A company’s recruiters are the gatekeepers to the rest of your interview process. However, they typically are hiring for multiple roles across the organization and may/may not understand the full specifics of the role and title you are interviewing for.
In such situations the “explain it to your grandma” fr amework can come handy for explaining your core job responsibilities / interesting projects / skills. I have listed a few tips when creating these descriptions/story points about yourself.
Don’t be a jerk
Most of the time, recruiters have a fair idea of what is needed for the role, but have to understand what you can really bring on to the table. The grandma framework is not to “dumb things down” or be “condescending” to recruiters; but rather to have more humanized conversations.
Ex: I used to make it clear when speaking with different recruiters that I am using examples/analogies so that I can easily explain “myself” and not because they are not a technical audience.
Lose the Jargon
Many times people have a tendency to use terms that only the people from their industry understand.
Ex: I used to use terms such as “providers” and “pharmacy benefit managers” when I worked for a product company that created SaaS products for healthcare prescriptions. When I left that job, I used the more widely known terms such as Doctors/Nurses and Prescription Insurance Companies instead.
Spell out the abbreviations
Those handy short words you created for your daily meetings? Make sure you explain them fully when in interviews.
Ex: As a Product Owner I routinely used the MoSCoW method and even have it listed on my resume. But while talking to interviewers, I will always spell it out “Must have, Should have, Could have, Won’t have prioritization framework.”
Give “clear” and “contextual” analogies
People usually try to be clever with their analogies and end up using something that is very specific to the metaphorical situation itself. Instead, stick to using analogies that actually simplify the explanation and clarify the context.
Ex: I love soccer and would make the mistake of using complicated examples from the game to explain my roles. Over the years, I have found it easier to conduct a conversation instead when I stick to common concepts such as “captain” or “coach” that resonate with viewers of any sport.
Explain the basics first
Always build the story from the ground up. The objective here is not to oversimplify what you do - because then it will be counterproductive. Rather the goal is to give more context to the listener.
Ex: If you are a frontend developer creating .net websites; do explain a little bit about languages, programming and machine communication. Then be a bit more specific and explain what you exactly do - talking about the specific skill set.
Sum it up
End every story with an easy to remember story that they can correlate with the bullet points you have on your resume. Tell 2-4 stories around the skill / job role/ project that you want to call out.
Ex: A typical summary I want the recruiting manager to have in their head when they hear about my role building a certain cloud related product is “Durgesh assisted in communicating with the stakeholders, clarifying the requirements and showing the right direction to his teammates while being cognizant of the limits of the technology in use.”
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