Some might argue the “tell me about yourself” interview question is an easy one, but I disagree—particularly for those just starting down their career paths who haven’t been interviewed countless times. It is, however, a fantastic opportunity to frame yourself for the position—if answered correctly. But, where do you begin with this extremely open-ended question?
In a recent interview with Katharine Hansen, PhD, author of “Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career,” she offered the following steps for creating a career-propelling success story.
- Identify a dozen or so help-wanted ads or Internet job postings that typify the kind of job you seek.
- List keywords that describe the skills and characteristics required for these jobs. Don’t be too concerned that as an entry-level job seeker you don’t have the required skills. Chances are you’ve had experiences that will provide transferable skills you can construct stories about.
- Next, make a list of the skills and characteristic keywords the ads or job postings have in common.
- For each, compose a story that illustrates how you have successfully demonstrated that skill or characteristic. Remember, as a college student or new grad, you can draw on a wide range of experiences—class projects, work-study, extra-curriculars, study abroad, sports, volunteer work, Greek organization roles, internships, summer jobs and more.
- Be sure to compose stories that come from diverse aspects of your life and career. Don’t focus on just one job or extracurricular activity, for example. Draw your stories from fairly recent experience. Employers what to know what you’ve done lately that could benefit their organization.
Comments
RE: Tell Me About Yourself.
I have advised folks to respond to this request by interviewers with a simple 4-step approach:
1. DO YOUR RESEARCH and prepare three or four bullets relevant to a business challenge facing the organization, each no longer than 3-seconds, i.e. “I started-up (this)” … “I conceived of and successfully executed (that)” … “I spearheaded (something) and brought it to (something other)” etc.
2. Prepare a 30-second story for each bullet, a la “storytelling”, using what I refer to as the SOAR –Technique (a) The Situation or circumstance in which you were involved, (b) the Opportunity you saw for you and your organization (c) Actions you took (how you conducted yourself) and (d) the Results of your action/conduct; Situation-Opportunity-Actions-Results SOAR
3. When asked to “Tell me about yourself” begin to roll through your bullets starting with “as you can see from my resume, I’ve (bullet 1, 2, 3 and 4) quickly followed-up with “On which of these would you like me to elaborate?”
4. The interviewer will suggest you talk about or another of your experiences/bullets to which you can provide the corresponding 30-sec SOAR story.
This is a great method for addressing “Tell me about yourself” combining your resume, bullets from relevant research and the “story technique”.
-- Rob Taub
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