Interviewers ask this question as an ice-breaker. It’s a way to start things off, get everything setup to ease into the interview. It’s a question to have the interviewee relax and at the same time it gives the opportunity to the interviewer to feel comfortable. But don’t underestimate the importance of this question. We humans are wired to make decisions based on the first impressions of a person. As per a study done with 2000 hiring managers, 33% believed that they knew the hiring vote within 90 seconds of interviewing someone. So, how well you respond to this question can make or break the outcome of an interview.
I have interviewed more than 400 candidates in my career and I am surprised by how ill prepared folks can be at answering this most predictable question. Based on my experience — both as an interviewer and an interviewee, I am sharing these 6 tips on how you can knock it out of the park while answering “Tell me about Yourself”.
1. Tell a story
Humans love stories. And good stories have good structure. Your introduction should have a structure to be effective. With the tell me about yourself question, someone has asked you to tell the story of your (work) life. Ask yourself what is the story of my life? How did it all begin? What were the highlights and how did I get to the current position? Incorporate these milestones in building the story of your career.
2. Blow your own trumpet
Yes. An interview is your sales pitch about yourself. If you dont speak boldly about what makes you deserving of the job then who will. A job interview is not the place to show your modesty. So, don’t be shy to talk about your career achievements. Be bold. But don’t lie. You should be able to back up your talk with data if the interviewer chooses to follow up on a point.
3. Make it relevant
Relevancy is key. Make sure you understand the job requirements and analyze how your skills aligns with them. So try to match your work highlights with the main requirements of the job you are interviewing for. For example, if you are interviewing as a fresher for a software engineer position at a mobile application company, try to highlight how the projects and internship work that you did can help fulfill the requirements of the position.
When the highlights and job requirements are not a perfect match, find what aspects of your work can be indirectly applied to the requirements of the job.
4. Can a 5th grader understand it?
Too many details about a particular project or a particular technology or a tool or a process should be avoided in the Introduce yourself question. Remember, the interviewer may not have any context about what you are talking about. So, avoid the details and articulate your experience in a way that can be understood by someone who has no context of your work. Be prepared to provide details when asked in the follow up question.
5. End with a personal note
The tell me about yourself is an ice-breaker so I always like to end it with something personal to set a relaxed and friendly tone for the rest of the interview. You can end the answer with speaking about your family or your hobbies or anything informal. This will help you connect with the interviewer better. It can go something like — Outside of work, I like contributing to open source projects and hiking with my dog. Make sure you keep it short and stay away from any controversial topics.
6. Practice
Write down your draft for how you would introduce yourself and practice it. Use your friend, spouse or dog as audience. Edit and refine the draft based on feedback from them. Be careful not too sound too mechanical and monotonous. Follow the best practices of maintaining eye contact, smiling and talking in the right pace. You will get better with practice.
“Tell me about yourself” is the question that you will get asked in every interview so it makes a lot of sense to make it a killer one. The impact will be multi-fold and you will be surprised as to how effective it can be to cracking the next job you have been dreaming about.