Tips for Job Seekers: Navigating Recency Bias in Your Narrative
Tips for Product Managers looking for their next opportunity — Part 1
When you find yourself thrust into the position of a job seeker, everything can feel overwhelming. Writing a resume, updating LinkedIn, and learning how to communicate effectively as a candidate. Today, we explore recency bias and its essential role in crafting your narrative as a job seeker.
What is Recency Bias?
Recency bias is a cognitive bias where people tend to give more weight to recent events or experiences when making judgments or decisions.
How Should Recency Bias Influence Your Narrative?
While the entirety of your career is a journey that has made you who you are in an industry as fast-moving as tech, recent experiences will be what an employer or Recruiter is most interested in. More specifically, the last three years of your experience.
Your Starting Point
Learning how to communicate more effectively as a job seeker begins by not starting at the beginning. We have been conditioned to begin every story at the beginning: “I graduated from ABC University and started my career as an Engineer…”
However, when we begin our career narrative at the beginning, we are making a huge time commitment and the heavy assumption this is what the listener is interested in.
Since most listeners will not interject, the result can be an interview that quickly runs out of time and lacks the meaningful sharing of metrics and communicating what the interviewer needs to advance your candidacy.
How to Begin Better
Examples of ways to begin your narrative include:
- “I was most recently employed at XYZ company and responsible for a business of $30M ARR and leading an organization of 15 Product Managers.”
- “Over the last 3 years, I’ve been a Senior Product Manager at a B2B SaaS company called ABC Company, solving for how P&C insurance companies transform their application process for first-time homeowners.”
- “While I’ve been a VP Product for 9 years, the last 2 years have been spent working for ABC Company, who hired me following their Series A to build out the product function.”
These examples get to the heart of the matter and better show off capabilities and ability to deliver success.
Reimagining your narrative with recency bias in mind requires intentionality and practice. When facing doubts or uncertainty about where to begin in an interview, consider asking your interviewer where they want you to begin.
For example:
Interviewer: “Tell me about your experience building and leading product teams.”
Job Seeker: “I’ve been building and leading product teams for the last 5 years. Most recently, I was ……<outline that>….. Would you also like me to tell you about my earlier experiences?”
Another example:
Interviewer: “Tell me about yourself.”
Job Seeker: “Where would you like me to begin?”
Cracking the code of recency bias in the interview setting can help to set you apart. Recognizing that recent stories matter, shaking up your usual storytelling, and staying on point during interviews can make your job-seeking journey a bit more focused and aligned with the current role that you’re applying for.
When you’re up against tough competition, telling a story that clicks with employers and Recruiters immediately is Step 1 to clinching the following interview and furthering your candidacy. In Part 2, we will discuss how to best confirm your candidacy.
Author:
Heidi Ram is the Head of Product Practice at Martyn Bassett Associates. She has been a recruiter for the company for 20 years. During that time, she has been instrumental in shaping the evolution of the business, while building high-performing teams for some of the firm’s most valued clients.
Heidi is regarded as a thought leader and trusted advisor in the Toronto Product Management and Design community when it comes to industry insights, recruitment trends, salaries and the current talent landscape. Furthermore, Heidi is a board member of the Toronto Product Management Association (TPMA).
