How to Explain Your Contribution in a Job Interview

I was chatting with My Drunk Aunt last night and here’s how it went

My Drunk Aunt; I got bored at work today

Me; What did you do?

My Drunk Aunt; I created a fake list of everyone's salary and left it in the printer

Me;

Anyway…

Your team isn’t coming to the interview with you so please don’t make the hiring manager guess which bits of the work you actually really did

You tell them ‘we fixed the problem’ and ‘we got the project back on track’ and ‘we kept the customer happy’ and it all sounds lovely until they ask what you personally did to make any of that happen

After years of leading good people you probably say ‘we’ without thinking because you want to give your team credit and you don’t want to sound like the person who claims everybody else’s work

Fair enough because nobody enjoys working for that person but the interviewer still needs to understand what they’d get if they hired you

Before your next interview take one of your favourite examples and say it out loud while you record yourself

Listen for every time you say ‘we’ and ask yourself what you actually contributed at that point

Did you spot the problem?

Did you make the decision?

Did you get two people to finally agree on what needed to happen?

So keep the team’s result in your answer and explain your part in getting there

You could say;

‘We had a customer threatening to leave after three missed deliveries

I checked the order history and found our sales team kept promising dates the warehouse couldn’t meet

I got both managers to agree that we’d check stock before anyone confirmed a delivery date

The team cleared the overdue orders and the customer stayed with us’

Now I can hear what you did and how the team helped deliver the result without you pretending you personally packed every single box and that distinction matters because saying ‘I’ doesn’t make you sound arrogant when you’re telling the truth

In our coaching I’ll ask you to take me through the part you handled yourself and explain the choices you made along the way

You’ll practise giving yourself credit without taking it away from anyone else and you’ll have something useful to say when the interviewer asks for more detail

Your dog can spend the afternoon playing with six other dogs but when she brings the ball back she doesn’t drop it behind a tree and hope you work out who fetched it

She puts it at your feet and waits for you to notice because she’s quite happy for you to know that bit was hers

That’s The Dog Code in an interview

Give your team their credit and make sure you leave some for yourself

Your life is not a dress rehearsal so live like someone left the gate open

Explain your experience with confidence


The Dog Code gives you practical ways to stay calm, listen closely and explain your value when the questions get difficult


Explore The Dog Code book and audio