Tell me about yourself

[Learnist Careers]

Tell me about yourself

You walk into the interview room, shake hands with your interviewer and sit down with your best interviewing smile on. Guess what their first question is? "Tell me about yourself."

Do you "wing it" and actually tell all manner of things about yourself? Will you spend the next 5 minutes rambling on about what an easy-going, loyal, dedicated, hard working employee you've been? If this is the case, you stand a good chance of having bored your interviewer to death thus creating a negative first impression.

Because it's such a common interview question, it's strange that more candidates don't spend the time to prepare for exactly how to answer it. Perhaps because the question seems so disarming and informal, we drop our guard and shift into ramble mode. Resist all temptation to do so.

Your interviewer is not looking for a 10-minute dissertation here. Instead, offer a razor sharp sentence or two that sets the stage for further discussion and sets you apart from your competitors.

Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Give them "your synopsis about you" answer, specifically your Unique Selling Proposition. Known as a personal branding or a value-added statement, the USP is a succinct, one-sentence description of who you are, your biggest strength and the major benefit that a company will derive from this strength. Here is an example of a Unique Selling Proposition: "I'm a seasoned Retail Manager strong in developing training programs and loss prevention techniques that have resulted in revenue savings of over $2.3Million for (employer's name) during the past 11 years."

What a difference you've made with this statement. Your interviewer is now sitting forward in her chair giving you her full attention. At this point, you might add the following sentence: "I'd like to discuss how I might be able to do something like that for you." The ball is now back in her court and you have the beginnings of a real discussion and not an interrogation process.

Be Specific

The key is that you must lead with your strongest benefit to the employer. Be specific and don't wander about with some laundry list of skills or talents. Be sure to put a monetary value on your work if at all possible and be ready with details when you're called upon. Give an estimated value to the $$ you've either helped to make or save for your employer.

Be Prepared

When you walk into an interview, remember to always expect the "tell me about yourself" question. Prepare ahead of time by developing your own personal branding statement that clearly tells who you are, your major strength and the clear benefit that your employer received. The advantages of this approach are that you'll quickly gain their attention and interest them in knowing more. You'll separate yourself from your competitors. You'll also have a higher chance of being positively remembered and hired.

[MelissaJohn2011]

Great Tips for answering if asked about describing ourselves. Sometimes we tumble on such informal questions but your post gives a clear description of what should be answered.

[Lorraine_03]

I always keep this a little bit between personal and work related. My answer is usually related to my college work, and how far ive come in the past 5 years by doing well at each job ive worked at. Each different role has taught me different things which I will be able to use for my future work life.

[Glenys]

Actually this is very intersesting and helpful.  As you say most people fall down on this question (myself included) so its great to have something like this to give advice and suggestions on what to say.
 
Thankyou, I now know what to say if i'm asked this question in the future

[Glenys]

I'm going to think of one to use quite soon for this.  Glad i've come back to read this topic actually, got an interview lined up next week so this is very useful.  I will think about what my personal branding could be ready for this question