I'm writing things in a unlogical order, going back and forward in time. So, I should have mentioned that I found a job (hurray, even though it's only for 6 months) in the Innovation and Knowledge Management Unit of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA). Later, when I have a better impression myself, I'll tell what my work involves. First, I want to share how I got here and how storytelling helped me.
When applying for this position, you had a chance to review the job description and job advertisement, which outlined the knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies required to be successful in this position. Taking into consideration the qualifications for this position, please tell us: Why are you the best candidate for this position?
Please come prepared on the day of the interview with your presentation.
You will have 10 minutes to deliver your presentation. Please bring 3 hard copies of your presentation with you. Audio-visual equipment will not be available.
That was it and I worried about it for 2 days. Presenting, no problem, but about myself? What do they expect from me? Something funny and original? How am I going to deal with the 10 minutes - a presentation without AV equipment?
So I started to write down what I wanted to say, related to the job description. And then I realised that I could present it as a story, i.e. the story of myself. I just reviewed a book on corporate stories, which helped me in these ideas. One of the things I remember from that book is that a corporate story needs obstacles and a hero. I selected a few topics (from the job description that I thought were important). On each topic I wrote down one or more obstacles and how I got over them, so what I learned, with me as a "hero". The (carefully-selected) obstacles gave my examples of what I did, my way of working. All this together, I wrote down in a "story book" that my boyfriend nicely formatted with the picture from my (personal) business card and printed for me in colour.
It worked really well, this way of presenting myself. And I bet none of the other people in the competition had a story book. Feeling good about the format and the content, I had a lot of confidence. It helped, the panel was very impressed and as a result now I'm here.
(p.s. I guess I don't need to point out that I used the same structure for this posting)
Comments