Ah, the quintessential “tell me about yourself”

Posted by Dee

Interestingly enough, one of the most difficult interview questions to answer well is the most rudimentary “tell me about yourself” conversation starter. Here are some words of advice on answering just that first, open-ended question:

1. Keep it concise — Pick three aspects (three is my recommendation and is just a pretty good rule of thumb, but it can be adjusted) of yourself that CAN be expanded upon. The interviewer will ask follow-up questions based on how you’ve answered this question so choose to talk about activities or personal traits or background information that you deem important and that can be talked about further in length.

2. Be general with the three aspects — Don’t feel the need to give a monologue about each aspect right now. Keep each aspect to about one sentence, and then give one to two examples for each within one to two sentences.

3. Response time shouldn’t be more than 2 minutes tops

4. Rehearse your answer! — This is the quintessential interview starter and so you want to seem polished and to-the-point (eliminating too many likes and ums and wells), but without being unnatural. Remember the interviwer will know very little, if not nothing, about you at this point, so they’re asking this question to get a sense of what you think is important or impressive or interesting about yourself. Remember that they may interrupt you or ask questions, but regardless, it’s in your best interest to plan out your response to this query and rehearse your answer.