A few weeks ago, I published two blogs: one about the ten things I don't want to read on your resume and another about the ten things I don't want to hear in an interview.
In the interview blog, I shared one of my biggest pet peeves: when I ask a candidate to tell me about a specific experience, and they give me a generic answer about how they would maybe-sometimes-typically handle that situation.
Me: "Tell me about a time something went terribly wrong with your executive's travel and how you handled it."
Candidate: "Well, I always make sure I have backup flights available, and I check the weather before anyone travels, and I always have the airline app on my phone. I just love Flight Aware."
Okay. Great. But that wasn't my question. I didn't ask what you generally do. I asked you to tell me about a time you actually DID it.
And let me tell you, the pushback I received on this on LinkedIn was something else!
"Why would I remember something like that?"
"That was just another Tuesday."
"All I did was fix a travel mistake."
"I don't have any good stories."
SAY WHAT?!
Here's what I want every administrative professional reading this to understand: Just because something is ordinary to YOU doesn't mean it isn't extraordinary to someone else.
And don’t we want it to be seen as extraordinary?
Isn’t that what we’ve been asking for?
For people to view our work as important?
You might think fixing a travel disaster is no big deal because you've done it 500 times. But to the executive who made it to an important investor meeting because of you? Pretty big deal.
To the company that didn't lose a potential business opportunity? Also a pretty big deal.
To the interviewer who is trying to figure out whether you can handle the job they're hiring you to do? HUGE deal.
And that's what brings me to something I work on with almost every assistant who comes to me for resume and interview coaching. It's called The Story Bank.
Let's Talk About Why Your Stories Matter
When someone interviews you for a job, they're trying to understand what they're buying.
Yes, I said “buying”.
Think about it: You're the product. The hiring manager is the buyer. You're trying to convince that buyer that your product is exactly what they need.
How do you do that? You show them what the product can do!
You don't just tell them you can be proactive. You give them an example of when you were proactive.
You don't just tell them you're an excellent problem solver. You walk them through a problem you actually solved.
You don't just tell them you have great communication skills. You tell them about a time your communication skills made a difference.
(Trust me, EVERYONE says they have great communication skills. Like, everyone.)
Anyone can say they're organized, resourceful, adaptable, detail-oriented, and excellent under pressure.
Good for you. So is every other candidate who applied for the job.
What makes YOU different?
Your experiences. Your judgment. Your decisions. Your approach. Your personality.
Your stories.
And before you tell me you don't have any, I promise you do. You just haven't learned to recognize them yet.
Let's Build Your Story Bank
When I work with assistants on interview preparation, I ask them to develop six stories from their professional lives.
Not twenty. Not fifty. SIX.
Three success stories. Two relationship stories. One learning story.
These six stories should represent who you are, how you work, how you think, and what someone can expect when they hire you.
And every story needs three parts:
The beginning: What was the problem, challenge, or situation?
The middle: What did YOU do? What was your thought process? What was the aha moment when you realized what needed to happen?
The end: What was the outcome? What changed? What did you learn? What process did you improve?
This is important because far too many candidates spend eight minutes explaining the situation and about fifteen seconds explaining what they actually did.
(Also, don’t take eight minutes. Keep your stories to 3-minutes and under.)
I don't need a documentary about the company you worked for. And while I know you’re a “team player,” I am interviewing you, not your team. I need to understand YOUR contribution.
So, let's break down your six stories.
Three Success Stories: Show Me The Receipts
These are stories about times you made something better.
Maybe you saved time, prevented a problem, managed chaos, protected your executive, improved a process, or found a solution nobody else thought of.
I'm not asking you to tell me about the time you ran into a burning building and saved six children. I'm asking you about the J.O.B.
Let's say your executive was flying to meet a potential investor. The flight was delayed, and there was absolutely no way they were making the scheduled lunch meeting.
What did you do?
Maybe you immediately found a different flight. Maybe you called the investor's assistant, moved a few things around, and arranged for the two of them to have dinner instead. You updated the restaurant reservation, adjusted the car service, and made sure everyone had the new itinerary.
Your executive arrived, had a wonderful dinner, and the investor never had to deal with the chaos happening behind the scenes.
You might say, "Yeah, but that's just what I do."
EXACTLY. THAT'S THE STORY.
You demonstrated problem-solving, relationship management, flexibility, decision-making, communication, and the ability to keep your executive focused on the business instead of the logistics.
And while you might not have saved the company a million dollars, you saved your executive time, protected an important relationship, and kept the business moving.
THAT is valuable. THAT is story-worthy.
All of that from one story about a delayed flight.
Maybe you inherited a completely unmanageable inbox and created a color system that allowed your executive to identify priorities and respond faster. Maybe you redesigned the calendar process so the executive wasn't spending 30 hours a week in unnecessary meetings.
What was happening before? What did you change? What improved?
That's a success story.
Of course, you can talk about the cool stuff too. The snowstorm that stranded everyone at the company offsite in Aspen. The major travel disruption you dealt with in New York. The enormous event you organized during COVID.
Those are great stories, too!
Just don't overlook the everyday work because it doesn't sound glamorous enough. That is the J.O.B.
Two Relationship Stories: Because, Wow, We Deal With So Many Humans
One of the biggest parts of being an exceptional assistant has absolutely nothing to do with a calendar or an inbox.
It's all the @*&#^%$ people.
We manage relationships all day long. Executives, board members, investors, customers, colleagues, vendors, and stakeholders who all want something, often at the exact same time.
Your two relationship stories should demonstrate how you navigate human beings.
Think about a time you had to smooth over friction between departments when your executive pushed up the deadline by a week. Or when you managed a…ahem…difficult and persistent stakeholder…who wasn't getting the access they wanted to your executive.
Maybe you had to deliver an uncomfortable message. Maybe you helped a struggling colleague regain confidence. Maybe you stepped in to resolve a misunderstanding before it became a much bigger problem.
How did YOU handle it? I genuinely want to know!
Did you listen to the problem and then act? Did you communicate differently to each team? Did you recognize something about the other person's perspective that changed your approach?
And here's something else I want you to think about: influence.
Assistants are constantly influencing outcomes without necessarily having the authority to tell people what to do. That's a SKILL.
Maybe you couldn't force five department heads to meet a deadline, but you sure figured out how to get them all moving in the same direction with a gorgeous spreadsheet.
That's a story worth telling.
Remember, companies aren't looking for someone who can hypothetically solve real EA problems. They're looking for someone who's been there, done that, and can do it again.
One Learning Story: Yep, YOU Tell ME About YOUR Mistake
Oh, this one is sooooo uncomfortable. I know.
Good news: You're human. You make mistakes. I make mistakes. We all make mistakes.
A mistake is something you DID. It is not who you ARE.
What the interviewer wants to know is what happened after you made it.
Did you own it? Did you fix it? Did you take accountability without spending twenty minutes explaining why it wasn't technically your fault? And, most importantly, what did you learn?
Let's say you missed an important deadline because you assumed someone else was responsible for a deliverable.
Deep breaths. It happened. It’s over.
What did you do next? What system did you put in place to make sure it didn't happen again? Maybe you created a tracker. Maybe you established clearer ownership. Maybe you changed the way you communicated deadlines with your executive.
THAT is the part I care about.
I'm not looking for perfection. I'm looking for accountability, self-awareness, and growth.
Because I can promise you that if I hire you, you're eventually going to make a mistake.
I just want to know what kind of person I'm dealing with when that happens.
At Least Half Your Stories Should Be About the Actual J.O.B.
I want to make a point here because I see assistants make this mistake all the time.
They tell me they’ve “never done anything super exciting like other EAs have.”
Then they proceed to tell me about the company acquisition they helped navigate. Or the giant offsite that brought together employees from 12 different countries across Europe and Asia. Or how, in their THIRD WEEK on the job, they were thrown into planning the annual board meeting, completely wide-eyed and holding on for dear life, but somehow pulled it off.
YES YES DOUBLE YES!
Those are cool and unique and should definitely be discussed.
But, you know what else we do?
Manage calendars. Manage inboxes. Book travel. Handle expenses.
You know, THE J.O.B.
If you're interviewing to be an assistant, I want at least half your stories to involve the core responsibilities you're being hired to perform. The things you will do every single day at THIS job.
Assistants dismiss these responsibilities as beneath their storytelling standards.
"I just booked a flight."
"I just rearranged the calendar."
"I just caught an error on an expense report."
That word "just" is doing an awful lot of damage. This is “just” why this job exists.
Again, why are we minimizing this?
If a company is hiring someone to manage an executive's time, information, relationships, and logistics, then your ability to do those things exceptionally well is EXACTLY what they want to hear about.
How to Use Your Six Stories in an Interview
Now here's where this gets fun. You can stop spending hours trying to predict every single question your interviewer might ask.
"What if they ask me about something I’ve never done? They’ll think I’m an idiot."
"What if they ask me about a difficult executive? Do I tell the truth?"
"What if they ask something I haven't prepared for? I’ll be ruined!"
Great news: You can't predict everything someone's going to ask you. And you don't need to!
Remember the product analogy? KNOW YOUR PRODUCT.
If I'm selling you a car, I should know that car inside and out. I should know how it drives, what makes it different, what problems it solves, and why you should buy it.
I shouldn't need to predict your exact questions to have a great conversation about my car.
Same thing here. YOU are the product. Know yourself. Know your experiences, your strengths, your approach, what makes you different. And have those six stories locked and loaded.
Write them down. Practice telling them. Tell a friend. Tell your dog. Whatever works for you. But don't memorize them word for word. This is an interview, not a Broadway audition. You need to know the stories well enough that you can pull them out naturally.
And here's the best part: One story can answer multiple questions.
Let's say one of your success stories is about how you took over your executive's inbox and created a completely new system for managing communication. Your interviewer might ask: "Tell me about a time you improved a process."
Perfect. Tell the inbox story.
Or instead they ask: "How do you approach learning a new executive's inbox?"
Boom. The inbox story works here too.
Or maybe they ask, "What's your view of transparency in work?"
You could say, "I believe in transparency and building trust before making decisions on someone's behalf. For example, when I started supporting my last executive..."
And off you go.
See what happened there? You didn't need the interviewer to say, "Tell me a story about..."
You used a real experience to explain your philosophy.
And suddenly, instead of giving another generic interview answer, you're helping that person visualize what it would actually be like to work with you.
That's powerful.
Your Homework: Start Paying Attention to Your Work
If you're struggling to come up with six stories, here's my suggestion: Start paying attention to what you do.
When something goes wrong and you fix it, write it down.
When you improve a process, write it down.
When you navigate a difficult conversation, write it down.
When you prevent a problem nobody else even knew was coming, WRITE IT DOWN.
You don't need to write a novel. Just a few notes about what happened, what you did, and what changed are plenty to help you remember later.
And if you're thinking, "Monique, I've been doing this for twenty years. How am I supposed to remember all of this?"
Start with the moments that stand out. Look back at old performance reviews, projects, accomplishments, and the situations people thanked you for handling. Ask yourself what would have happened if you hadn't stepped in. Sometimes that's where you'll discover the impact you didn't even realize you had.
Your story bank isn't supposed to stay frozen forever, either. As you gain experience, add new stories. Replace older stories. Tailor your stories to the job you're interviewing for.
But always have six ready to go.
One Last Thing
I want to go back to something that really bothered me about the responses to my original post…
The idea that your everyday work isn't important enough to have stories about.
Who decided that?
Who decided that preventing a travel disaster wasn't impressive? Or protecting an executive's calendar wasn't worth discussing? Or calming down an angry stakeholder was just another Tuesday?
Because I can tell you, after spending decades in this profession, and now recruiting and coaching the people who do this work, those are EXACTLY the things that separate a good assistant from a great one.
You don't need to manufacture extraordinary experiences to impress an interviewer. You need to recognize the value in the experiences you've already had.
So build your story bank.
Know your product.
And the next time someone asks you to tell them about a time you solved a problem, don't tell them what you would maybe-sometimes-typically do.
Tell them what you DID.
Because that ordinary Tuesday you barely remember?
It might be the very story that gets you hired.