Why personal stories are the key to advancing your career
Storytelling isn't just for parents and execs - it's for jobseekers too
A few years ago, I learned a very hard lesson, and it really stuck with me. I had a high performing direct report who was absolutely ready for the next level in their career. I was responsible for presenting their case for promotion. I was so invested – I had followed and supported this person’s journey for a few years. In the promotion forum, I was going to explain everything they’d achieved. And I was excited at the prospect of being able to relay positive news back to this colleague once the process had completed.
But they didn’t get promoted. They were ready, and I knew it. They knew they were ready too. So it really took me aback that their case wasn’t being considered so impressive as I thought it was.
Worse, I was even more irked when some other candidates got promoted, and I didn’t consider them to be as ready as my candidate.
It felt like such injustice. And I was angry at the system.
But then I reflected on what had happened.
What I realised was that I should be angry with my approach, and not with the system. The system just reflected human nature. Instead, there was something that went wrong about the way I interacted with that system.
And this realisation was a much better tact to take, because it meant there was something within my power that I could change.
It became evident to me that the people who got promoted were promoted by a group of decision-makers who had been given the chance to really believe in those candidates’ capabilities. How? How hadn’t my candidate's capabilities shone through in the promotion case I had told?
The fundamental difference was this: the candidates who got promoted had been represented by someone who told their story. This person had presented the case for each candidate’s promotion in such a way that the brains of the decision-making listeners lit up, emotionally connected, committed to long term memory, and importantly, believed.
"...participants focused on the characters and their mental states. While telling a story, the brain attends more to what a character is thinking or feeling during an event than the sequence of events itself." [Brainfacts, Mar 2021]
On the contrary, what I had done was list out all the achievements of my candidate. Each achievement in its own right was really impressive. But listing them out somehow lost the impact of the significance of each achievement. It lacked the context within which that individual was thinking, feeling and operating.
Telling those achievements instead within the context of the story of why that person was doing it, what they were trying to achieve and what it meant to them… would have made it feel real. Made it relatable. Made it feel important. And ultimately made it possible to evaluate that individual with a level of emotion that is by nature so important to humans in making decisions.
“...a story — compared to facts-only delivery — triggers stronger emotional responses, making you more likely to remember information and change your attitudes or behaviors.” [Brainfacts, Mar 2021]
Too often, job applicants experience the feeling I felt - a disconnection from the outcome - not understanding why their application was not “good enough” to be accepted. Their perception of their personal fit with the role differs to the perception of the recruiter or hiring manager who does not accept their application. And this difference stems from the fact they know their own context, and so they are empowered to believe they can do the job – in a way the recruiter isn’t empowered to believe just by reading a list of credentials on a CV or in an application.
Empowering a recruiter or hiring manager to know a candidate’s personal story helps to bring them onto the same page as the candidate - and to align their perspectives.
When we see or hear a story, the neurons in our brain fire in the same patterns as the speaker’s, a process known as "neural coupling." [Neuroleadership, Sept 2021]
This is why EquAIty matters. By providing insights relating to a job candidate’s personal context, EquAIty helps hiring teams make better decisions about that candidate - decisions that feel right to both the hiring team and the candidate.
Consider Maria, a job candidate, whose information can be represented in a list, or as a story:
With the additional information about Maria’s motivations, drivers and challenges, it’s possible to make a much more informed decision.
But recruiters and hiring managers don’t have time to consume all of this information – it’s much easier to scan a bulleted list of achievements.
So that is what EquAIty does for them – it helps consolidate the personal story into hireability insights that are derived from personal context.
Wouldn’t that additional information make any hiring decision about Maria so much more relevant?
Imagine if every job applicant could be supported like this, with these types of information:
Their uniquely personal achievements as an individual – like how Maria overcame the internship challenge.
The reasons for their journey – like Maria’s parental pressure.
The personal commitment to this new job – like Maria’s reasons for choosing occupational therapy.
This is how recruitment decisions become more human and less mechanical. And more human recruitment processes mean more inclusive and diverse decisions.
Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) has become a global priority. It’s also an international challenge that is not being met appropriately. Recruiters and hiring managers engaged in sourcing activities are still only empowered to use the information they’ve always had (CVs, applications) in order to meet D&I objectives – so how are they going to be able to make substantial changes to the way they source candidates?
They need better, more insightful information in addition to that. Context as to candidates’ objectives, the challenges they have faced, the ambitions they have and the journey they have taken is what helps us as humans make better judgments about candidates’ talents and their suitability for job roles.
Empowering recruiters and hiring teams with contextual information will not only help them achieve D&I objectives more easily, they’ll also be choosing the right people for all the right reasons.
"We know that people are substantially more motivated by … transcendent purpose (how [something] improves lives) than by … transactional purpose (how [something executes day to day]). Transcendent purpose is effectively communicated through stories – for example, by describing the … situations of actual, named [people] and how their problems were solved by [something]. Make your people empathize with the pain the [person] experienced and they will also feel the pleasure of its resolution." [Paladinww, Oct 2014]
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I hope that something in this blog post has really resonated with you. There is so much opportunity in this and I am so excited about it! We'd love to hear your thoughts or feedback on our approach to storytelling - so please do reach out via the form on this site if you'd like to let us know what you’re thinking.
Until next time,
C
References
[Brainfacts, Mar 2021]: https://www.brainfacts.org/neuroscience-in-society/the-arts-and-the-brain/2021/why-the-brain-loves-stories-030421
[Neuroleadership, Sept 2021]: https://neuroleadership.com/your-brain-at-work/the-neuroscience-of-storytelling/
[Paladinww, Oct 2014]: https://www.paladinww.com/uploads/6/5/0/8/65089471/why_your_brain_loves_good_storytelling__1_.pdf