Tell me About Yourself ?

Well, Interviews are an Experience in themselves, they can be daunting or pleasant. It all depends on how well we are prepared and how cool we keep our heads on. Even for experienced persons, an Interview can be a harrowing thing.

When it comes to interviews there are a few questions that one can expect to be asked by every interviewer. One of those questions is “Tell me about yourself? “, a simple yet deadly question. There is no easy-fit answer to this. It all depends on how confident and self-aware you are. This may be the 1st question the interviewer asks you to see how well you express yourself and to see how good you are at communicating things. So you need to put your best up and don’t want to mess this up.

Let us give you a few tips on do’s and don’t while you prepare to answer this question.

How to Answer, Tell me about yourself?

This is probably going to be the first question they ask, so keep it simple and professional. Do not force yourself and just let it flow.

 

1)  Make your Answer according to the role and the organisation.

 

First of all, study the job description and the organisation thoroughly, and understand their needs and values. Only specify the values, skills and achievements that are relevant to that job.

For eg: If you are applying for a sales position, tell them more about how you are into meeting new people and interacting with them. If you have previous sales experience tell them more about that.

If you are a fresher, you don’t have the experience to articulate more about your academics and any internships you have done. Plus focus on the skills required for that particular role.

 

2) Having a Structure to your answer.

 

Most of you just ramble on with whatever comes to your mind at first. Everyone starts with ” Hi My name is ABC, I’m coming from XYZ..”. They do want you to say everything written in the resume, especially your place or about your parents.

So if you are an experienced fellow start with where you are working or previously worked and tell about the roles and responsibilities you undertook.

Eg: ” So my name is ABC and I’m an engineering graduate from RST University. I’m currently working at QST company, as a Supervisor and my responsibilities include managing all the daily tasks, delegating work to people under me and planning, and executing work daily.

This was my first job after graduating and as much as I love working there, I think it’s time for me to move on, learn new things, expand my capabilities and impart my knowledge to better things. That’s why applied for this position in your company.

 

3) Know about who you’re interacting with.

 

Be aware of who all are there in the interview panel and to whom you are responding. If it is the HR you don’t have to go into the technical details of your previous job, just an overall summary of your job role and responsibilities will be enough. If it’s with the CTO or the CEO of the company, be sure to get the details right, but don’t make it into an epilogue. Always be precise and on point.

 

4) Do not be robotic.

 

You can find many answers to ” tell me about yourself ” on the internet and you think you can just edit it according to your need, by heart it and just say it out of your memory. But that will just be robotic and there is a chance of you getting stuck somewhere because you forgot what the next line is. So be calm just remember to keep it about your work or academics and follow some structure and you will be alright. There is no right or wrong answer here, everyone will answer it according to their own style. Practice what you want to say, but let it come naturally don’t memorize anything.

 

What not to say

 

• Don’t start your answer from your childhood or high school, the interviewer may have done a few rounds before you got in so he is in no mood to hear your life story.
• Do not start off by glorifying yourself with things like ” How you are passionate, a Team player/Leader or how good you are at managing things “. Keep things subtle and a little blurry, don’t shove it down their throat.
• If you are an experienced person, do not keep rambling about how you do your work or what you did there in detail. Keep it clean and professional.
• Keep the answer short and crisp. Do not speak for more than 2 or 3 minutes at max.

 

Sample Answer for Freshers

 

Interviewer: Good morning Sam here, I’m the HR manager of this organisation and I will be interviewing you today. So what can you tell me about yourself?

Fresher: Good morning Sir, My name is Rahul and I’m 24 years old. I’m a Post Graduate of Marketing and sales from ABC University. My Academic performance has been consistently good and I have maintained an average of 8 CGPA throughout my academics.

I have always been fascinated by meeting new people and talking to people, while in college I participated in a competition where I had the task of pitching a product then and there to a person. From that experience, I learned that I had a knack for selling products and pitching them. So I did my PG in sales and marketing.

So moving forward I wanted to work in an environment where I could meet people, talk to them, implement my knowledge and help my organisation grow.