The Story You Forgot to Tell

"Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult coworker."

I watched my mind go blank. Not because I'd never dealt with a difficult coworker—I'd been in event production for two decades, I'd dealt with hundreds of them—but because in that moment, under the pressure of an interview I needed to go well, I couldn't access a single specific memory.

I rambled. I generalized. I watched the interviewer's eyes glaze over.

I knew, walking out of that room, that I'd blown it. And I knew exactly why.

Behavioral interviews are memory tests dressed up as conversations.

The interviewer isn't really asking about that difficult coworker. They're asking: Can you recall, under pressure, a specific situation that demonstrates a particular skill? Can you structure that memory into a coherent story? Can you articulate the outcome and what you learned?

That's a lot to do on the fly. Especially when you're also managing your nerves, reading the room, and trying to seem likable.

After my second layoff, I decided I was done blanking.

I spent weeks before my next interview round doing something I'd never done before: I wrote down my stories. Not vague categories ("leadership," "conflict resolution") but specific situations. The Samsung activation where the venue flooded. The time I had to fire someone on day one of a program. The client who changed the entire scope 48 hours before launch.

I tagged each story by skill. Formatted them in STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result). Made flashcards.

When the next interview came, something was different. The question would land, and instead of searching my entire life history, I'd think: "This is a 'dealing with ambiguity' question. I have three stories for that. Let me pick the best one."

It worked. I got the job.

InterviewAlly is that system, productized.

You upload your resume. The system suggests story prompts based on your experience. You build your STAR stories with guided questions. You tag them by skill. You practice until retrieval becomes automatic.

It's not magic. It's preparation. But the right preparation makes you look magic in the room.

The beta is open now. If you're in career transition—especially if you're 40+ and haven't interviewed in years—this might be for you.

Because you have the experience. You've lived the stories. You just need to be able to tell them.