Something to shout about

I had an interview last week. Only for some voluntary work, but I squirmed and had to think for what felt like ages when I was asked the inevitable 'what do you think has been your biggest achievement?' question.  Just when I'd finally managed to drag an answer from the depths, along came 'what are you most proud of?'   (Thinks: 'Don't be ridiculous, there MUST be something! There must be LOTS of things!' whilst failing dismally to think of any, looking v.embarrassed and fidgeting a lot.)

After I'd escaped from the interview I was thinking about how uncomfortable it can be to talk about your achievements.  And as a profession, I don't think we're great at shouting about our achievements in our organisations either.

On Black Belt, when we ask about what's helped people improve relationships with senior leaders and move teams from being thought of as e-mail-sender-outers to trusted advisors, being able to give evidence of a job well done always features. But whilst external consultancies are great at collecting case studies to showcase their wares to the next client, how are you at collecting them to showcase to other people in your organisation?

You know the type of thing consultancies do.  'Organisation X had a big business problem. This is what we did. This is the outcome.  Here's a quote from v.important senior manager talking about how fantastic we were. Wouldn't you like us to do something similarly brilliant for you too?'

Do you take an hour or so to write up your great case studies?  Do you get testimonials from leaders and project teams when they're feeling impressed and showering you with thanks? How easily can you call up examples to show what a difference you can make to a project or a management team? 

We all know how annoyingly tricky it is to get that elavator pitch answer to the 'so what exactly do you do?' question, and all too often people assume that we just 'write stuff'. Having a few examples up your sleeve makes it a lot easier to say 'Look - THIS is the kind of thing I mean.' And from the occasions where I've prepared for 'real', competence-based job interviews, I know it's much easier to shout about what I've achieved when I've got an evidence-based answer ready and waiting.

Just a thought.

Sue