Why "tell me something about yourself" is not the right question to start any interview with

If you are an HR manager or have witnessed or conducted any interviews, you might have witnessed the famous question "Tell me something about yourself". I just like you have witnessed it countless number of times when I used to attend several interviews out of curiosity just to explore the interview process.

Every time I have heard someone to ask this question, I have found the question as stupid as ever and the interviewer as dumb as other interviewers. Even though there is no opposition to it in business schools and in fact many of you might have never given it a thought that it could really be a stupid question, it still is. Let me explain, why I feel so and why technically I found my feelings to be correct.

I know many HR personnel who are super competitive and interesting and intelligent and they even while asking this question add spice to it. This article is not about them or interesting versions of the question like "tell us something about yourself that we already do not know from your resume". This article is about purest dumb version of asking "tell me something about yourself"

1) Because it is not a question itself in the first place.

"Tell me something about yourself" is not a question, it is either an order or a request, based on the tone it is is spoken.

" Can you please tell me something about yourself? "

Is still a valid question, but is not asked because the answer to this question can really test the intelligence of the interviewer. The answer to the above can be "Yes certainly. But what you want me to tell? About my life, sports? parents?" and Then the interviewer has to pick and he has no idea what to interpret from that answer. Though in most cases the answer simply will be a boring generic random vocal representation of the bio-data.

2) It doesn't meet the purpose of the interview itself: What is the basic purpose of the personal interview? To asses if the candidate has enough inter-personal and soft skills, if he fits into the culture of the organization, if he has any intellectual thoughts, if he has competency and so on. The purpose is to discover more about the person and his communication skills+socializing skills+ability to adapt etc. Because a candidate in an interview will always wear a mask of politeness and will have a certain degree of fear and reservations. As an interviewer your role is not to intermediate but to make the person open up to his/her natural self to give out more about themselves.

When you are trying to find some definite answers, how can your question be generic? More technically, when you are trying to find some answers, how can you not ask at least a valid question?

3) The answer to a generic order or request can never be an answer and even a generic one. Well if the only objective of this particular question or rather, a statement, which is an Order/request statement of a generic term "something" is to asses how concisely the candidate can vocally repeat his written bio-data then by all means you can, but then when not ask the candidate to mug up a live paragraph and repeat? At least it should serve assessing his memory capability.

4) The question doesn't create any bond : If someone is being asked this question, in all likelihood the candidate has cleared few rounds of interview and the resume is with HR. Why not bother to read it once and try to find something interesting from the resume and ask about it.

Something like "I see you have done engineering in computer science, can you share with us why you chose to do an engineering and more so on computer science?"

This does two things, the interviewee becomes aware that the interviewer has read about him and is really interested in him. Sometimes question can be more casual, even a request but more specific than generic. "Hello. So how was your day today building upto the interview?" or "Hello, was it a heavy traffic today while coming?"

Look, as an interviewer you need to be creative, you need to observe the psychological traits of the person, you need to understand the interviewee and build a rapport with the candidate. The more effort and intend you show to create a bond with the interviewee, he/she will open up more, be more friendly and may share more details than otherwise.

Think of this as an opportunity of meeting a new person, talking and learning about another person. This is really an interesting proposition. Don't make it boring by asking a boring first question and becoming a stupid figure in the candidate's mind already.

5) Because it has no lead question A question with specifics will have specific answers that might have interesting lead questions. But a generic question will in most cases may not have a lead question. So the next question that is to be asked will be obviously be disconnected from the first "statement" of "tell me something about yourself".

Now change that "something" with something more specific. Like "Tell me something about your parents". You know that they may talk about the profession of the parents, bondage with them, and the question is so passionate that they will always go an extra distance and elaborate extra things. Pick up follow up process like so how your father spent with them etc. Engage in a conversation not an interview.

6) Why would someone even bother to tell about themselves to a total stranger? Just because someone is sitting in front of you for a job interview doesn't change the basic fact that they carry our millennium old gene of being comfortable to warm and interesting individuals and uncomfortable to those who appears to carry more than to even bother about total stranger. So in most cases the brain just doesn't allow any "interesting something" to come out.

7) "tell me something about yourself" is not equivalent to "tell us your story" I am sure half way while reading this article you might as well have made an opinion that you are actually trying to ask the candidate to tell a story.

Consider following story "A cow eats grass, the field has no grass after few days, then it rains, the field becomes full, the cow again eats grass". The above is a story, but has no significance and relevance. I do not care and can say it with certainty that neither do you. So you have to put more effort to get an interesting story out of the candidate. Look, every one's life has it's own share of pain, misery and gains. If not anything you would learn an interesting story about an individual's life if not anything. And while the candidate is telling the story, you can really judge the level of passion or pessimism. So if getting a story is what you are looking for, then take the candidate towards right direction like "can you share an interesting story from your college days? could be bunking classes, could be anything".

8) Because there exists far superior first question

Why, what, and How are always good specific questions with defined objectives. So using them in the beginning of the interview sets the tone of the interview. Something as simple as even "how you reached here" is much more intelligent way of setting a tone.

9) Because you are much better than that

Humans are difficult and HR is an important department. Recruitment is one of the most important processes in an organization and yet it has always been undermined. If you look at the corporate history, rearrest of the cases, a HR has gone on to top of the company, leading it. You do not have to be the next one to be in that list.

I know you are way more talented, in a way more critical position and doing a way more critical task in interviewing than the general notion. Leave your personal stamp on it and win the interview yourself. Winning an interview for the interviewer is to be able to discover the true self of the interviewee and not to discover the ability to be concise.

HR is all about Human Relations. If you can not create a connect with another human being and if the other human being leaves the room without finding you interesting, warming and intelligent then whether the candidate miss the job or not is a subject that comes much later but you missed an opportunity to create a connect and relation with another person is certain.