Telling Your Story

We’ve covered so much over the past 11 weeks and not only is the work you’ve done meaningful, it’s also courageous. It takes so much energy and resolve to start putting action towards your career and before you even start reading this article, take a second to give yourself credit for putting these steps in motion.

Since we started this 12 week journey back in January, we’ve covered:

• Making space to start a search

• Determining priorities

• Reconnecting with your network

• Building structure around your search

• Preparing your materials for presentation

Week 12 brings all of this hard work together. At the center of these job-search activities is one essential skill: being able to clearly articulate your background. Being able to clearly and succinctly explain your background is essential in a crowded market, but it’s not always easy to know where to begin. This week, I’m offering a simple framework to help get you started.

Alex Moliski

“Five Simple Questions”

This is an exercise I walk through with clients to help them organize their thinking before networking or interviewing. You don’t need to perfect it today—simply reading through these questions and beginning to shape your answers is a great place to start.

These questions come directly from the top of my candidate screening template. I originally developed them as a recruiter to quickly understand and communicate candidate backgrounds to hiring managers. In recruiting, I’m often moving between roles with very different requirements. Having a small set of clear, consistent questions allows me to quickly understand what someone does, how they add value, and how their experience translates across opportunities.

That same structure can help you do the same: clearly and confidently explain your background to others.

For each role you’ve held, reflect on the following:

• How would you describe the company or organization, simply?

• What were you hired to do?

• What tools, skills, and methods did you use?

• What impact did your work result in?

• What problems were you helping to solve?

Start by writing your answers freely without worry or pressure around wording or structure.

Next, take a few minutes to read your responses out loud. Hearing your own words can help you notice what feels clear and what may need a little more refinement.

Finally, consider recording a quick voice memo on your phone. I know that even thinking about listening to your own voice can feel uncomfortable. But this step can be incredibly helpful. As you listen, ask yourself:

• Do I clearly understand the work that I do?

• Can I hear the value and impact of my experience?

This isn’t about perfection. This work of recording and listening to these five answers is about building awareness and confidence in how you communicate your story.

From Reflection to Communication

This exercise isn’t about memorizing a script. This work is about helping you:

• Connect the dots in your own experience

• Identify patterns across your work

• Build confidence in how you communicate your value

Over time, this becomes your “through line,” the way you naturally explain what you do and why it matters in a way that recruiters will understand.

Practicing Your Narrative

For many people, this is where things really start to click but it’s also where guidance can make a meaningful difference. As a recruiter, I can often tell how prepared someone is by the way they tell their story. Not just what they’ve done but how clearly they can connect their experience to the role they’re pursuing.

When a candidate shares their background in a clear, concise, and compelling way, it becomes much easier for a recruiter or hiring manager to understand—and advocate for—their fit. As a candidate in a job search, part of your role is to advocate for yourself along with shining the light on your background in the right way to highlight your skills and talents that most directly match for what that company is looking for. Part of my 1:1 coaching work that I love to do rests exactly in that space: properly framing a candidate’s experience to make sense to interviewers.

Practicing on your own is a great first step. Practicing aloud can help you feel grounded in what makes you a strong candidate. That confidence that you’re building, that you’ve been building across these past 12 weeks with me, can shift everything to help networking feel more natural and interviews to feel less intimidating.

My Simple Thank You

And as we wrap up these 12 weeks, I want to say thank you for sticking with this series! I truly hope these tips have helped you feel more prepared, more organized, and more confident in your job search. Please trust in your own confidence as you navigate your next steps. You don’t need to have everything figured out. You need a foundation and through this work you’ve started building one.

I’m always here to support you in taking your next step. But whether we work together or not, these tools are yours to carry forward.