I recently had the chance to coach someone who was preparing for a job interview. Before we talked, I reviewed both her résumé and the job description. On paper, she was a strong match. Her experience lined up well with what the company was looking for, and the person who referred her to me spoke very highly of her work.
So I was a little surprised when we started practicing interview questions. She was visibly nervous and tentative when talking about her experience. At times, it also sounded like she was trying to remember a rehearsed answer instead of just talking about work she knew well.
The person I heard in the practice interview didn’t quite match the very capable person I saw on the résumé.
She is definitely not alone. I have met many people throughout my career who are excellent at what they do but have a hard time talking about their experience. This can happen in a job interview, but it also happens at work when someone has to present a recommendation, explain a project, or speak in front of senior leaders or clients. The problem is often not that they need more experience. They need to get better at communicating the experience they already have.
I can relate to this because I struggled with it myself early in my career. I worked hard and did well, but I was uncomfortable promoting myself. I thought good work should speak for itself. Sometimes it does. But when someone is deciding whether to hire you, promote you, fund your idea, or trust your recommendation, you often have to help them understand the value of what you have done.
This was actually one of the reasons I started this blog more than 15 years ago. I knew my own struggle wasn’t unique. So many capable people get passed over for jobs or promotions because they don’t represent themselves as well as they could.
Here are 3 things I shared in that coaching conversation that I think can help, whether you are preparing for a job interview or getting ready to present your work.
1. Believe You Know Your Stuff
Before you can convince someone else that you are qualified, you have to believe it yourself. I don’t mean convincing yourself that you are perfect for every job or that you know everything. I mean looking honestly at the evidence.
- What have you done?
- What problems have you solved?
- What have you learned?
- What judgment have you developed along the way?
If you are interviewing, remember that you got the interview for a reason. Someone looked at your background and thought there was enough of a match to want to talk with you. You don’t have to walk in and prove that you have already done every single thing in the job description. You need to help them see how what you have done prepares you to do this job well.
The same thing applies when presenting your work. If you have done the analysis, talked with the right people, thought through the options, and developed a point of view, trust that. You probably know the work better than most people in the room.
This matters because when you don’t believe in your own experience, it shows. You hedge. You over-explain. You look for the “right” answer. You become more focused on how you are coming across than on the conversation itself. Believing that you have something useful to contribute helps you relax enough to actually talk about it.
2. Prepare Stories, Not Scripts
Of course you should prepare for an interview. I just don’t think preparation should mean writing out complete answers and memorizing them word for word. That often backfires. You may get through the answer, but part of your brain is busy trying to remember what comes next. The result can sound stiff, and it makes it harder to listen and connect with the person in front of you.
A better approach is to prepare a handful of stories from your experience. Think about the examples that show how you actually work:
- a difficult problem you solved,
- something you helped launch,
- a time you influenced others,
- a setback you navigated, or
- a result you are especially proud of.
For each story, know the basic pieces. What was happening? What was the challenge? What did you personally do? What happened as a result? What did you learn? You don’t need to memorize the wording. You need to know the story.
One good interview story can also show many different things about you. A product launch, for example, might demonstrate leadership, collaboration, problem-solving, customer insight, or the ability to deal with ambiguity. Preparing a few strong stories gives you much more to work with than trying to anticipate and script an answer for every possible interview question.
It also makes you more memorable. A list of responsibilities tells someone what your job was. A story helps them understand what you actually did.
3. Adapt Your Answer in the Moment
Once the interview or meeting starts, the preparation part is over. Now you have to stay present, engage, and listen. This is another place where I see people get stuck. They recognize a question they prepared for, start telling the story they practiced, and do fine. Then the interviewer asks a follow-up question – maybe about a decision they made, how they handled pushback, what their role really was, or what they would do differently – and suddenly they are less comfortable because the conversation has moved beyond the prepared story.
That is why active listening is such an important part of communicating well in an interview. Instead of listening for the next opportunity to deliver one of your prepared answers, listen for what the interviewer is actually trying to understand. A follow-up question is useful information. It tells you what they care about and where they want to go next.
One simple thing you can do is briefly paraphrase the question before answering. It helps confirm that you understood what they are asking, and it also gives you a few extra seconds to think about the best way to respond. Then answer that question directly.
This is where the first tip becomes important again. If you really believe you know your stuff, you don’t need to cling to the exact story you prepared. You lived the experience. You know what happened, why you made certain decisions, what worked, what didn’t, and what the outcome was. You can move around inside the experience depending on where the interviewer takes you.
The same thing happens in presentations. You may walk in with a clear plan for how you want the discussion to go, and then a client or senior leader gets interested in something completely different. They may challenge an assumption, skip three slides ahead, or want to spend ten minutes on something you thought was a minor point.
That’s okay. Your job is not to get through the presentation exactly as planned. Your job is to understand what matters to the people in the room and respond to it. The goal of preparation is to help you feel grounded enough that you can have a real conversation.
You May Already Have What You Need
A lot of people assume they need one more project, another credential, or a few more years of experience before they can go after the next opportunity. Sometimes that’s true. But sometimes the bigger issue is that they haven’t learned how to confidently talk about what they already know and what they have already done.
For me, the foundation is pretty simple:
- Believe that you know your stuff.
- Prepare stories instead of scripts.
- Then listen and adapt once the conversation starts.
You may already be more qualified than you sound.
Let’s Talk
Which of these is hardest for you: believing you are qualified, telling your stories, or adapting the conversation in the moment? Join me on Substack and let’s talk about it. I am always in your corner.