Tell a Story That's Easily Retold

No Story, No Glory

I’ve written hundreds of articles and my job applications have been rejected hundreds of times.

Through this experience I’ve come to an important realization: If you believe communicating clearly means getting your point across, then you’re setting the bar far too low.

The bar should be far higher: communicating clearly means you’re getting your point across in a way that they can get your point across.

In other words: how can you tell a story that’s easily retold?

James Cameron, legendary director of Alien, Terminator and Titanic is a master of storytelling. He is one of the top-grossing movie directors of all time. He is responsible for the biggest blockbuster ever made: Avatar, with a highly anticipated third installment coming out this year.

When James Cameron met with studio executives to pitch the sequel to Alien sometime in the 80s, he wrote the word “ALIEN” on a white board. Then he added the letter S, to explain there would be multiple aliens. Finally, he drew two vertical lines through the “S” to transform it in a dollar sign ($). He told executives his movie was going to make everyone in the room filthy rich.

He made up that pitch on the spot, and none of the executives questioned it. They even went with ‘Aliens’ as the final title, and now it’s considered as one of the best sequels of all time. James Cameron told them a story that could easily retold, by using a whiteboard together with simple visuals.

His story easily retold didn’t convey all the nuances and details of making the movie. But he told it in a way that the core of the message would be retained: the movie will feature multiple aliens AND we’re all going to be rich.

We all know how often telling a story easily retold goes wrong. If you ask ten people to explain Agile or Scrum, you will get ten different answers.

Telling stories easily retold is what often goes wrong in resumes. When I read resumes, I often fall asleep, because:

1. There is no personality in there.

2. It’s usually a mix of things someone did and their responsibilities. All written down with the boring lingo expected in their respective field of expertise. There no story, just a list of facts.

3. They expect me to ingest all the details to do the hard work of reverse engineering a story about why they would do a great job in the role they’ve applied for.

4. There is no hook that grabs my attention or makes me remember their resume.

Your resume should never make me wonder: why would this person be capable of the job they’re applying for?

When I read your resume, I should remember a story easily retold of why you are capable of the job you’re applying for. As that’s the only thing I will remember after reading your resume.

If you don’t have a story easily retold, then you’ve already lost.

Less is more, but you must do the hard work of thinking it all through.

It’s far too dangerous to leave making up a story easily retold in the hands of whoever reads your resume.

As they won’t do that for you. They’re buried in hundreds of resumes and have better things to do.

You’ll as easily be forgotten as the boring list of facts and activities you have written down.

No Story, No Glory (see what I did there?).