Be Memorable and Control Your Narrative in Job Interviews

If you’ve ever been involved in recruiting for your company, you’ve probably run into this problem. You get to the end of a long day or week of interviews, and all of the people you’ve met start to blend together. Then a colleague mentions the name of someone you both interviewed and all you can come up with is: 

Who was that?

Responding to your momentary lapse in memory, your colleague chooses a very specific detail from that person’s background or presentation to jog your memory: You know, the one who climbed Denali.

Then it all comes back to you. In a rush. That person’s face, where they went to school and worked, their overall career trajectory, their love of travel, and their tendency to take on big challenges.

That instant rush of memory and association came to you courtesy of a label.

Denali. 

And I’d be willing to bet that the next time you and your colleague refer to that candidate in the recruiting process, you’re likely to say something like: You know — Denali! And it won’t be that specific biographical detail alone that you’ll be referring to. That one word, Denali, will be a stand-in for bigger ideas: a love of travel and a hunger for new challenges. And those two ideas could very well be what separates that particular candidate from the rest of the pack.

What if you could influence the label or labels that get applied to you the next time you’re at risk of blending into a group of candidates for a job or a promotion?

I think you can. You can take control of your own narrative.

Labels: the good, the bad and the ugly

Before I suggest how you might go about influencing the label that gets applied to you, let’s clear the air about labels.

Labels help you organize things in your life. They’re useful. They help create order out of chaos and they can help you understand things that are new to you. I’m willing to bet that a lot of my readers (those who haven’t gone entirely digital and paperless) have a label-maker tucked away somewhere so that they can create a little order in their own chaos. And if it’s not a physical label that we’re talking about, then it might be a folder, a tag, or a hashtag.

The trouble we run into is when we start applying labels to people. It usually doesn’t serve the labeler or the labelee, because labels are typically reductive, don’t allow for nuance, and they often lean on stereotypes. 

You need to own and direct your personal narrative. If you don’t, someone else is going to do it for you, and you may not like the story they come up with.

As a younger, openly gay professional in the corporate world, there were moments (some more obvious than others) when I knew that labels were being applied to me. To my disadvantage. A very obvious instance happened in the first half of my 10-year run as a CPG marketer. In an unusually self-aware moment for my younger self, I commented to my boss that I didn’t think I was always taken seriously by the senior leaders in our company. She responded a little too quickly and a little too smartly, “Oh, they just think of you as a hairdresser.” 

I was working in the beauty industry at the time, so I suppose that I could have interpreted the label “hairdresser” as a compliment having to do with my style, skill, and creativity. But I knew that wasn’t really the message. Despite the fact that I was successfully running the core business of the company at the time and took on additional work as a good corporate citizen whenever I could, my contributions were undercut and devalued with a single word. A single label.

So I get it. Labels can be destructive. I obviously still remember the label that was applied to me more than a decade ago.

But labels, even when they’re applied to people, don’t always need to be negative. Especially when you take control of the situation and choose your own.

Label yourself to control your narrative

I believe that you need to own and direct your personal narrative. If you don’t, someone else is going to do it for you and you may not like the story they come up with.

Hairdresser.

Now I have great respect for hairstylists. They need to have a sharp eye, finely-tuned motor skills, stamina, and a knack for making people feel comfortable in pretty intimate situations. But that wasn’t what that label “hairdresser” meant when it was applied to me. And even if it was, that wasn’t the story I was going for when I was an up-and-coming marketer. 

I hadn’t taken control of my own narrative. I had let someone else do it for me, and I wasn’t happy with the story it told.

So how do you go about choosing a positive and reinforcing label for yourself, specifically in the recruiting process? And how do you go about applying it?

I think you have options.

Labels based on personal characteristics or qualities

In my experience as a hiring manager in the corporate world and a senior recruiter in an executive search firm, hiring decisions are often influenced by the personal characteristics and qualities of candidates, like self-confidence, thoughtfulness, openness to risk, and charisma.

If you think you’re going to be in a pool of similarly educated, skilled, and experienced candidates, you might consider which of your personal characteristics and qualities could distinguish you from your competitors in a way that would be compelling to the organization and team you’re hoping to join. Do they consider themselves to be intrepid risk-takers? If so, then the label you might want to apply to yourself in the recruiting process could be: Denali!

You can include the fact that you climbed Denali in the personal section of your resume. Mention it when you’re asked to share a little about yourself, especially at the beginning of an interview. Reference it when you’re asked about the greatest challenge you ever faced: Well, beyond climbing Denali, I think my greatest challenge has been…

Earlier in my career, I had my own Denali — working for Estée Lauder in Siberia. In fact, that’s how I was introduced at a town hall event by the then President of Estée Lauder International when I first arrived for two weeks of training at the GM building in New York City. She said, “This is Doug Lester. He’s from Wharton and the Lauder Institute at Penn. We’re sending him to Siberia!”

People laughed. I laughed. But I had fought hard for the opportunity to work for Estée Lauder in Moscow, and also in Siberia it turned out. And in that moment, when everyone was sharing a good-natured laugh, I realized that the label “Siberia” said something positive about me. I was a risk-taker. Instead of spending my summer in the GM building hovering high above Central Park, I was willing to try something new, something that wouldn’t necessarily be easy. 

I liked the label and it stuck — in part because I intentionally made it part of my own narrative. And it’s been a guiding principle of my career ever since. I’m willing to try new things. Just check out my LinkedIn profile.

Labels based on skills and experience

There are, of course, going to be situations when you know or suspect that your level of proficiency related to a skill or set of skills required for a job is superior to those of your competitors. Or maybe you have experiences that are especially relevant and compelling to the people who are considering hiring you. These skills and experiences can be a source of inspiration for creating a label that supports you as the best choice for a role. 

You can use that label when referencing yourself in the recruiting process, or with some regularity at the office. Recalling your time as “a teacher at a math camp” or describing yourself as “the person who always brings people together to get them aligned” can begin to establish labels like “the teacher” or “the aligner.” Depending on the job or promotion you might be going for, these labels can help you be memorable and also support your candidacy.

When I was just starting out after college and word processing was in its relatively early stages of development, I realized that I was pretty good at figuring out new technology. I also enjoyed helping other people learn it and use it effectively. My colleagues started referring to me (lovingly, I think) as the office geek. That was a label I could live with, and leverage over time. And I did. I continued to keep up with tech and help the people around me who might struggle with it, even though it wasn’t the primary responsibility of any job I’ve ever held.

Ten years later, when I was a marketing manager at Neutrogena and our seven-page brochureware website needed to be catapulted into the 21st century, the office geek raised his hand to do it. And I got a promotion to director in the process. 

What did I use as the support for my candidacy and promotion? The labels I had chosen or adopted for myself. As the office geek (which I still proudly was, by the way), I was readily seen as up to the challenge of designing and launching a modern content-filled website that would cover a market-leading brand with multiple categories and hundreds of SKUs. As the risk-taking guy who had worked for Estée Lauder in Siberia, it wasn’t too hard a sell to convince my managers that I would be up to the task of forging a new path for myself and for the company.

My labels, my narrative, my opportunity.

Conclusion

Labels can be destructive and demotivating when they’re carelessly applied by other people to you. But labels can be empowering when you choose your own or adopt ones you like and that fit a narrative you’d like to set for yourself. 

Labels can convey personal qualities and characteristics that say something positive about you as a current or potential employee and leader. And they can be effective when they convey skills and experience that might set you apart from the competition using just a few economical and even lighthearted words.

You can also think about labels as being related to personal branding. Personal branding ideally should be holistic, strategic, and consistent over time. Labels are more like the messaging that supports your personal brand and can be chosen to fit a particular situation or stage of your career. Some labels, especially those related to personal qualities and characteristics, may ultimately become integral to your personal brand. However it works out, you should take the initiative to influence the labels that are applied to you.

What labels would you choose to tell your story and support your career advancement? I’m a risk-taking, techno-geek who’s ready to try something new. Blog anyone?

Give it some thought. And control your own narrative, and your career.

If you need help identifying your own positive, empowering labels that will set you apart from the competition, get in touch. Let's talk and pull out the virtual label-maker.