Interview Power. Tom Washington

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       A Nonwork Experience With A Work Experience

      One technique is to combine a nonwork experience with a work-related experience. The nonwork-related experience may be especially vivid or have a particularly useful hook in it which will help the employer remember you. A hook is any word-picture or imagery that will help a person recall a story. The nonwork experience might be selected simply because it is the best experience you have which demonstrates a certain skill. Combining the nonwork experience with a recent work experience can help create a vivid picture of you that communicates a lot about your skills and qualities. It can demonstrate that these skills and qualities are an integral part of your being, as you use the skills both on and off the job. A nonwork experience could come from volunteer work such as being a chairperson in a professional association, it could be related to a hobby, or it could come from any type of experience that is not directly associated with a job. Let’s look at an example where James answers the question, “What is your greatest strength?”

      My greatest strength is my ability to take on difficult projects. I guess I just like the challenge. And people know that if I take something on, I’m going to get it done right. I’m an officer of a ski club that loves to ski at Crystal Mountain, where you have great snow and a beautiful view of Mount Rainier. We skied there often enough that we wanted to have our own lodge there. The problem was we couldn’t afford one. And if we raised the dues too high, we’d lose some of our members. After three weeks of discussing the deal, virtually everyone thought it was a dead issue. I wasn’t ready to give up, though. I studied tax codes and every angle imaginable to finance the project. Eventually I came up with a way that our more affluent members could own shares in the $500,000 project and would receive a very secure return that would be tax free. Sixteen months later we had a beautiful lodge.

      Another experience happened recently. The president of my company wanted to create a totally new product. We had the engineering capability, but we had no way to finance it. After trying numerous avenues, with nothing working, I suggested trying a joint venture with a Japanese company. I had studied joint ventures that had failed as well as ones that had succeeded. When they failed it was usually because the Japanese firm would gain new technology without giving much back to the joint venture partner. I identified a Japanese firm that already had had two successful joint ventures—one with an American company and the other with a German company. They really seemed to understand the idea of win-win. I was given permission to pursue a joint venture with the firm and after nine months of negotiating, finalized a deal. One year into the joint venture, both parties are satisfied. We got the financing we needed and an open market in Japan, and our partner has obtained some very valuable technology they can use in the future.

       A Distant Experience With A Recent Experience

      Combining a distant experience (work-related or nonwork-related) with a recent experience can also enrich your images and stories. It demonstrates that you have mastered that skill over time. If, for example, you are selling your ability to organize events, a related story from 5-15 years ago, when told in conjunction with a recent story, would clearly demonstrate that you’ve had the ability to organize events for a long time.

      Something you should know about me is that I’m really good at organizing events. During my senior year in college I organized a white water rafting trip for our co-ed dormitory. In the past the dorm usually had a picnic which turned into more of a beer bash. On the rafting trip no beer was permitted and people had a lot more fun. In the past maybe a quarter of the students would go to the picnic, but on this trip we had nearly half the students out there rafting. Because of the teamwork required, it really brought people closer together.

      Just three months ago I coordinated our national sales convention. We brought in 80 sales reps from around the country and gave them a great experience. I selected the speakers and negotiated the contracts with them, worked with the hotel in all of the details, and put in some touches that made it really special. I brought in one speaker that no one had heard of, but he had a new slant on sales and did it with such humor that he had the sales force rolling in the aisles. Several of the reps told me later they thought it was the best convention in the past ten years.

       Show How You Overcame The Problem

      When telling stories that demonstrate how you’ve solved a problem or overcome an obstacle, create before and after pictures that highlight your impact on the situation. Paint the before picture as bleak as you can. Make the employer feel how bad the situation was. If you were dealing with a quality control problem, you might describe how angry your customers were and describe how some threatened to stop buying from your company or how some actually did. Don’t exaggerate, but give the employer the full sense of the problem. As you complete your story, describe how smooth or effective things became. Create the strongest contrast possible without exaggerating. Bruce shared this story about his experience with a mobile home manufacturer:

      Before I took over the parts department, it was taking a month from the time we received a dealer’s order until the dealer actually got the part. Because of this we had two problems—most dealers simply obtained their parts from other sources, while those who did order from the factory got their kicks out of yelling at me and telling me to get the parts to them pronto. The problem was that no system had been established. Orders either got lost or they didn’t get down to the shipping department for days. And no one even knew if the parts were in stock. When they weren’t in stock, no one bothered to notify the person who had placed the order. After a month on the job, I decided things had to change.

      The first thing I did was create forms for recording orders, something which had never been done even though the manufacturing facility had been operating for four years. My predecessor either wrote things down on scraps of paper or tried to remember things in his head. He was really a smart guy, but he couldn’t remember everything. I established a hookup with the warehouse so our two computer systems could talk to each other. This system told me immediately whether the parts were available.

      Next, I got the warehouse and the shipping-and-receiving managers together and we found ways to help each other rather than squabble over turf. Within four months we got our delivery times down from four weeks to five days. We haven’t lost an order for at least two years.

      Now I’m not wasting time tracking down lost or late shipments. And my hearing is getting better since people don’t yell over the phone anymore. The best thing is that parts sales to our dealers have increased from $12,000 per month to over $60,000. Our dealers are happy, so they don’t need to go to other suppliers anymore.

      Didn’t you actually picture this person on the phone getting his ears burned? Did you imagine the orders getting written down on scraps and then getting misplaced? Could you visualize these three managers who were working at cross purposes? If so, the story was successful. But you were not merely left with a picture. You were left with a result. It wasn’t just that Bruce didn’t get yelled at anymore, but that sales increased dramatically. Employers get excited when you demonstrate that you can make money, save money, solve problems, or reduce the boss’s daily stress and pressure. Bruce demonstrated through this one story that he could do all four. The final point he made was that he could make money. After all, sales increased from $12,000 per month to $60,000. That did some very nice things to the company’s bottom line.

       How To Tell A Story

      A helpful way to prepare your stories is to remember the acronym SHARE, developed by Paul Green. Make sure that each of your stories contain each aspect of SHARE:

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