How Telling Your Tech Story Can Help You Stand Out

7/16/2025

How framing your experience as a story helps build trust, show value, and connect with potential employers.

Tell your story

The approach I am taking is the “tell your story” approach. Interviews aren’t just about your resume, they’re about how you tell your story.

I’ll summarize the approach I am taking…

Make yourself memorable

• Hiring managers, recruiters, coworkers, friends, anyone else involved in the hiring process all see dozens, sometimes hundreds, of “I need a job” posts, requests for references, or resumes in general. Actual job openings often get hundreds of resumes (you can see on linkedin), which can quickly blur together (or get filtered by AI). While references matter a lot right now, a compelling story is what helps you stand out and stick in someone’s mind. ( References open doors, and your story keeps you in the room. )

• The key take away is making lasting impressions.

Connect to the company needs

• This is one of the areas I think people need to improve on the most. The current trend I am seeing is that current jobs are looking for people who solve specific problems, not general jobs or people with good looking resumes. Your “story” should frame your past experiences in a way that is relevant to what they are facing/needing. This way you shift from “one of many candidates” to the “one who can solve our problem”.

• If you don’t know a specific company to aim towards, focus on the industry and role instead. (e.g. SDET Role, Devops Role, blockchain dev, fin tech dev, ect) Research common challenges for the industry and pain points for that type of job, and shape your story around solving those problems. Highlight transferable skills like problem solving, and adaptability that apply broadly. You can also use examples from past jobs, side projects, you can include personal projects, or open source projects, or even recent training you have done.

Build trust and connections

• The biggest trend I see currently is people are hiring people they 1. Know (reference), 2. Like, 3. Trust. Your story should highlight your motivations, interests, values, how you handle challenges/obstacles, and your vision for the future. What you are aiming for is how your story makes you a strong fit for that next step. This should help bridge the gap on those three points, and draw more positive attention.

Highlight your value

• Another thing I have noticed a lot… many candidates look similar on paper. You need a “story” that explains why you made the choices you did (think design, implementation, ect), how those experiences compound your value (how you might do something better, use another tool, ect), and how you are set apart. (You learn from your failures, ect) Overall, you just need to highlight the value you would bring.

Where and How to tell your story

• Linkedin Posts / Articles - You can create posts and share your experiences. Likely the first “go-to.”
• Github - Show projects or experience through action in github.
• Networking Conversations - You can share your story in casual conversations.
• Blog / Website posts - When you want to deepen your professional presence, for depth and control, your own website is ideal.
• Medium - You can publish here for a wider audience. Great for quick storytelling.

Telling your story helps you go beyond just listing skills and bullet points with impacts, it builds real connections. By sharing your motivations, challenges, and values, you create new connections, establish trust and make yourself relatable. These connections make people more likely to remember you and see you as the right fit. When your story aligns with the company’s needs (and culture), it transforms you from just another candidate into someone they want on their team.