Concentrate on benefits you delivered to company. How you made organization, employees or team better. Quantify “better” with figures or percentages.
It’s not about you. Potential employers are evaluating how you can help them. To build revenues and increase profits.
Three Key Sentences
That’s all you want to use. Only 3. Let potential employers ask for more. If they don’t ask. That indicates your intro story told them what they needed to know.
First Sentence: What was the problem, issue, or concern you solved. Were sales low, operations under performing, output to low, customer service suffering, etc.
Second Sentence: What corrective action did you or your team do. INCLUDE STATISTICS. Improved customer service by what %. Reduced costs, expenses, overhead by what %.
Increased revenues by $______. Enhanced profits by $ or %.
Do this in single sentence. Easy to get carried away. You have lot you could say. Potential employer wants short concise answer. That leads them to ask for more. As soon as they ask for more they have tipped their hand. You now know what their hot buttons are.
Address hot buttons in 3 sentences. Leave prospective employers wondering what else you did. Or can do for them.
How do you know what else they want? You don’t know until they ask.
Prepare for unknown questions? Go back to 3 sentence answer. What additional information would you like them to ask. (Another way of thinking. If you were talking to your boss what follow up questions would they ask.)
Prepare 3 sentence answers for each potential question they could ask. Benefit for you: Focuses on quantitatively on your accomplishments. Forces you to create concise short, hard hitting answers. The kind of answers potential employers are looking for. These are the same questions you ask when you are interviewing.Third Sentence: What was the benefit. The result of what you/team did. MORE STATISTICS. Increase Contribution Factor by $280,000 in 3 months by increasing sales 22%. Turnover was cut from 27% to 8% in first 3 months. Sales grew by $227,000 in 8 weeks. Developed 6 month plan that increased sales and profits first year. Enabled Division to meet projected Revenue Contribution.
Give them you best accomplishment. Back it up.
What is value of short story?
First, a short concise story is memorable. Odds are, person you are interviewing with will have several other interviews that day. Your short story will be remembered.
Second, your short story encourages questions. As stated earlier, those questions identify key issues employer is looking for to solve.
Wrap Up
Practice writing your success story in 3 sentences. (TIP: write your story at least 3 times. Take best from each of three to create your finished story.)
Follow-up with 3 sentence answers to questions you can anticipate. Do answers include most important statistic?
Practice your answers out loud. Ideal if someone can listen and critique. If there are rough spots, better to work them out in practice sessions.
After interview always send Thank You note. Likewise, if you get turned down send note expressing your appreciation. That you would hope they will keep you in mind for future opportunities.
(In our 48 year history, less than 5% of candidates send Thank You Letters. Of those that did 22% were contacted about other opportunities.)
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Tom Ferree is the founder of Ferree & Associates and SecureEmploy, organizations focused on helping companies find exceptional talent and helping professionals advance their careers. Since founding Ferree & Associates in 1977, Tom has worked extensively with hospitality companies, executives, and rising leaders across the industry. Through SecureEmploy, he shares practical career strategies, leadership insights, and real-world advice to help professionals grow their careers and help organizations build stronger teams.
