’re going to show us that you see it because you are savvy that way. And you have a plan or you’re cooking up a plan in case it comes to pass. Here’s how you’re going to deal with it.
So that’s the threat story. So SWOT, four stories you can tell in an interview.
Tips
Here are my tips to wrap this up:
First of all, give yourself something you are excited to talk about. Every one of these stories should show you in a good light, and if you go ahead and listen back to this episode, you’ll see that I’m encouraging you toward that: showing yourself in a positive light. Because it also helps you give yourself something you’re excited and passionate about. You’re going to tell a better story, people are going to be more engaged, and they’re also going to remember your story better.
Secondly, brainstorm a little, don’t hold back. And remember this is preparation. You’re writing things down. So if it feels too much, if it starts to feel a little bit cringy, step away from it. Do it in chunks, put it down, do something else, and come back to it.
Third suggestion, data, have it, use it, right? You’ve heard this suggestion before, anything quantifiable, work it into your conversation.
And finally, I’m going to suggest you involve a friend, right? Yes, practice these stories to an actual human being. That flip that your stomach just did, you can reduce that flip actually happening during the interview if you practice ahead of time, and the benefit being you can also turn around to your friend or colleague and offer to listen to them work out their stories ahead of time.
I take a holistic view of communication because I know how important it is to teamwork, to problem solving, and to innovation. So if your organization wants some help on this, contact me. This has been 10 Minutes to Better Patient Communication from Health Communication Partners. I’m Dr. Anne Marie Liebel, Audio Engineering and Music by Joe Liebel, additional music from Alexis Rounds.
Thanks for listening to 10 Minutes to Better Patient Communication from Health Communication Partners LLC. Find us at healthcommunicationpartners .com.