30 in 30: Tell a Story

"What's your story?"

Getting asked this question can be sort of annoying, but when you're on the job-hunt, you need to get used to answering annoying questions and speaking about yourself. Interviewers will probably not literally say, "What’s your story, dog?" but they may very well ask you what you’ve been up to the last three months. And even though the most accurate and reasonable answer is probably, "Uhh…job-hunting?", that’s not going to tell them anything interesting about you or demonstrate why you should get the job.

The difficulty with recent grads is that we often don’t have much employment history to draw on, so you need to build your own stories and do your best to connect each story to the job you’re interviewing for. Ultimately, whether you decide to volunteer, intern, start a company, or anything else, at least you will have something to show for yourself and, most importantly for the job-hunt, something to talk about in your cover letter and interview.

Check out Want a Job? Create a Story for more.

Looking for a job in the new year? Be sure to stay on top of all the essential job-hunting tips from Gradspot's new series, 30 in 30: The Insider's Guide to Job-Hunting in '09. If you'd like to share your own tips with the Gradspot community, email 30in30 [at] gradspot [dot] com with your tip, your occupation/industry of interest, and your name as you'd like it to appear on the site.