Transcript: How to Tell Your Story and Land the Role: Tal Kailler, Evinced (Takhles)

"Tell me about yourself": the value, not the bug list

Eyal David: [00:01] So, takhles: how does Tal Kailler recommend telling your story to get through a product interview? Here's a short clip from the full episode.

Tal Kailler: [00:10] Basically I examine all kinds of aspects of it. Even the very first thing, "tell me about yourself," is a part I learn a ton from. Meaning, it could be that already at this stage I'll understand the person isn't a fit. If they're not focused, if they don't know how to explain the value, meaning, they'll tell me about, or pick, the trivial project, how they, I don't know, prioritized bugs, and didn't tell me about a big, meaningful project they did. So already there, besides the fact that I'm genuinely interested in hearing about their career and their career decisions, because that teaches me about them, I also really watch how they present themselves.

Eyal David: [00:49] How they tell a story, basically. Even bug prioritization, if we take that for a second, you can also tell it much better, right?

Tal Kailler: [00:49] Like, if there was some real thinking there, if I prioritized and if I solved some problem and knew the product well and maybe got people not to do it, because I understood it wasn't the thing and I convinced them, then maybe even that can be turned into a treat. If, I don't know, I made changes that were a lot of small changes, but in the end I brought a ton of money into the organization, then come tell me about that, don't tell me about a list of bugs. Or if I saved a ton of money because, I don't know, I streamlined processes or solved a problem, or, again, that already takes the story to a completely different place.

Eyal David: [01:29] Wow, that's amazing. Like, whoever comes to interview with you and hears me, hears this episode, that's gold. Tell us for a second, but really from your side, like, you're busy all day, right? Right. You go over resumes, what does that look like? Maybe that's actually where your interaction starts.

Your resume is a product: you have 30 seconds

Tal Kailler: [01:38] It starts there, with the resume. I think that when you write a resume, you need to take into account that you have 30 seconds. You have 30 seconds to explain who this is, who you are, and to get them to invite you to an interview. And it's the simplest things, for example, people don't write what the company does. Meaning, they write the company name. What is it? Is it a startup? Is it big? Is it small? What do they do? Like, if you don't work at Microsoft or Google, then explain, even that, don't make me go to Google now and search. And everything needs to be short, focused, and tell the story. Tell me the things you did, what your achievements are, yours, what basically, what did you do?

Eyal David: [02:27] Which is also, Shai Shprank was here from Empathy, he said a resume is basically like a product. Exactly that. And in general this product, even before it reaches you, just to get through at all, there are hurdles on the way to you, right?

Tal Kailler: [02:27] There's probably some algorithm that goes over the resumes in the first place, and after that there's HR. Make sure you also have the right buzzwords. Meaning, if you worked on AI, that it's written; if you did, if you have some interesting training; if, again, if your project just brought in, changed some metric and brought in money, that it's written there so we see it. And just like you don't want to land on a website and see something really, really cluttered, it should also look, again, it's not the critical thing, but it's another bonus point that your resume looks aesthetic and inviting, and not too long. Because it really is 30 seconds. You have 30 seconds.

Eyal David: [03:08] You know, also, I think the story, everyone has a story of how they got into product, right? Right. And it's always some path where you prioritized and pushed, and it's also a story you can probably promote and turn into something that basically describes your abilities.

Tal Kailler: [03:19] Right. Or hers. So basically the first question I ask is "tell me about yourself." And here I think it's also very important to understand the brief. Meaning, if I say, okay, let's take five minutes and tell me about yourself, you don't need to dive into what happened in Dina's kindergarten and your achievements there. You have five minutes.

A call to women: know how to tell your story

Eyal David: [03:54] Unless you blew Dina away and saved her a ton of money.

Tal Kailler: [03:54] Yes, exactly, you saved her a ton of money. And here I'm also making a call, it's a call to women, because I feel there's sometimes a difference between women and men in how they talk about themselves. Women sometimes apologize a bit for their careers, or use words like "I got lucky," or "it worked out for me." And here I really call on everyone: know how to tell your story.

Eyal David: [04:22] Right, you always need luck.

Tal Kailler: [04:22] By the way, everyone needs luck. You need the role to open up, right? But in the end, if they took you for the role, it's a sign you deserved it. And if you got that promotion, it's because you deserved it. So know how to tell the story, and it's something you need to practice. Meaning, I think a person needs to be able, you should be able to wake them up in the middle of the night and they'll tell the story off the cuff, in several versions: short, medium and long.

Eyal David: [04:51] That was a Takhles episode from Product Builder. Want to hear the full conversation? Look for it in the feed, and don't forget to follow us.