Do You Have a Career Narrative?
Case Study: Chinwe and Chijioke
Chinwe and Chijioke, two first-year computer science students at Kibo School, are kicking off the challenging and often frustrating journey of securing their first internships. The two of them have a similar skill set and background, but differ in their approach to securing an internship. In particular, they disagree on the importance of communication skills when trying to land a role.
Chinwe, a brilliant coder, leans heavily on her technical prowess. She believes that her coding skills should speak for themselves, dismissing the importance of storytelling in the job application process.
Chijioke, on the other hand, is meticulous in his approach to securing a role. Early in the process, he realized the need for a strong career narrative and dedicated time to crafting one that he then weaved into his cover letter, resume, LinkedIn profile, and portfolio.
As the first university career fair approached, Chinwe and Chijioke's differing strategies became more evident:
- Chijioke confidently approached company representatives armed with a well-rehearsed elevator pitch that was supported by an eye-catching resume. He engaged recruiters with interesting stories about his passion for using technology to solve social problems and his prior experience leading teams to do so in his community. Recruiters were not only impressed by his technical skills but also by his ability to articulate his experiences, contributions, and motivations. They could already picture him as one of their employees and were quick to offer him the chance to interview.
- Chinwe, however, hesitated to approach recruiters because she didn’t know what to say to them. When she did approach them, she struggled to frame her skills, past experiences, and future aspirations coherently and clearly. While recruiters could identify hints of her technical skills, they found it challenging to understand the true depth of her skills and how she could fit into their teams. Given the limited interview spots, offering her a chance to move to the next stage of the application process felt like a big risk, so Chinwe didn’t receive any interview offers.
The next week, when Chinwe and Chijioke met to discuss their career fair experiences and outcomes, the gap in their approaches became very clear. Chijioke shared his positive interactions, noting how recruiters responded positively to his ability to convey not just what he could do but who he was as a potential team member. Chinwe, still skeptical, continued to question the need for storytelling in a field dominated by technical skills.
Discuss
❓ Are you on Team Chinwe or Team Chijioke? Who do you agree with and why? Post your answer and reasoning in the padlet below.
Regardless of the field you want to enter, the ability to effectively communicate with potential employers is critical. This is true even in technical fields, where it may not seem like communication skills are as important as technical skills. Effective communication during the hiring process helps to:
- Showcase that you have the strong communication skills required for the job. (Skill Demonstration)
- Give context for the depth of your technical skills, including the different ways they have been developed and utilized, as well as the impact and value you have created through using your skills. (Skill Contextualization and Value Creation)
- Showcase who you are as an individual and how your unique set of motivations, interests, and aspirations make you best suited for the role and company culture. (Culture Fit)
- Create a memorable narrative to allow hiring managers and recruiters to remember you out of the hundreds or thousands of other applicants who may have similar technical skills. (Unique Value Proposition)
A powerful way to demonstrate effective communication during the hiring process is through the use of a career narrative. A career narrative is a short explanation of your career so far that describes some combination of who you are (values), what you can do (skills), what you have done before (experiences), and why you do all this (motivation and purpose).
You may think that as a university student looking for your first job, you don’t have “a career so far” to describe. This is the wrong mindset. Everything you have done during your studies (e.g., coursework, personal projects, volunteering, part-time work) and even your lived experiences (e.g., challenges overcome, experiences that have motivated your actions) are part of the career that you are building. By taking the time to figure out how to tie all these threads together into a strong and cohesive picture of yourself, and then presenting this picture to potential employers, you are making it easier for them to see that you are the best candidate for the role.
What is a Career Narrative?
There are numerous templates you can use to create your career narrative. In this section, you can see one approach in the video below and another approach in the linked article.
📺 Watch the following video for an introduction to career narratives.
📖 Read the following article on how to craft a career story/narrative.
In the next section, we will learn more about storytelling and why it is important in the job search, and you will start to work on creating an effective narrative that creates a compelling, cohesive, and consistent picture of who you are and why people should hire you.