Hunting and storytelling

Dragon Mood? -- a natural born fireball, not so natural at storytelling

This week has been full of workshops, learning new job hunting skills and interaction with many, many other people who are also seeking jobs. It's been a positive and healthy interaction for me, interrupting my long periods of aloneness and isolation.

My biggest surprise this week has been how incredibly poorly I'm prepared for so-called "behavioral questions" in a phone or face-to-face interview. Behavioral questions are the sort like this:

• Describe a situation in which you were able to use persuasion to succesfully ....
• Give me a specific example of a time when you used good judgement and logic in solving a problem
• What is your typical way of dealing with conflict? Give me an example.

According to Heather, our instructor/leader/mentor at the workshops, these behavioral questions are all about identifying and codifying a story from one's own work and life experiences. Once you have identified five or six stories from your past, you can push, pull and morph the stories to answer the questions in a manner that highlights and positively showcases your talents, skills and abilities.

I guess my storytelling skills need a bit of polishing. *sigh*