26: How to make your transferable skills stand out with storytelling

One of the trickiest parts about making a career switch is having to show someone that you’ve done A, B, and C in one industry or profession and that you’ll be able to do X, Y, and Z in a new one. You basically have to convince somebody to take a chance on you.

In this episode of Career Switch Podcast, career coach Win Sheffield walks us through how a good story can make your transferable skills stand out—no convincing required. We cover how to find stories throughout your career, what to include, and how to best use stories when you’re networking, interviewing, and writing your resume. 


Find Win Sheffield at:

Website: www.winsheffield.com

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/winsheffield

Facebook: www.facebook.com/WinSheffieldCareerCoach

Resources from this episode:

Stories worksheet: www.winsheffield.com/stories/

Stories microcasts: www.winsheffield.com/microcastdraft

Register for Win's online Stories Workshop: Conveying Your Value 

Mondays at 4:30 pm EST

https://www.winsheffield.com/events-2/

Music credit: TimMoor from Pixabay

Podcast info:
What's your career switch? What do you think about this episode and the show? Tell us at careerswitchpod.com. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Transcript

Lixandra: Hi, everyone. I'm Lixandra Urresta, and this is Career Switch Podcast. This show is here to encourage you to take action with whatever career change you're considering or working on. Maybe you're trying to switch industries or professions or break out on your own and start a business. In some episodes, I talk to people who've made their own career switch, whether by choice or circumstance. They share the good, the bad, and the truth about their journey, including what worked for them and what didn't. In other episodes, I speak with experts who offer their best career advice on challenges that can come up during the process of making a career change. After all, it takes guts to switch things up, and it's not easy. However, it is possible. 

So, I hope you hear something in this episode, an idea, a suggestion, a piece of advice that'll spur you into action with your own career switch, whether it's taking that first bold step or trying something new. Welcome. I'm glad you're here. 

One of the hardest parts about making a career switch is having to show someone that you've been doing A, B, and C in one industry or profession, and that you'll be able to do X, Y, and Z in a new one. You basically have to convince somebody to take a chance on you. Here to help with this challenge is career coach Win Sheffield. 

In this episode, Win explains how you can use storytelling to make your transferable skills stand out. Stories, like the kind you'd share with your family and friends over dinner, can also help you professionally. We cover how to find stories throughout your career, what to include in a story, and how to best use stories when you're networking, on your resume, and in job interviews. 

Hi, Win, thanks for joining us today. You offer a workshop on storytelling. You say it's, quote, the single most effective way for a potential employer to experience what it is like to work with you and that stories are as natural for us to tell as they are for our listeners to take in. What is a story and how can storytelling show someone your transferable skills?

Win: Obviously, in our lives, there is a long history of stories, starting out with stories that maybe our parents read us at bedtime. And we have been exposed to stories through movies and through books and many other media. The way I think about stories for career builds on that tradition and takes it in ways that are very helpful for us professionally. For instance, I could say, I got Jack to agree to something, or I'm good at getting people to agree at something. That's not a story, and it's not particularly convincing. But if I say, I was in a meeting once to go over our development project, and Jack was one of those people who was skeptical about it, and when I mentioned that it would be able to help our customer service He leaned forward and seemed interested. Then I've told you a story. And then I could finish the story with the result of that. You would know something about me. And that's what we want people to think about us professionally. We want them to know what we can do for them and how we get that work done.

Lixandra: Are people surprised when they hear about the concept of using stories?

Win: Yes. Surprised and intimidated. We all know that we have to put together resumes and we have to practice how we're going to respond in an interview. And we have to introduce ourselves on a regular basis. But we don't think about what's involved with that. And by starting with a single source of stories, we can take a story and work with it so that we have one story, which we convey in different ways.

Lixandra: Why is storytelling better than simply listing your transferable skills? You showed it a little with your first example, but tell us more about it.

Win: So let me give you another more detailed example, and I'll ask you all as listeners to think about what you're learning about this person. So the first thing I could say is, I'm organized, I know basic, and I understand forecasting. So if I'm going for a job in a financial area, you know those three things about me. If I say I developed a spreadsheet which allowed us to forecast multiple times monthly instead of putting it off quarterly through automation, then you know something more about me. You know a result. And that's often where people stop in telling about themselves because they figure, Well, if I give them the result, the hero comes home with the prize, then they're going to think I'm a wonderful person. But there's another way to tell things in more detail and take a little more time, but is oh, so much more convincing that it's really worth it. So if I were to say early in my career at Citibank, my supervisor, Nancy, called me into her office and said, I want you to take over the forecast from Keith. I said, fine. So I went down the hall to Keith's office. I said, Keith, what's this forecast thing I was supposed to take over? And this being 1979, he brought out a piece of paper that showed 12 months going across the top with quarterly totals and 14 products going down the side. To me, looked like a nightmare. So I immediately said to him, why isn't this automated? And he said to me, That can't be done. So I went down to Nancy's office and said, Nancy boldly as a newly minted MBA, as I was, we can automate this sheet. And she said, but John wants it by Friday. I said, let's go talk to John. John's our boss, the head of finance unit. So John believes me and says, okay, I'll give you until next Wednesday to do this. So I ended up working more over the weekend than I had wanted to. and I ended up polishing up my college basic, which I thought I would never have to use again because there are no spreadsheet apps in 1979. By Wednesday, I had put together a rudimentary basic program so that we could do those forecasts in an automated way. Nancy was happy because she could do the calculations more than once a month instead of quarterly. John, the head of the Finance was happy as well as was rich because he, the head of the whole division could make use of this. So if you stop and think about what you learned about me from that story, often when I'm in audiences, people say you persevere. You don't take no for an answer. You get the job done when it needs to be done. You willing to polish up skills that were rusty. all these kinds of things. And for when we're, especially when we're changing jobs, we need to be able to show off those great characteristics in a way that's going to get people's attention because we don't have the specific expertise necessarily for a new area that we're going into.

Lixandra: I was taking notes while you were telling the story. And yes, I wrote down that you took initiative, that you speak up when necessary since you went to your supervisor after your colleague said the automation couldn't be done. You're resourceful. You pulled out your basic programming knowledge from college. You work quickly and efficiently because you met the deadline. And you resolved the problem by improving the whole process.

Win: One of the things that may be obvious, but I'll just point out for the benefit of our listeners, is those things that you wrote down, you wrote down before I said any of the things that I said. So they were conclusions that you drew on your own. As such, I didn't have to convince you of anything. You convinced yourself based on the story.

Lixandra: So that's why it's better to use storytelling.

Win: Yes. Let's your listener draw conclusions on your behalf so that they don't have to be skeptical. Well, he says he's this, but it's not clear to me. How do I know that?

Lixandra: And how can a story like your example apply to switching industries or professions?

Win: Now, that was a very specific context. I was talking about forecasting, I was talking about calculations, I was talking about basic programming. But I think if you were hiring me into a marketing position, or something completely outside finance, all those conclusions that you drew would be relevant for that new area. Stories help us to focus on transferable skills. The kinds of things that we'll draw conclusions on from a story are the kinds of things that can be used in multiple contexts, multiple environments. These stories are most helpful for career changes more than anyone else.

Lixandra: Let's take a moment to define transferable skills. When we first spoke, you actually corrected me since I was thinking Excel and other technical skills as transferable skills. Which transferable skills are you referring to?

Win: As I said, for the financial example I gave, the things that you came up with and that I listed after I told the story were things that are valuable well beyond finance. Anybody who's organized. who thinks ahead, who is willing to speak up and all that is valuable. So a story will help enumerate the kinds of things that are interesting to somebody, no matter what they are. So there are some that are people oriented. So are you good at engaging people? Are you good at selling people? Are you good at calming people? Are you good at negotiating with people? Then there are other things that are outside people skills. Are you good at analysis? Are you organized? Are you good at setting up schedules? Are you good at logistics? Are you good at reacting when things happen quickly? And in addition to that, any software, you know, like Excel, which is broadly applicable or project management software, which you might use in a completely different context. All of those things are valuable as well.

Lixandra: All right. So where can we find stories that display our transferable skills?

Win: One of the things that you may or may not find valuable is annual performance reviews. They usually have some examples of what you do in them. So that's one place that I go. Emails that you have from supervisors and colleagues over potentially small things. And earlier I was referring to that meeting with Jack. That's a very small thing. The whole thing unraveled in 30 seconds. But that's the kind of thing that shows off an important aspect of personality if you can remember them. You can also obviously recall times when your boss or someone else gave you positive feedback, maybe a client. All those things that made you feel good or sometimes the ones that made you feel bad because you remedied it after the fact. So anything you can connect with your feeling will probably be a good story as well, because it will connect with your listeners' feelings as well. The other thing is, once you've exhausted what you can come up with for yourself, who can you turn to? Who are your loyal allies who may or may not be still working with you? Or even friends who've seen you excel in volunteer situations or situations outside work. They can be thrown in as lighthearted stories, and they'll still convey the character that you want to convey in stories.

Lixandra: Now, you provide a stories worksheet on your website, which will be linked in the show notes. How does this worksheet help you collect stories?

Win: It's geared towards recording the details of a story, but it's also geared towards stimulating your memory so that more stories come to mind. And it will help you organize your thinking and takes you through the parts of a story, so what was the context, what was the call to action, etc.

Lixandra: That takes us to what we should include in a story. You say there are five parts to a story.

Win: The ultimate conclusion that we want people to draw from our stories are the things that we're going to bring to their organization to make it function better. more efficiently, more easily, more friendly, or whatever it is that they're looking for. So the things that I'm going to go through about the parts of a story are the things that we are hardwired as human beings for and expect in a story. And if we don't give people what we're hardwired for, then they get distracted from drawing the conclusions that we need them to draw so they understand what we bring to the table.

Lixandra: Okay, so what are the five parts of a story?

Win: Give a context. Where are we? What's going on? And then what is the trigger or the call to action? My boss called up and said, then figure out a plan of how you're going to go forward given the trigger or the action you've been called to. What are the problems that come up? How did you resolve them? And give the results. As long as you're doing all those things and you can practice so you can get better and clearer on them, that's going to be an effective way to tell a story.

Lixandra: Can you give us an example of a story that has all five parts? So one, context. Two, a trigger or a call to action. Three, the plan. Four, the problems that came up and the solutions. And five, the results.

Win: OK, well, I'll just refer back, if I may, to the forecasting one that I did. So the first thing that happened was I said I was working at Citibank. I also told you that I was a newly minted MBA. So that gave you a context of what level I was at, because some stories are very impressive if you're just starting out. But if you've been 20 years on the job, they're not going to be so impressive. So you start out with a context. So then the trigger was Nancy said that I had to do the forecast. Now that turned out to be a trigger which I relatively easily went down to solve because I just went down to Keith's office and said, how do you do it? Then Keith gave me a problem along the way. Well, it can't be automated. I thought, wrong answer. I can certainly figure out a way to automate this. The way I overcame it was to polish off my college basic and figure out how to automate this thing. And then I came up with the result. As I mentioned, I told John and John told Rich and everything looked good. And since it was early in my career, I got a good reputation to start with.

Lixandra: From what we've covered so far, stories seem to be long and take up time. How can you incorporate storytelling when you're networking? on your resume and in job interviews.

Win: The circumstance in which we have the most time to deliver a story is probably in networking. So you have people's attention for a short period of time and you don't want to abuse that and you want to keep them intrigued. I didn't time what I took for the financial story, but I'm sure it was less than two minutes. There's a temptation when people hear stories that they ought to come up with some fantastic career changing story. It doesn't need to be that at all. A story doesn't have to be big and important. And if you are telling a big and important story, you can't tell the whole story. You have to tell one part of it. Either take a small part of a bigger story or pick a very small story to begin with. Okay.

Lixandra: And how can we incorporate storytelling on our resumes?

Win: A resume bullet is where you want to put these stories. A resume bullet is often used as a job description responsible for moving all car parts from Detroit over the bridge into Windsor. But it doesn't tell me whether you did the responsibility, it doesn't give me as any sense of how you got the parts over the bridge. A much stronger way is to say, during the parts crisis of February 2022, we couldn't get our parts from Detroit to Windsor. So what I decided to do was to hire a boat for the bulky items that could get there slowly. And I packed the small items in boxes and flew them across. Oh, okay. So there you took apart a problem and figured out a solution. Shows a lot of innovation, right? Shows that you're thinking outside the box. So then the bullet for that would be developed alternate air and sea methods to transfer small quickly needed parts and larger needed it more leisure parts from Detroit to Windsor, cutting three days off of our otherwise extended supply chain. That's going to fit in three or four lines of a bullet. It raises some questions that the person might want to ask, whereas a list of job description Not going to ask many questions, but by putting all the detail in, I'm giving much more leeway into keeping that conversation going when somebody is interviewing me.

Lixandra: And would you include that there was a parts crisis and the date, so February 2022 in the bullet to provide context?

Win: Sure. Especially if you've got a resume that's going out in the next year, because people will remember it.

Lixandra: Now, how are these storytelling bullets going to get past the automated filters when you apply for a job through a company's online portal?

Win: We organize our resume and then what we ordinarily do is put down the company we were working for. We put down the name of the position, vice president, assistant vice president, logistics analyst, whatever it is. And we put the date that we started and the date that we ended. In addition to that, you can put down three or four lines of general job responsibility, and you can load it with those impactful machine-friendly words. So the machine will be reading the overarching description of the resume, and the human will be reading the bullets. You'll engage the human in the way that a list of job responsibilities never will.

Lixandra: And lastly, how about using storytelling during job interviews?

Win: We all know that there's certain questions that we're going to be asked in an interview. Tell me about yourself. The expectation there, which we need to meet, is that we're going to get a little bit of a potted history. But the nice thing about stories is While you do have to give that answer, you don't have to give as much detail as you might think for that answer, because once you start telling a story, your audience will be leaning in to hear what it is that you're going to say, because people want to know how stories come out in the end. So if I'm asked for my history, I might say, I started out working at Citicorp in a financial analyst situation. I had many successes, including a wonderful time when I was able to anticipate the invention of spreadsheets by automating a forecast that we did. I then went on to come back to Citicorp, the investment bank, and I was in charge of developing The user side of a system so that the financial people came to me with their requirements. And I went with the requirements to the systems people. One of the times they decided in mid course, when we already had a deadline that was eight months away to add derivatives products onto what we were doing. That was a big change. And I had to figure out how to change their expectations and change what was actually going to be able to be delivered. in consultation with the systems people. After that, I left Citibank and went on to do strategic planning at Morgan. And there are stories that I can tell you about that. And then I went on to PricewaterhouseCoopers, which I've just left, and that's why I'm here to talk to you. So you can see where I've seeded interest in stories all along through that answer. So if you give them things to ask you about, they're grateful. And not only that, but it will serve your mutual interest in getting them to know you better and you to know them better. So stories give them a way of learning a lot about you. And if they tell you stories, you can learn a lot about them.

Lixandra: Okay, and as we wrap up, you offer an online stories workshop on Mondays at 4.30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, so the link will be in the show notes. You also have microcasts that cover storytelling on your website, winsheffield.com. Tell us about those.

Win: Microcasts are five-minute answers, so very quick answers to questions that you have. There is a group of podcasts, maybe five or six, that focus specifically on stories, five minutes each, and they answer a lot of the questions that we've talked about in today's podcast. So I would encourage you to go and listen to those as well.

Lixandra: Special thanks to Win Sheffield for being our guest today. We covered a lot in this episode, so make sure to check out Win's website, Winsheffield.com, for his story's worksheet and microcast, and to register for his story's workshop. 

You can find links to the resources mentioned in this episode and more helpful information in the show notes and on our website, careerswitchpod.com. So what's your career switch? Are you motivated to take action after listening to this episode? Tell us at careerswitchpod.com. We'd love to know, along with any feedback you have about the show. Let us know too, if you'd like to be a guest. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn at careerswitchpod. And please rate, review, and share with your friends and colleagues. It'll help get the show out there. Thanks for listening today. Till next time.