You know that your great stories - call them anecdotes, examples or whatever - will help you shine in a job interview. Stories do three things. One, they show that you really grasped the question - whether it was Have you ever had to pinch-hit under pressure? or Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult customer. Two, they show off your terrific communication skills. Three, they display a bit of your personality - your wit and charm and so on. These are all good things.

So you have to get some stories ready. Try to come up with at least one story in each of these categories, so theyll be top-of-mind when you need to produce a story in a hurry during your next interview.

1) A story about dealing with a crisis.
2) A story about handling a tough interpersonal situation.
3) One about juggling lots of priorities (and, of course, carrying the day).
4) One about having to change course to deal with changed circumstances mid-stream.
5) A story about a difficult customer (internal or external) situation.
6) A story about your cost-saving or financial astuteness.
7) An anecdote about learning from a mistake.
8) A story about working on a team (yawn).
9) One about dealing with a lot of uncertainty; and
10) One more story about going above and beyond what was expected.

Youve got way more than ten stories, I know. But you dont want to pull them out of the vault at the last minute - run through them in your mind in advance so that youre comfortable telling the story and not running off into tangents. These will be your Top Ten. If youre job-hunting, youll become very familiar with them. Then people will say about you, Man! Shes a great story-teller.