Anecdotal

The time you faced an enormous challenge and it took you some time to get through the trials and tribulations. In the end your ingenuity helped you overcoming it and you are now stronger than ever, with new skills that nicely transfer to the job you happen to be interviewing for.

A story needs to have a clear beginning, middle and end. The punch line will be your result. You don't want your anecdotes to be too long, aim to be able to deliver the story within 60 seconds if required. There is no need to put more details in there, if it's an interesting story you can be sure the interviewer will ask you about it and there is your chance to elaborate.

You will be hired for your ability to make or save money for the employer. Demonstrate how you did this in the past with an anecdote of how you became the top sales rep or how you found an ingenious way to slash the phone budget by a third.

Due to cuts in funding to our adult continuing education program, we faced the daunting goal of drastically reducing our promotional budget without sacrificing our media presence in the community. As program director, I researched alternatives to the effective, yet costly, course brochure, which was produced and distributed biannually to about 60,000 residents of our service region. I was able to negotiate with two local newspapers to produce and distribute a new course brochure that increased distribution by 33 percent, to 80,000 residents, and decreased costs by 50 percent.

Share an example of how you have overcome a major disappointment on the job.

Describe a situation when you utilized your leadership abilities to move a project forward.

Describe how you have planned a major event.

I have always been willing to do whatever is necessary to get the job done, but one time does stand out in my mind. Our team was preparing a major proposal for a prospective client. Our technology team leader was ill and out of work. I jumped in to learn how to construct some complex macros in Excel to showcase some key data, and took the lead with creating presentation slides for our pitch. I needed to work several evenings until midnight to get the work done in time while I was performing my regular duties during the daytime. The client ended up accepting our proposal and cited the quality of our presentation exhibits as a key reason they went with us.

Employers will often ask you to provide examples or furnish anecdotal information to prove that you possess the key qualifications necessary for success on the job.

Being able to work in a team is essential in any company nowadays. Prepare a story for how you helped the team to achieve a great goal or how you organized a trip to Italy and increased the team spirit so that nobody has left that team since.

This is the obvious one and perhaps you will have this one prepared already. This should contain the basics as where you are from, where you went to school/university and your most recent positions. You should include where you are heading and most importantly what value you can add to your next employer. This is the one story that tends to get a bit long, as everyone loves to talk about themselves.