Hi Anonymous,

Just because it's outside of the portion, it doesn't mean it should not be structured. So the most important aspect is actually to start your "story" top-down and quantify your achievements as much as possible (it's just consulting style, isn't it?). Have this "pitch" ready in a concise format like a newspaper headline.

Also, when speaking about details in a next step, again do it in a structured way. Focus on the key objectives you met and the obstacles you needed to overcome. Again starting top-down in a bullet-point format before going into the details.

Once you go into the details, make sure that you not only explain what you did, but also your underlying thought process which led you to exactly this kind of action (as an interviewer I can't really evaluate in this short summary what you did, but I can evaluate the way how you thought about the issue).

Hope this helps - if so, please be so kind to give it a thumbs-up with the green upvote button below!

Robert

Hi there,

Great question!

There's really two important things here:

Keep it natural

Keep it structured

Yes, you should use STAR, PARADE, whatever works. However, fundamentally you should not come across as robotic/over-rehearsed.

And, while you should keep it natural, that doesn't mean you don't prepare or "wing it"! You need to have a structure and articulate the story clearly.

To intro, it can honestly be something as simple as "Ah, so a few things come to mind, but there was one time where xxxx"

My main recommendation is to follow the STAR structure and try to follow the top-down approach. Just remember that in every FIT story you have to be structured, and try not to speak more than 3 mins. This is psychological tips, that it becomes difficult to listen to person who speaks longer. So try to put your main thoughts in this time, and be prepared that you can be followed with the follow-up questions.

Does it make any sense to you?

GB