If you’re involved in the job search process, you know how important it is to tell a compelling story about your unique ability to solve problems for the hiring leader. You know that you need a compelling resume and an online presence that reflect that story. You know that landing that story in interviews can determine whether you get the job or not.
You also know that interviews aren’t really about you. As a result, your story is best told through the perspective of the hiring manager/interviewer. In that case, to be successful, you need to (1) understand the perspective of the hiring team and (2) understand how your life experience maps to their needs.
This sounds hard, right? Well, it doesn’t have to be.
Instead of struggling, let’s build the most valuable tool you can use to develop your story, inform your resume, prep for interviews, and get you your next job: a Needs-Experience Map.
A Needs-Experience Map is a grid that does 3 things:
- Focuses first on a clear view of hiring team needs
- Maps your life experiences (not just work) to those needs
- Creates a catalog of the most powerful stories that you can share about those needs
When you finish building this, you’ll have a spreadsheet with hiring team needs listed down the left side and your experiences across the top. In the cells where each need and experience intersects, you’ll have reminders of your most important stories about that need in each job.
Let’s get started.
Building the Map – Hiring team needs
First, you need to understand what hiring managers are really looking for. Start by collecting a set of job listings that interest or excite you. You could start this exercise with just one job description, but 5-10 will give you a more robust perspective. The set should include jobs that you are confident you could get if you had a shot as well as a few that you think you could do, but they might be a stretch.
Once you’ve got a good set of jobs, create a blank spreadsheet (you can make the grid purely on paper, but digital is easier to manipulate at this stage of the process).
Now, read through the first job description in your group. As you do so, fill column A (down the left side of your spreadsheet) with every requirement that you see explicitly listed. Include both minimum qualifications and preferred qualifications. Put each qualification on it’s own row (in it’s own cell).
Second, go back through the listing to find a description of what you will do in the job. For instance, it might talk about serving customers. Add that. It may talk about leading a team or partnering with other teams. Add those things. Of particular interest here are any mentioned goals or metrics. For instance, does the listing talk about increasing sales or providing great customer service? Maybe it talks about managing costs. Includes those.
Third, look through the listing again to find descriptions of how you would work at the company. For instance, do they mention specific partnerships, like partnering with the sales team, finance, or operations? Do they mention moving fast or being precise? Look for mentions that hint at culture, such as comfort with data or a sense of adventure. Each one of these items can be a clue to how best to present yourself to this company (and maybe even the industry).
Fourth, review one final time for language they use. Is it really active? Do they sound aggressive or thoughtful? Are there particular words, phrases or acronyms that stand out? Add another tab to the spreadsheet (or just get another sheet of paper) to list any terms that seem important to the company or industry. You’ll use this later in interview preparation.
You’ve now built a list of (1) stated qualifications, (2) implied qualifications, and indicators of culture (3 and 4). Every item from 1-3 is on a line/row on your spreadsheet. Every term from 4 is on a separate tab.
Repeat this process for a few more jobs, adding to the same spreadsheet. Since most people look for jobs that are relatively similar, each additional job will take less time. For instance, the first job may have 10-15 requirements that you capture. The second may have a lot of repeats (so don’t re-write those) and add about just a few new items. By the third or fourth job, you may only add one or two items, but you may see different cultural signals.
Now, read through the list of requirements that you’ve built. Take a critical eye to broad-sounding requirements and consider what needs may be hidden within them. For example, if you see “Partner with other teams,” think about the skills that are required to be a great partner. Those might be “Driving goal alignment,” “Maintaining inter-team communications,” and “Conflict resolution.” List those.
Finally, make one last pass to remove any duplicates that you see.
Building the Map – Your life experiences
Once you’ve finished going through the jobs, it’s time to add your life experiences. Instead of listing them vertically (like you would on a resume), list them horizontally. Start with your most recent experience, and list it in the top of column B. Then keep adding experiences in reverse chronological order across the tops of columns until you go back as far as you can remember.
If you had multiple roles at a company, list each of those separately. If you did any volunteer work or had a particularly involved hobby at some time, give those columns as well.
The goal here is to catalog the meaningful experiences that have made you the unique professional you are. This is not a resume, so don’t worry about listing too many or going too far back in time. In fact, one benefit of listing your experiences horizontally (instead of vertically, like a resume) is to let your mind think more freely about this section.
Building the Map – Your stories
Now you’re going to fill in the cells of the map. Every cell sits at the intersection of a business need and your life experience. In each cell, write a short note to remind you of the best story you can tell about fulfilling that need during that experience.
As you fill in the cells, try to focus on stories that end with some demonstrable impact or change. For instance, by the end of your story, sales had increased 5% thanks to your work. If you don’t have numbers to show impact, think about other indicators, such as positive feedback from customers, partners, or even your leaders.
Remember, you aren’t trying to write the story here. That’s a separate exercise. You’re just putting in any reminder that helps you recall the story. This can be as simple as, “database update project” or “q3 customer growth program.”
If you don’t have a good story for a particular cell, be honest with yourself and leave it blank. If you have more than one great story, feel free to note that one, too. You can decide on the best later.
Quick tips: Most spreadsheets will let you add multiple lines within a cell if you know the keystroke combination. On a Mac, it’s <option> + <return>. On Windows, it’s <alt> + <enter>.
If you want to use bullet points to indicate the beginning of each story, <option/alt> + <8> will do the trick.
When you complete this part, you’ll have a grid showing every great story you can tell to help hiring managers believe that you can solve their problems. You’ll have the ultimate guide to your experiences grounded in a hiring team’s needs.
Using the Map
This Map can now inform the stories that fit on your resume and the stories that you tell in interviews. It can influence the top three points you make about yourself and how you can solve for the hiring team’s needs. For any need they have, you can confidently look across a row and find stories that give them proof points of your ability to deliver. This is incredibly powerful.
You should also step back and look at your map. What patterns do you see?
Rows
- Densely-packed rows show areas where you’ve got rich experience and many stories to tell.
- Rows that are filled left, but empty right are ares where you’re building newer skills.
- Rows that are empty on the left, but have entries to the right show where you’ve had experience with something, but maybe it was a while ago.
- Empty, or almost empty rows show gaps where you lack experience in a requirement. This might be an area you need to develop or practice if it is a critical need for a particular hiring team. It might be a low enough priority for some hiring teams that it doesn’t matter.
If you sort the rows by the importance of the requirements to the hiring team, then you’ll really start to see how well you map to a role.
In the illustration above, you can see that for the hiring team’s top five needs, you’ve got stories to demonstrate you abilities the go back through at least your three most recent experiences. Some go back even further. You can also see that the sixth most important need is something you’ve had experience in, but that was a while ago. If this comes up in an interview, you’ll need to practice some particular questioning and storytelling to ensure that you can address their needs well. Finally, you see that the last row is a place where you just have a gap that you may need to address.
Columns
As you look down the columns, you’ll notice experiences in which you practiced a lot of the skills that the hiring team is seeking. Those are jobs that you can particularly highlight for their similarity for a job you’re pursuing.
You’ll also notice that there are some stories that repeat as you go down the column. For example, your best story about building a marketing campaign may also be your best story about goal alignment, or conflict resolution. It could even be a great story about resiliency, agility, or grit if it includes a failure that you recovered from.
You’ve got the Map
This Needs-Experience Map will inform what you can say about yourself. It can highlight your most powerful stories. It’s the ultimate cheatsheet for a phone interview, since it can give you a quick reminder of all of the most relevant and meaningful stories that address the hiring team’s needs. You can even print it and tape it to your computer screen for video interviews!
More than anything, as you build, review, and work with this map, you’ll start to see how well you can map yourself to certain roles. You’ll start to see the top 3-5 things that you probably need to highlight to address a hiring team’s needs. You’ll also start to see the top 3-5 stories that you’ll need to be ready to share.
There are tons of ways to use this. For now, though, just make it.
Assignment
- Build your Needs-Experience Map.
- Sort the maps by the most important needs of the jobs the interest you.
- Looking at the needs and your experience, identify the top 3 things that an employer would want to know about you, and the stories that you would use to demonstrate each of those. Image saying in an interview “If you only remember 3 things about me, they should be…”
- Identify stories of key types (e.g., biggest success/most proud, failure/recovery, change of direction, conflict resolution, etc.).
- Review your resume to ensure that references to your best outcome-focused stories are included.