{"id":13958,"date":"2025-11-09T11:23:04","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T11:23:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/2026.karrierecoaching.ch\/?p=13958"},"modified":"2026-04-20T13:51:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T13:51:50","slug":"bring-suspense-into-your-self-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2026.karrierecoaching.ch\/en\/bring-suspense-into-your-self-marketing\/","title":{"rendered":"Bring suspense into your self-marketing!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe\u2019re sitting together at a table, having a conversation. There\u2019s a bomb under the table. If the bomb explodes without the audience knowing beforehand, that\u2019s a shock \u2013 a surprise. But if the audience knows there\u2019s a bomb under the table and that it\u2019s going to explode in five minutes, then there\u2019s tension. The audience wants you and me to leave the table. That\u2019s suspense.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Peter N\u00e4f<\/em><\/a><\/strong>
\nZurich, February 2026<\/em><\/p>\n

This is how Alfred Hitchcock explained to Fran\u00e7ois Truffaut in the book “Hitchcock”, how did you do it?\u00a0what suspense means \u2013 and how it differs from surprise. It\u2019s an idea that also applies to the stories you tell in your self-marketing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Why is it worth telling your career<\/a> story in reverse chronological order when asked in an interview to \u201cTell us about yourself\u201d? I explained this in my article “What sticks better \u2013 the beginning or the end of a story?”<\/a> The reason: the tension drops when you only describe the climax \u2013 your current situation \u2013 at the very end. Then the bomb goes off when your interviewers are already thinking about something else.<\/p>\n

Suspense vs. surprise<\/h5>\n

When using storytelling<\/a> to illustrate your personal strengths<\/a>, your stories are usually short. In these cases, you can tell them in the usual chronological order \u2013 ending with the surprise, like the punchline of a joke. Because of their brevity, you can maintain the narrative tension without extra structure \u2013 provided you tell the story engagingly.<\/p>\n

Some success stories, however, take longer to tell \u2013 for instance, when you describe a project that lasted months or even years. One client told me such a story: she built a platform to coordinate international projects for her company. The project was technically demanding and organisationally complex, as she had to win over and coordinate colleagues across functions and countries.<\/p>\n

More Columbo than Whodunit<\/h5>\n

She faced numerous obstacles but managed to overcome them through negotiation skills, tactical sensitivity, persistence and remarkable oversight. The story was interesting \u2013 yet, as little happened dramatically, it felt a bit long.<\/p>\n

How she could have made it more captivating I discovered by chance: one day, she mentioned offhandedly, \u201cNo one had asked me to develop a platform.\u201d That detail was new to me \u2013 and the perfect opening for her story. By describing the outcome right after the initial situation, the listener knows more than the protagonists in the story \u2013 just like in Hitchcock\u2019s definition of suspense. It sparks curiosity: how did she come up with that idea, and what steps did she take to reach her goal?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bit like Inspector Columbo in the series of the same name: the victim is dead, the culprit is known. In a classical whodunit, the credits would now roll. But in Columbo, that\u2019s where the fun begins: we watch the detective solving the puzzle \u2013 a dramaturgy that worked wonderfully over 67 episodes and 30 years.<\/p>\n

#jobinterview<\/a> #selfmarketing<\/a> #storytelling<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe\u2019re sitting together at a table, having a conversation. There\u2019s a bomb under the table. If the bomb explodes without the audience knowing beforehand, that\u2019s a shock \u2013 a surprise. But if the audience knows there\u2019s a bomb under the table and that it\u2019s going to explode in five minutes, then there\u2019s tension. The audience […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artikel-2"],"yoast_head":"\nBring suspense into your self-marketing! - Karrierecoaching - Peter N\u00e4f<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"To build tension in your longer success stories, it's worth learning from Alfred Hitchcock \u2013 the master of suspense!\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/2026.karrierecoaching.ch\/en\/bring-suspense-into-your-self-marketing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bring suspense into your self-marketing! 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