"Tell Me About Yourself..."
Question:
I’m currently job searching and have been getting interviews, but I still struggle with answering the question, “Tell me about yourself.” I’m not sure what information I should include. Any ideas on how I can improve my answer and feel more confident?
Answer:
This question trips up even the most qualified candidates. While it might seem like an easy question to answer, it’s hard to sum up your work history within a set time frame without feeling like you left too much out, talked too much, or focused on the wrong information.
“The “Tell Me About Yourself” question allows employers to get a better sense of your personality and allows them to see if you can demonstrate those soft skills you highlighted in your resume. ”
I recently conducted a practice interview with a client whose last job search was 15 years ago. When I asked her to “Tell Me About Yourself” she answered by stating where she was born, what high school she went to, and included other information that was not relevant to the targeted job. While she had the desired professional background and skills, she overshared a lot of personal and non-relevant information that would have hurt her chances of getting an offer in the eyes of the interviewer. After some additional interview prep and practice, she started including relevant information in her response that provided a snapshot of her career history and highlighted skills that directly related to the job.
In order to make you feel more confident in your response, try to understand why employers ask that particular question. According to CNBC (February 2019), more than 95% of Fortune 500 companies used an Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to narrow down the hiring process by scanning keywords in the resume, and 75% of companies never actually reviewed the candidates’ resumes. What this means is that if you’ve been selected for an interview, it’s because the ATS placed your resume in the “best candidate pool” based on the qualifications of the job. However, this doesn’t mean that they know who you are.
The “Tell Me About Yourself” question allows employers to get a better sense of your personality and allows them to see if you can demonstrate those soft skills you highlighted in your resume. Having a solid resume demonstrates to an employer that you’re qualified for the job, but the purpose of the interview is to assess how you would fit in with the team and what value you could bring to the company. Therefore, your response to this question should highlight accomplishments and/or transferable skills that align with the job you are interviewing for - in about 60 seconds or so. Remember, this question is typically just the beginning of the interview, so employers will follow up with other questions that are more targeted to the job description as time goes on. If your response is too long and/or too descriptive at the beginning, your answers may sound repetitive if you have to continue to refer back to everything you stated in the first question.
Lastly, you’ve probably heard this a million times, but it’s worth repeating: practice does help. I don’t advise that you should memorize your response verbatim, but do practice what information you want to include in this response and time yourself to make sure your answer is around 60 seconds long. Since many interviews are now being done virtually, it might be a good idea to write some bullet points on an index card or sticky note with points you want to remember to include in your answer. Make sure to keep this reference at eye level as you don’t want to be seen looking down when responding to questions.
I hope that these insights will help you feel more confident when you are asked to “Tell Me About Yourself” in future interviews!
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