There’s a love-hate relationship with job interviews. We love that we have the chance to prove ourselves to a new employer, and hopefully get a new position with a big new salary…but we hate the job interview process; its scary, horrific, terrifying!!!
This series of job interview articles will teach you how to pass your next job interview by explaining how to answer each tricky job interview question
How to Answer “What is your greatest achievement”
You have to love this job interview question. Other job interview questions are designed to catch you out or to test your industry knowledge or a specific skill, but the ‘what is your greatest achievement?’ interview question is saying “tell me the best thing about you”
How to Answer the Interview Question
An easy way to answer this question is to simply jump in and explain an achievement in basic terms “I was the best salesperson last year” but this answer is, well, boring, and it doesn’t really help you to stand out, does it?
Remember, all the other applicants will also discuss a random achievement. To stand out, to be offered the position, you need to get the employer emotionally connected to your job interview answer. The easiest way to create an emotional pull in the job interview is through storytelling.
Job interview storytelling is easy. You only need to follow these 4 steps
Job Interview Storytelling Step 1 – Set the Scene
All stories and movies initially set the scene. In the job interview, we don’t have a 90-minute movie timeframe, so our scene-setting can be achieved in just one opening paragraph
To grab the interviewer’s attention you to bring their attention to a potential threat. In a film, this may be a deadly disease, an alien attack, or a theme park filled with dinosaurs. Job interview examples could include:
“The company I worked for was on the brink of collapse“
“We were unable to compete with a new market entrant as they had utilised artificial intelligence, and as a small organised we were unable to complete with them”
“My manager asked me to join the companies worst performing team”
Job Interview Storytelling Step 2 – Build Suspense
Step 2 is easy to implement. Build upon the initial problem and add emotionally linked words. In a movie we see the main character lose everything which makes the audience care for them. We become emotionally connected to them, we join their side and want to help them
If we take the company was going to collapse scenario, explain the outcome to this “350 people could lose their job, share prices were predicted to half within weeks..”
Job Interview Storytelling Step 3 – Create Hope
Halfway through films, the audience is given hope – this could be a potential cure to a disease or a lonely character meets their potential life long partner
For the job interview, explain in one line what the required solution was “to avoid a total collapse of the organisation, the company needed to X..”
Job Interview Storytelling Step 4 – Happy Ending
All films have a happy ending; the couple fall in love, the planet is saved, ET phones home. To end your job interview answer you need your own happy ending.
Here though, you need the main charter, you, to be the solution to the problem: what action did you take and what was the outcome of your hard work?
Did you negotiate a new deal that saved the company?
Did you slay your nemeses? (maybe a competitor was using illegal means to gain lucrative contracts and you caught them out)
Did a selfless act save the word or in real life, did go above and beyond to save the company for collapse resulting in share prices rising, gaining new investments and saving 350 people’s jobs and livelihood?
Job Interview Advice
