Learn storytelling to clear MAANG+ interviews
3 types of stories to land MAANG+ Jobs!
Hey, Prasad here 👋 I'm the voice behind the weekly newsletter "Big Tech Careers."
In this week's article, I share tips on how you can land a MAANG+ job using the behavioral skills and give you a glimpse on what is covered in MAANG+ Interview Preparation course.
If you like the article, click the ❤️ icon. That helps me know you enjoy reading my content.
In my experience, most candidates fail MAANG+ interviews, especially at mid/senior levels, not because of technical or functional skills but because they struggle to communicate their impact effectively.
Most candidates underestimate the preparation required for behavioral interviews.
Ask any experienced interviewer at MAANG+ why candidates fail their interviews.
Their #1 reason is consistent:
💡 Smart technical professionals who can't clearly articulate their past work. They ramble too much, miss the main points, and can't explain their decision-making process.
It's the storytelling skill that is missing, not the technical or functional skills.
Another critical mistake candidates make is assuming behavioral skills are only evaluated during designated "behavioral interviews." In reality, your interpersonal abilities are under constant assessment throughout the entire interview process.
You should prepare three types of stories:
Elevator Pitch Story: First Impressions Matter - Craft a compelling self-introduction that demonstrates both technical and leadership experiences from the moment you begin speaking.
Technical Story: Technical Interviews Are Behavioral Too - Stand out from equally qualified candidates by revealing your collaborative nature, problem-solving approach, and communication skills during technical assessments.
Past Career Experience Story: Master the STAR Technique - Transform ordinary experiences into compelling evidence of your capabilities by structuring responses with Situation, Task, Action, and Result—making your answers both memorable and persuasive.
Be strategic about showcasing your behavioral excellence at these key touchpoints throughout the interview process.
You need to learn storytelling to clear MAANG+ interviews - whether it is your elevator pitch story, technical story, or story about your past career experiences. That's what is going to help you land a job at MAANG+.
Let’s dive into each of these.
Elevator Pitch Story
You need to have a 1-2 min elevator pitch ready for your career story.
Almost all interviews start with “Tell me about yourself”. It’s a predefined predictable question. Then why not have a compelling career story that will position you at the top for the job you are applying for.
Think deeply about your career experiences that are most relevant to the job role and then accordingly craft it. Do not try to cramp your entire career experience in your career story. You’ll not have enough time.
If you are looking a structured format, here is the structure I came up with for writing my introduction and I recommend my mentees to use:
Career Summary [keep it to 20 seconds max]
This is your hook line to keep the interviewer interested in listening to you for next 1-2 mins while you power through your introduction.
Main Body [45-90 seconds]
Idea in this section is to tell them why you are a good fit for the job role.
In no particular order or specific time allocation, talk about following:
Relevant Experience
Key Skills
Recent Project
You’ll notice in my example below, I start this section with recent project as it matches the experience the role requires. I have not talked about key skills explicitly but have weaved in the two project examples I have provided.
Personal Interest [Optional. Keep it very short]
It’s a nice-to-have section section where you can talk about what you do outside your work.
Technical Story
Many candidates just show off their technical knowledge during technical interviews.
But here's the thing - everyone does that. Trust me, most candidates get the technical answers right.
Let's say 10 candidates are interviewing for the same position. 7 of them answer the technical questions correctly. You're one of those 7. So why should interviewer pick you?
You need to stand out. How? By sharing your real-world experience and behavioral skills. By staring a technical story.
While technical answer showcases that you have knowledge, they don't paint a complete picture of your ability to succeed in a role.
So let’s say you are asked in an Interview “What is Load Balancer?”
Which of the two answers you think will make more impact?
Answer 1: Technical Knowledge Only
"A load balancer is a device or service that distributes network traffic across multiple servers to ensure no single server becomes overwhelmed. It improves application availability and reliability by sending requests only to servers that are online and capable of fulfilling those requests. Load balancers can use various algorithms like round-robin, least connections, or weighted distribution to determine which server receives each request."
Answer 2: Technical Knowledge + Real Experience
"A load balancer distributes network traffic across multiple servers to prevent overloading. It improves application availability by routing requests only to healthy servers using algorithms like round-robin or least connections.
In my previous role at XYZ Company, we implemented an Elastic Load Balancer when our e-commerce platform started experiencing slowdowns during peak shopping seasons. I worked with our infrastructure team to set up the load balancer with a least-connections algorithm, which directed traffic to servers with the fewest active connections.
This solution not only resolved our immediate performance issues but also gave us more flexibility for maintenance. We could take individual servers offline for updates without disrupting the customer experience, and our system uptime improved from 98.5% to 99.9%. The real value became clear during Black Friday when our traffic spiked 300%, but our platform remained responsive throughout the entire event."
The second answer makes you stand out as you are telling a story about how you have used a Load Balancer in the past.
Past Career Experience Story
If you've been preparing for job interviews, you've likely encountered the STAR format. It's a powerful method to talk about your past experiences.
However, many candidates use this technique the wrong way, resulting in weak, unconvincing answers.
Here is a checklist to help you understand how to use the STAR format in the right way to create powerful stories that will help you succeed in MAANG+ interviews.
Also, it's not about one past experience story. Depending on the company and the level you are interviewing for, you might have to prepare 5-15 stories.
Given that there can be hundreds of behavioral interview questions, preparing for them can be daunting. To help you structure your preparation of your story creation, I've categorized these questions into eight broad themes.
Think deeply about your past experiences and see if you can map your experiences to these broad themes and prepare stories using the checklist.
Key Takeaway
In a nutshell, mastering storytelling is essential to succeed in MAANG+ interviews.
As a candidate you need to gain expertise on hree key storytelling areas:
sharing your overall career journey via elevator pitch,
explaining technical concepts through relevant examples,
and crafting compelling narratives about specific past experiences.
While technical knowledge is necessary, it's the ability to communicate through effective storytelling that truly differentiates you from other candidates and ultimately leads to job offers at MAANG+ companies.
🎯 The Path Forward
If you're serious about landing a MAANG+ role in 2025, you need more than technical skills. You need to learn following:
✅ Deliver high-impact STAR-format responses
✅ Craft compelling technical achievement stories
✅ Effectively communicate leadership experiences
✅ Blend technical depth with strong behavioral skills
✅ Prepare mentally for four to eight rounds of interviews
✅ Share failures and conflicts experiences with confidence
✅ Deliver senior-level responses to get hired at the right level
I share most of this for free in this newsletter - one article at a time. However, if you are looking for all insights in a structured manner, I have two options for you.
[Option 1] 3+ hours digital course
I have created 3+ hours MAANG+ interview preparation course by adapting recordings of my highly rated live workshop, delivering the same proven strategies and expert insights in a flexible format.
Look at the full source curriculum here -https://bigtechcareers.mykajabi.com/curriculum
This option is best if you have an upcoming interview scheduled or you are planning to start your journey for MAANG+. This will be your crash course to succeed in the big tech interviews.
[Option 2] 15+ hours recordings of live workshop
15+ hours of recordings from the actual live workshop that include Q&A sessions, mock interviews, practice sessions, and access to the Discord community.
Here is what Amir Malaeb and Chandrashekar Y M have to say about Big Tech Career's Interview Preparation Course. Both of them cleared MAANG+ interviews in January 2025.
Check details of what is covered in this 15+ hours recording here - https://newsletter.bigtechcareers.com/p/happy-holidays-and-50-discount-on
This option is best if along with the course you are looking to join the network of highly motivated individuals who are preparing for big tech interviews. You also get access to people who have already cleared the interviews recently!
For any questions, email at info@bigtechcareers.com.