How Specificity can Save your Interview

Each year we help students achieve their goals by improving how clearly they can communicate their unique value through our coaching program, FLEET. Recently, we had a breakthrough that I think we can all learn from.

Meet Joe and Jenna. They are both applying for a scholarship that could pay for their medical school. In FLEET, we always ask students about their strengths. Joe and Jenna both shared that they are great "problem solvers". Now, is this probably true considering they are aspiring med students? Goodness I hope so!

But here's the problem:

Any other qualified candidate could also say the exact. same. thing.

Interviews are about rising above, and this was not helping them.

After more prodding, we learned more about Joe and Jenna.

Joe was great at solving technical problems/fixing things under pressure despite having limited resources, like the time he fixed a snow mobile on the side of the mountain with nothing but a stick he took from a tree. This could further be validated through his side hobby of being a mechanic.

Jenna, on the other hand, wasn't keen to high pressure situations, BUT she had numerous stories about solving conflict on her cheer team. We decided that "problem solving" wasn't the best word to really describe the truth about her strengths, but instead, "maintaining harmony and solving social conflict".

Now here is the REALLY beautiful part.

Joe was applying for the pre-med scholarship and was most interested in Orthopedic Surgery: aka he was LITERALLY going to have to do what he did with the snow-mobile as a career. Jenna was applying for the pre-nursing track: aka, she was going to have to build relationships with patients, their families and her nursing teams.

So, now, instead of a generic answer, we have a unique quality with an example that directly describes what will make each of them uniquely qualified to be an exceptional nurse or doctor!

Happy interviewing!

Not sure how you can do this? We can help! See our FLEET page: click here.