I love reading fairy tales, but imagine them out of context:
The prince has slain the dragon!
The princess kissed a frog!
The information isn’t compelling, there’s no story.
In other words, “So what?” Without context, reasoning, purpose and an ending, stories have no meaning. People don’t buy into them or get interested in what you’re saying.
It’s the same when you explain what you’re doing to other people:
I do research
I’m a PhD student working on a genetics project
So what? Who cares? And, in an interview, this reaction is even more acute, with the interviewers wondering what exactly it is that you do that is relevant and meaningful to them.
The STAR technique is great for helping you to relate your experiences in an interesting and succinct way, so that you can fit in lots of relevant examples into your interview to impress the employers/research group leaders etc. I wrote about this in a previous blog, which you can read here.
Think of examples that you could use to show that you’re an accomplished researcher. Consider:
- Why were you doing this work – what was the aim of project?
- What exactly are you doing/have you done (in more detail)?
- How are you doing it/have you done it? What did you do (use quantities to bring it to life).
- What happened? What did you achieve?
- What did this work teach you? What will you do next?
You can do it to show you’re a great analyst, communicator, project manager, problem solver, teacher, leader, etc. The formula can be applied to all your experiences. Even if you failed at what you were trying to achieve, you still did the work and your achievement can focus on what you would change, what you will do next, etc.
Here’s an example from my experience as a career practitioner to show that I am a motivated team player:
- As a co-founder of the ‘Careers Advisers supporting Researchers in Europe’ (CARE) group, we wanted to submit a career side programme to be delivered at a scientific meeting.
- My role was to contact the meeting organisers and convince them to consider our proposal. Meanwhile, I helped to coordinate the ideas of the group to create a powerful proposal.
- I succeeded in convincing the organisers of the meeting by showing them examples of other career programmes including positive feedback from doctoral and postdoctoral researchers who attended them. By theming our proposal to meet the needs of junior researchers, the organisers agreed to trial it at their next meeting.
- The programme proved to be a great success. We ran four 2-hour sessions over two days and attracted over 50 participants to each one, with feedback including comments, such as, it was the best part of the meeting and that the course tutors were professional and knowledgeable. We have been invited back again next year.
- The experience was especially valuable for reinforcing the connections between the members of the CARE group, as this was the first time we’d collaborated together. We aim to work together on other projects in the future.
Now, you see how you really need to break down into detail the activities that you do, so that you bring your experiences to life and make them interesting and meaningful to the listener. Using good body language during your interview (e.g. eye contact, positive tone of voice), together with this story-telling technique, should make you stand out from the crowd. Furthermore, it should catalyse those listening to ask you more questions, so that a formal ‘question and answer’ situation changes into a less strained and a more natural conversation.
“So what?” should never be a question on the minds of your interviewers or anyone hearing your about you or your research. The aim is always to captivate your audience, whoever they may be, so that they come away saying “How interesting”!
And they all lived happily ever after 😊