How to be exceptionally memorable
Original email from Sep 27, 2024
Becoming an exceptional developer involves being good at two things
The first part is to have skills, hold attributes, or take actions that help you stand out somehow.
This could mean you work at becoming a world-renowned competitive programming champion, go to Harvard, or work in the biggest and best tech companies.
It could also mean you focus on a few skills so that, in a certain environment, you become the go-to person in that domain. Maybe you're the most experienced in helping websites with SEO or designing tests for projects in your company.
The second part of being exceptional is being able to market and show off the value that those skills, attributes, and actions bring to the table.
(Of course, marketing these with kindness and humility, but also knowing your worth)
This is necessary because having wonderful and valuable skills isn't enough. You need to be able to communicate to others the value you bring and learn how to make it visible for others to see.
Otherwise, you can fall into the trap of being somebody who works hard to do incredible work and yet not get that promotion you want – all because nobody perceives the value your work creates.
This email is going to be about the best tool you'll have for marketing yourself and being forever memorable in most conversations and interviews
And while this may seem obvious or "you've heard it before", please bear with me as I talk about the forgotten and secret art of...
🎉 Storytelling 🎉
Stories are sort of weird. They're weird because everybody loves stories. Everybody. And that's for a few reasons...
Stories grab attention.
Stories teach us lessons.
Stories can tell us a great amount of information in a short amount of time – both about the characters in the story as well as the person telling it.
Stories can be notoriously sticky. A really good story can be remembered for a long time – long past the time they're told.
Stories help us think, learn, and experience something through someone else's shoes.
Stories take us out of the moment and into the world of the story.
That's what makes them powerful. It's a great tool if you're looking to stand out and leave a lasting impression on others. One of the best and most appropriate times to tell stories is during interviews.
For example, let's grab a common interview question like:
"How do you deal with pressure or stressful situations?"
We could just answer the question (using ChatGPT) and say:
"I've learned to handle them by staying organized and focused. I prioritize tasks based on urgency and impact, breaking larger problems into manageable pieces."
Or... we could tell a story. One where we show how we handle stressful situations instead of just telling them.
"Usually, by taking a step back, staying calm, and working the best that I can. For example, a few months ago, during a major update for a client’s e-commerce platform, we discovered a few hours before the launch that the new dynamic product recommendation system was failing to render properly for most users. This also ended up completely breaking the aesthetic of the website.
The client was, uhh, not happy 😅
We hurried and worked together with my team to analyze and figure out what the root cause was as fast as humanly possible. Throughout those hours, I also kept the project manager informed throughout the stressful process, who also kept the client in the loop and prevented the situation from getting any worse.
After almost two hours of searching together as a team, we managed to find the bug and fix it about an hour before the launch time was set to start. We were so relieved to have found the problem in time, and despite the stress, I'm proud of how the whole team and I managed the situation. Afterward, we improved some of our development and QA processes to try and prevent something like that from happening again."
See how that just hits differently? And how, in a situation like an interview, telling stories shows the interviewer so much more about you than just answering questions does?
Tell stories. Practice them. Have fun.