When I advised a client to tone down the ‘me against the world’ narrative, she looked at me with puzzlement. A lot of the time, we face intense scrutiny and stress in our lives, and it seems that we are the only ones who have faced challenges. Applicants tend to adopt the vocabulary and narrative of those who have truly suffered and start using it in essays and interview scripts. The trouble is that many of your peers also use the same strategy.
What seemed a novel phrasing or answer is now a generic answer about persistence and setbacks and overcoming gender, societal, and class barriers. When every applicant sounds the same, it is tough for the interviewer to see what makes them unique.
Secret to Avoiding Generic Answers #1 – The Backstory
When I asked a client what made her taking over her father’s business unique, she responded that it was a big leap.
From a novice with a limited perspective of the world of business, she was thrown into funding shortages, production nightmares, and supply chain chaos.
I asked her to expand on the funding shortages. She gave a specific use case of a funding approach used in the Plastic industry that made me think.
Any answer that makes the Interviewer think rises above the Generic Answer.
From a simple, I took over the funding challenges it became - I found two alternative asset classes that funded the factory, built systems to streamline accounting, and established controls to prevent excessive spending.
A generic answer had transformed into 3 action items and an industry-specific narrative that another applicant who faced a similar problem could not quote.
Now the applicant had a story that hooks and educates the interviewer.
Secret to Avoiding Generic Answers #2 – Adversity
The ‘Me against the world’ narrative on further probing became a bias that was prevalent in a particular part of the world. She expanded with two examples of persistent gender biases – one on how the person should present herself and the second on her appearance.
Two specific examples added validation to the ‘Me Against the World’ narrative. She was truly fighting not just professional roadblocks to shine in her career but also familial and societal pressures that added a layer of adversity that immediately gave validity to her challenges.
Secret to Avoiding Generic Answers #3 – Vulnerability
When applicants share their vulnerability, the ‘hero’ narrative gets humanized.
One of the clients, in a mock interview, shared how he had limited command over guiding engineers in his family business who were 20-30 years his senior. He found it incredibly challenging to persuade experienced professionals on strategic milestones as they were closely intertwined with engineering milestones. Since he didn’t have command over the engineering challenges, initially, all strategic milestones felt like an impossible dream of a novice manager. Only when he accepted his weakness and asked for help, these dreams were tempered with realistic goals.
Such vulnerabilities bring specific weaknesses and strengths to the answer.
The weakness was a lack of exposure to complex engineering challenges.
The strength was an open mind to seek help to understand the challenges.
Such vulnerabilities expressed through specific problem statements elevate generic answers. And it doesn’t come naturally.
