Kept a running doc of behavioral stories for two months and rewrote each one until it stopped sounding like a script
First drafts all read like a resume bullet point read aloud — "I was responsible for leading a cross-functional initiative to..." Cut every sentence that started that way. Started over each story with the part where it was actually going wrong, the messy middle, the moment I almost didn't fix it. Practiced telling it to my roommate instead of reciting it to a mirror. It's the same seven stories reused across every interview now, but they land completely differently than the polished version ever did.