Helen Tupper, Co-Founder of award-winning career development company Amazing If, on what makes a good squiggly career story and when you should tell yours.

As marketers, we’re well versed in the importance of telling stories to connect with consumers and convince our clients and stakeholders to move forward with our plans and proposals.

When we lead with stories rather than stats, our messages are shown to be 22 times more sticky. I see this reflected so much in my own experience. When I worked in innovation for Capital One, I once went shopping with a customer to talk about how they used their credit card. It transpired that on that particular day, her card was frozen in orange juice in her freezer (it meant she had to wait 24 hours for it to defrost and couldn’t see through to the numbers while she waited!).

This conversation sparked an idea for a ‘credit freeze’ product that was considerably less messy. And, when I worked at E.On, a customer who described having a bath in water...