How to Tell a Compelling Career Story

Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics combined with predictions made by economic experts are pointing towards a strong economy but “a more challenging hiring environment” than existed in recent years. This means job seekers and really anyone who has career aspirations for the near future, need to find even more ways to stand out in what was already a competitive labor market.

Given that the average job receives approximately 118 applications, having even the most polished resume isn’t enough. Professionals should be looking at other ways to shine besides the common materials they would be asked to provide during an application process. This is where having a page on popular online networking sites is key. As many people know, checking social media accounts is a very popular screening trend for employers across all fields. Because of this, it stands to reason that many employers will run a general search on your name before hiring you.

Now imagine that one of the search results leads employers to your professional website. What now? What should your website say about you?

Well, mainly it should feature your career story. That’s what this article is aimed at helping you build, so read on and then get writing!

Building a Compelling Career Story

A career story is simply a detailed but curated account of your working life, starting all the way back from when you decided to go into your chosen field to the present day. It’s something you would include on a professional page, such as LinkedIn, as well as a helpful tool when networking — which has shown to be the way that at least 85% of jobs are filled these days.

Your career story is an expansion of the information on your resume and answers many of the typical interview questions regarding work-related challenges, long-term career goals, etc.

There aren’t any strict rules regarding what you should or should not include in your career story, but to help get you started, we’ve outlined five key elements that your story should definitely include.

Career Story Framework

1. Introduction – Your introduction should include personable anecdotes and/or background information regarding what prompted you to pursue a job in your current field. Talk about your connection to your work or what inspired you — i.e. did you have a family member who worked in the field? Did you find your passion while in college?

Another thing you can include in your introduction are references to work you might’ve done outside of your career that have helped shape the worker you are today. Volunteering, for example, is a great way to show how well-rounded you are as a person/worker. Research even shows that “individuals who volunteer have a 27% higher chance of finding a job compared to their non-volunteering counterparts.”

2. Outline Most Significant Career Achievements — On the surface, this might seem very similar to what you’d put in the ‘experience’ section of your resume, but it’s actually a little different. Your resume should be focused more on outlining your responsibilities as an employee, but listing your achievements is more about highlighting the successful outcomes of your work. This is where you would want to discuss any major projects you’ve worked on and how they turned out, keeping in mind the soft skills that employers feel are the most important. Another option for this section is to discuss a project that didn’t go the way you thought it would, and share how you either problem-solved your way to success or learned from failure.

3. Reflections – Reflecting back on your career thus far is not only a good way to be reminded of how far you’ve come, but it’s also an opportunity to show gratitude to the people who helped you get where you are today. If there was a mentor or professor who made an impact on you, mention them. You should treat your website or professional pages as online networking opportunities, so don’t be afraid to namedrop when appropriate.

4. Future Career Goals — What are your future goals and how do you hope to achieve them? These don’t just have to be professional goals either. If your personal goals overlap in some way with your career opportunities, then they are worth mentioning. You might think such information wouldn’t be interesting to future employers, but remember, a career story is aimed at providing an all-around idea of who you are professionally, which is never going to be entirely independent of who you are personally.

5. Call to Action Lastly, you’ll want to end your career story with a call to action. It should be short and simple, nothing too aggressive. Here are a couple examples of call to action phrases you can use to end your story:

If you’d like to discuss anything in more detail, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

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Final Thoughts…

Okay, so you’ve cultivated a compelling career story, now what? If you don’t have any employers who are asking to see your website or networking events coming up, how is this story going to be helpful? Networking is a very significant part of career building, but finding the right people to connect with can feel impossible at times. This is when a professional recruitment firm like CyberCoders comes in handy. Let us do the networking for you. Our recruiters want to help get your career story in the hands of the right people!

Check out our website to learn more!