Story Lining

Introduction

The story lining approach to HR questions is an approach which helps create an overall story of your life. While of course this already exists, this approach will help you structure this and put it on paper. From that point onwards, it becomes much easier to identify the right stories for each answer, and communicate the most appropriate aspects of your story to the interviewer.
The story lining approach has 4 key steps that you will need to follow:

1. List the themes & skills in your story

The first step is listing out what you think have been some of the major themes in your life thus far. Against each theme fix on the skills which played a big part in your success or learning within that theme. This may sound super vague, so let me explain with an example:

The manner in which the above 3 themes were arrived t was by asking the question "As I look back on the last 10 years of my life, what skills/ideas have made the biggest impact on my journey?". There are other similar question which can be asked. But the key idea is to capture ideas/situation/goals which for an extended phase (close to a year or more) have driven you and shaped what you were doing, how you were doing it, and have thus created stories which are important to understand who you are. In your first cut of this exercise you might end up with less powerful answers, such as studying to get into XYZ institute, or struggling to keep up with ABC work environment. That's a good starting point, because you can break each of these down into situation types, goals or ideas which are common amongst these, and thus arrive at themes. Once you have a starting point of 5 odd themes, you might find that a theme is a big umbrella, under which many smaller ideas can fit. You need to map out, what the one or two most important skills within that theme are, as a part of your story and experience. This will later help you phrase answers better, and also pick and choose which stories are more coherent with each other.

2. Detail stories out year by year

This is the most important step in the process. Select then a time frame within which most of your important stories lie. I like to start at the end of high school, to get the momentum built up. There aren't too many usable stories from this phase, but it's useful to get an insight on who you are and how you grew up. I then focus on the phases of undergraduate and work experience thus far. However, with what you know about your own story, you should pick up the phases that are most formative in your own story.
Now, go through your own memories year by year and ask yourself, "what happened in this year?". Only note down those stories which are on something you'd want to share with an interviewer of course. Don't worry about how significant the event was, or whether the standard and scale is high enough to share. A lot of small stories may be combined into a more meaningful narrative. To get your thoughts flowing, use the theses and skills listed earlier. Were any of those themes or skills touched upon or built up in anyway that year? For each story that you write out, try to provide:
- Nature of the story (growth, success, failure, regret, conflict, decision, regret etc.)
- Theme of the story (from your list of themes and skills)
- Time frame
- Context - before the story
- All details - Try using the STAR framework, but make sure that you put down all of the details, as if you were telling a friend all about a part of your life
You should have easily 15+ such stories. Not all of them will be great stories that you intend telling. The number may vary by granularity of the story. But do make sure that you cover all of the small and big thing that have happened in the last 5-10 years of your life.
At this point of time you need not refine any of this further. Notice that you will by the end of this have written out any and every detail you might want to share in response to a HR question. You have also put them into a time line and classified them into themes and nature of each story.

3. Centre around strengths & weaknesses

From each of the stories, try an extract now a few trends. What are the common themes and skills. Does this match the themes written out initially? If not, refine the themes and skills at this point. Similarly, look for the strengths and weaknesses that you can truly substantiate from the stories written out. Identify at least 3 strengths and 3 weaknesses. Against each of the strengths look for stories which substantiate:
- Times when the strength helped you achieve something
- How did you develop and improve this strength
- Why do you think this strength will be useful going forward in life (similar to point 1)
Importantly, also find a way of crisply conveying what your strength is, in no more than 1-2 sentences. Find then another 2-5 strengths, which are distinct from these strengths, but for which you need not do as detailed an exercise. This is a brownie point, in case you're in a stress interview, and are pushed to sell yourself. You should not be thinking from scratch at that point.
Repeat all of the above steps for your weaknesses, with a focus on:
- When has this weakness been an inhibitor
- What steps have you and are you taking to overcome the weakness
- Why do you think this is a challenge or a weakness

4. Direct towards goals & a purpose

Once you have all of your stories put together, know the main themes in your life and your strengths and weaknesses (even if all of the above is a rough draft), you might start seeing a bit of direction for yourself. If not, spend some time asking yourself, "where is all of this likely to take me?" and "Independent of my past, what sort of life do I want in the future?". You need not answer all of this just from a job perspective. I don't believe that most of us dream of any specific job as our ideal future, but rather the things that we hope some dream job might help us attain. So, figure out what sort of things you might enjoy doing, what sort of a life do you think you are seeking. After that try to derive from that what sort of a job, company, work might enable some of these things. All of these might give you a very fantastical sounding job which doesn't exist. That's okay. Answers about your career goals and purpose are often centered around broad level aspirations and ambitions, not specifics that the company aims to deliver on. The direction is what matters. If you are clear on the sort of benefits, learnings and type of work you want to be doing, as well as the challenges and down sides that you are willing to put up with, that is plenty of direction. If you can add to this specific milestones that you would like to hit 5 or 10 years down the line, that's great.
Now take a step back from your career goals, and ask yourself what your purpose is. This might be the toughest question to answer as a part of your HR prep, but really helps revise everything before and frame it better. I find it useful to use Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and ask myself "What level of attainment would I be happy with, at the age of 50?". This immediately tells you whether your purpose lies in the range of some major purpose, for the greater good of society, scaling great heights and challenging yourself or supporting your near and dear ones. Of course, it could be a blend of all of these, but try to be pin pointed about what you would regret missing out on the most. From there try to be more specific and identify what you currently believe to be your long term purpose. If it's not at all career oriented, that is perfectly alright. It's honest, and clear, which might even be impressive for an interviewer, who is still figuring this out, like we all are.

Once you have gone through these 4 steps, you may want to review and revise each of the 4 steps a few times, over a few months, on the way to the interview. A lot of these answers change a little with thought and introspection. Give yourself some time for that.