YouMap

by Kristin A Sherry

  This kind of innovation best characterizes a common thread in my career: I enjoy finding better, more effective ways of doing things. That’s me in a nutshell.”

  In this example above, the second sentence is the person’s unique contribution statement, and the rest is the evidence to prove it. If you aren’t offered the tell me about yourself opening, you will have other opportunities to share your YouMap® in the interview, such as this question…

  What are Your Strengths?

  If you’ve already provided a copy of your YouMap® to the interviewer, you can direct their attention to the “My Strengths” section to address this question. If not, this question is a great time to provide the interviewer with a copy.

  Tip: You might be interviewing for a promotion in your current company, where handing over a YouMap® won’t make sense for your culture. Even without giving interviewers a physical copy of the YouMap®, you will still be better prepared to execute on your approach having gone through the process.

  The first video of my YouTube vlog, Career Wisdom Walk, outlines a completely unique strategy to explain your strengths in a job interview. If you can’t access the link below, you can simply enter “Kristin Sherry” or “Career Wisdom Walk” within YouTube’s search to find my channel. The video is titled, “How to answer, 'What are your strengths?’: E1 Career Wisdom Walk.”

  Here is a link to the video: tinyurl.com/yd4stnmc

  You will get more depth from watching the video, but in summary, here are the steps:

  1. Underline phrases that describe you best in your downloaded “Strengths Insight Guide” from Gallup. See the “Discover Your Strengths” section of this book for details if you haven’t taken the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment yet.

  2. Open your word processing program and either paste the definition for each of your five strengths as well as the sentence that best describes you from your “Strengths Insight Guide,” or simply paste two or three descriptive sentences. The definitions of the strengths are optional.

  3. Print and take a copy of this single page (do not exceed one page) to the interview for each person you will meet. Bring an additional copy for yourself and a couple of spares for unexpected interviewers.

  4. When asked your strengths, provide each interviewer with a copy and explain you’ve taken a strengths assessment and brought your results to share.

  5. Connect one of your strengths to the job by mentioning a requirement you saw in the job description related to your strength and tell a success (S.T.A.R) story illustrating the use of this strength.

  Here is an example of what your handout might look like:

  If you feel comfortable explaining your StrengthsFinder themes, you don’t need to bring a separate printout of your strengths; simply refer the interviewer back to your YouMap® where your five strengths are listed. I suggest the separate sheet with the phrases describing your strengths to help facilitate a conversation with the interviewer if you’re not yet comfortable describing your strengths without a visual aid.

  What is Your Greatest Weakness?

  You might be surprised that after all my focus on what makes you a unique masterpiece that I would include a question focusing on weaknesses. I chose to do so because our greatest weakness, oftentimes, can be overuse of a strength. Also, discussing your weakness gives you another opportunity to reinforce one of your strengths, even if you sometimes over use it.

  I’ve listed the thirty-four strengths below, along with the potential barriers people might see if we are overusing our strengths.

  Locate each of your Top 5 strengths in the list and identify which of the barriers might be true of you in the last column.

  Tips:

  • Do not provide an example story or elaborate on your weakness unless asked. Stories make your weakness memorable. If asked, share what you’ve learned or have attempted to improve.

  • Stay positive; avoid weaknesses that are important requirements for the job. For example, for a customer service role, do not share that you’re critical, impatient, inflexible, lack follow-through, or put work ahead of people.

  • Avoid sharing a weakness you haven’t attempted to improve.

  • Avoid interpersonal weaknesses unless you can demonstrate you’ve made significant improvement. This would be an instance where a story is acceptable and encouraged.

  • Share what you did to take ownership and act, and how you applied it as a learning experience for the future. Most of your talk time is spent here, not on the weakness itself.

  Reflect on your greatest weakness and write out a brief characterization in the space provided.

  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

  Storytelling with S.T.A.R.

  Again, S.T.A.R. is an acronym for Situation, Task, Action, and Result. S.T.A.R. stories are used to answer behavior-based inquiries that begin, “Tell me about a time when… .”

  As a hiring manager, I was surprised how often people answered a specific behavior-based question with a general response. For example, when I was an operations manager interviewing for an open role on my team, I asked, “What does integrity mean to you? And tell me about a time you demonstrated integrity at work.”

  The candidate proceeded to share that integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is looking (so far, so good), but then she continued sharing a general self-assessment about her commitment to always do the right thing and go above and beyond. Nowhere in her answer did she share a specific example of when she demonstrated integrity on the job.

  When asked a behavior-based question, remember to avoid present-tense generalizations such as, “I always… .” Talk is cheap, and anyone can say what an interviewer wants to hear or what they think they would do in a theoretical situation. The hiring manager wants to hear what you did in a real situation. Prove it with the S.T.A.R. format!

  As you review your YouMap®, think of several S.T.A.R. stories to illustrate some of the insights about yourself to an interviewer—especially your strengths. The downloadable Strengths Worksheet is the best place to capture stories for your interview. Download the strengths worksheet at MyYouMap.com.

  Your story should be between twenty seconds and two minutes in length. Be brief and let the interviewer know you’d be happy to go into greater detail if needed. This prevents you from eating up too much of your interview time with stories the interviewer is less interested in and allows you to expand upon stories they are most interested in.

  Situation

  What was the problem or opportunity you faced? Provide a brief background. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of brevity! You might be tempted to share every detail. Please don’t!

  An interviewer needs only enough context to grasp and understand the significance of the RESULT. The result is the most important part of your story, yet many interviewees begin rambling about the situation and sharing unnecessary details the employer cares little about.

  Task

  How did you address the problem or opportunity you faced? In other words, what was the end goal? Again, keep this brief.

  Action

  What specific actions did you take?
What was your involvement? How did you contribute? In short, what did you do? Don’t dig into the gory details of every step. What label can you give what you did to convey meaning without a lengthy explanation of all the steps?

  For example, “I performed a root cause analysis” or “I developed a detailed project plan” conveys a lot of meaning, which eliminates the need to describe each step you performed in detail.

  Result

  The result is the outcome of your action and the most important part of the story. How did you make a difference? Did you save the company time, money, or other resources? Did someone get a promotion because of your investment in them? Did you increase efficiencies? Did you do something that hadn’t been thought of or tried before?

  Providing context of why the result mattered is important. Interviewers don’t know why your outcome is a big deal, so you’ll need to help them understand. Let’s look at an example.

  Employer: What is an accomplishment you’re proud of?

  Interviewee: Last year I was selected to join the company’s leadership development program.

  As an interviewer, my first question is, “So what?” This is not a high impact statement because no context is provided.

  Was this program exclusive, or are 90 percent of employees given the same opportunity? How many others were selected? Out of how many? Did you have to be nominated, versus applying for yourself?

  Let’s look at a more effective response.

  Interviewee: Recently, I was nominated by a senior leader in the company to participate in a high potential leadership program. Two-hundred sixty-four employees were nominated, and I was one of only five people selected.

  Here’s another example:

  Interviewer: Tell me about a recent success.

  Interviewee: Last year I managed a shared services integration project with a positive process and financial outcome.

  This is an actual example from a client. Were they selected for the project? Was it enterprise-wide, or a small project? How complex was the project? Was it a high visibility project?

  Sometimes you might not have numbers if you didn’t take them with you from your last job. It’s OK if you don’t have them. You can characterize your success using words. Let’s look at where this accomplishment ended up after I asked my client these questions.

  Interviewee: I was appointed as the program manager to oversee five project managers on a highly confidential, business-critical shared services integration for a Fortune 100 company, which finished on time and within budget and resulted in a stronger financial position for the company.

  Ask the Right Questions

  Another great way to use your YouMap® is the deal makers and deal breakers I asked you to highlight at the end of the “Find Yourself” section. Your criteria of what must be both present and absent for your next career move is an important source for creating questions to ask an interviewer.

  Remember, you are interviewing a company as much as they are interviewing you.

  In my experience, your values are a significantly important source for interview questions, because values violations are a top cause of job dissatisfaction. For example, people who value growth, accomplishment, results, and making a difference are very unsatisfied in roles where they’re not stretched or contributing something that matters to them.

  Those who value autonomy feel stifled in roles where they aren’t allowed to make decisions or are too closely managed. Perhaps you’ll want to also ask a question to discover what a typical day might look like in the role to ensure your strengths and motivating skills are used.

  Your “must have” and “must avoid” conditions help you make more informed choices when presented with an offer. Prioritize your top two deal makers and deal breakers to generate four questions to ask in the interview. Here are sample questions based on hypothetical values for an individual’s next role:

  Value/Need: A manager who’s interested in growing and developing his or her team

  Question: Can you share how you’ve directly contributed to a team member’s career growth in the past six-to-twelve months?

  Value/Need: Freedom of autonomous decision-making

  Question: How do prefer your team members to manage problem solving and decision making related to their work, and can you provide a recent example?

  Value/Need: A collaborative work environment

  Question: How would you describe the working dynamic of this team? What are some things you’ve done to build a more collaborative team culture?

  Value/Need: Learning new skills

  Question: Could you share some of the learning and training opportunities you and your team have been given in the past year.

  Value/Need: Current technology and tools to do my job effectively

  Question: What kind of tools will be provided to the person who enters this role?

  In summary, prepare for an interview by:

  • Generating stories about what you do best that the employer needs most.

  • Learning to clearly and confidently tell interviewers about yourself by sharing one of the following: your strengths, values, motivating skills, or how your career interests are wired. Connect it back to what the interviewer is looking for in the job description.

  • Thoughtfully determine the best questions to ask an interviewer based on your deal makers and deal breakers.

  These steps will equip you to more effectively evaluate the role, manager, and workplace culture fit.

  Asking the right questions will provide you with heightened discernment to accept a role that’s right for you and the courage to turn down a role that isn’t, leading to better job fit for the rest of your life.

  Final Thoughts

  In your quest to explore, discover, and learn new skills to display your gifting to the world, I am deeply honored you chose me as one of your guides.

  My sincere hope is that you carry what you’ve learned about yourself throughout your life, that you are true to yourself, and that going forward you are better equipped to love Mondays!

  Always remember your conditions of career satisfaction. Revisit your values, motivating skills, strengths, and interests throughout your life. Let your brilliance shine. Be you. You are a masterpiece, and I’m rooting for you!

  “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou

  A free bird leaps

  on the back of the wind

  and floats downstream

  till the current ends

  and dips his wing

  in the orange sun rays

  and dares to claim the sky.

  But a bird that stalks

  down his narrow cage

  can seldom see through

  his bars of rage

  his wings are clipped and

  his feet are tied

  so he opens his throat to sing.

  The caged bird sings

  with a fearful trill

  of things unknown

  but longed for still

  and his tune is heard

  on the distant hill

  for the caged bird

  sings of freedom.

  The free bird thinks of another breeze

  and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees

  and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn

  and he names the sky his own.

  But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams

  his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream

  his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied

  so he opens his throat to sing.

  The caged bird sings

  with a fearful trill

  of things unknown

  but longed for still

  and his tune is heard

  on the distant hill

  for the caged bird

  sings of freedom.

  About the Author

  KRISTIN SHERRY is a career consultant, author, speaker, and founder of Virtus Career Consulting. She helps people love Mondays through five areas of focus: coach certifications, individual career discovery coaching, executive coaching, workshops and speaking, and writing.

  She is one of only twenty consultants world-wide certified as a Master Trainer in the WorkPlace Big Five Profile™, a human resource optimization and workforce development tool used by more than eight thousand organizations across forty-eight countries.

  As a Learning & Development leader at a Fortune 20 company, Kristin managed the company’s learning strategy and coached leaders and their teams.

  Her career discovery and empowerment book, Follow Your Star: Career Lessons I Learned from Mom, and interviewing book, 5 Surprising Steps to Land the Job NOW!, were released in 2016 and 2017, respectively. Kristin is a member of The Authors Guild and has been featured in numerous print, radio and podcast interviews; articles; and blogs read by millions of people in dozens of countries.