3 Ways To Embrace The Tell Me About Yourself Interview Question
After working with countless Veterans and spouses in preparing them for professional (and sometimes more relaxed) interviews, I've learned that almost every person dreads and struggles to answer that first inevitable question: Tell Me About Yourself.
Instead of haphazardly rattling off your 2-3 minute answer and hoping for the best, prep for it. Embrace this opportunity to further your chances of the getting the job by following these three suggestions:
1) Explain Why You're The Best Fit For The Position.
This is really what most interviewers are looking for when you answer the Tell Me About Yourself question. They aren’t looking for a play-by-play of your life story, nor do they want to hear about your weird hobbies.
Instead, they are looking for a brief synopsis of your employment and educational history as well as what led you to apply for this job. Within that answer should be something about why you are a great fit for the position. You don't actually have to say, "...and that's the reason why I'm the best fit for this position." Instead, give your brief history as it relates to the position and end with something like, "…and that's why I'm so excited about this position."
For Veterans, this is where you have to determine what you’ll bring up from your military experience. Many Veterans are unsure if they should bring up deployments or struggle to explain a deployment when they feel that their duties overseas are relevant to the job for which they are interviewing. Just like other candidates, you need to keep your answer relevant to the position you’re applying for. This means drilling down and only providing the information that has to do with the job.
For example, if the position is a leadership role, you might mention that you were promoted to a supervisor role while deployed overseas and continued to hold that role, supervising X amount of personnel, even after you returned from deployment. Notice that you don’t have to even mention where you were deployed, nor do you need to bring up the possible combat aspect of your deployment.
I could spend the whole article on determining what to bring up from your military experience, but the gist of it is to stick with what is relevant to the position for which you’re interviewing.
2) Bring Up Things That Are Important To The Job But That You Didn't Have On Your Resume.
Sometimes after you apply for a position, you learn more about the company and realize that you have other relevant experience that you didn’t list on your resume. This could be relevant volunteer experience at a nonprofit that the organization supports, or it could be the fact that the job you applied for is in another state and you already plan to move to that state.
Just like everything else in an interview, this needs to be something relevant to the position, relevant to the company, or relevant to the interviewer. Do NOT bring up things about yourself just because you think they are interesting. For example, explaining your love of gardening during an interview for a logistics position is not relevant. But if the interview is for a logistics position at a gardening center, then that is much more relevant and could be mentioned when you tell the interviewer about yourself.
3) Explain Why You're Such A Good Fit For The Company
While this can tie into why you're such a good fit for the role itself, it’s actually a completely different topic. Many organizations are now looking for specific personality traits that fit the company culture.
Before ever going into an interview (and really, before applying for a position), research the company. Learn about their mission and core values. See if they have a company culture for which you are actually a good fit. You might even review LinkedIn profiles for current employees and possibly try reaching out to them in order to learn more about what’s expected of employees. This will allow you to gauge your fit with the company before you ever interview. You don’t have to keep this information a secret either. In fact, you could tell the interviewer about your research in your Tell Me About Yourself answer. You might say something like, “I connected through LinkedIn to several employees in the X Department and learned....” Explain to the interviewer why your conversation with these employees made you even more interested in working for the company.
Ultimately, you’re going to have to answer the Tell Me About Yourself question during an interview. If you follow the above suggestions, prepare for it, and practice your answer a few times, you’ll not only feel more confident about your answer, you’ll also set the tone for the rest of the interview.