Interview Skills – Tell Me About Yourself

Do you know why Tell me about yourself question is asked so often in most job interviews? This question is actually an ice-breaker. Asking this question starts the conversation. So you should better be ready with an answer. This question gives the interviewer a chance to know about the interviewee. Once you start talking about yourself, interviewer starts preparing his/her next question. So there are high chances that the next question that would be fired on you will be based on the answer of this question. As the answer for this will be based on you, you think and prepare it before the interview.

While preparing for the answer consider including following points.

1. You:

Tell them your name and which place you are from. Suppose you are “Sri Charan”, then do not start with “Myself Sri Charan”; start with “I am Sri Charan”. This is a very common mistake. Not acceptable in interviews especially in call center jobs.

You may talk about your family (cover up in short); you may talk about your how you came to the city, etc.

2. Your education:

Tell them about your education i.e. graduation/post-graduation. If you are a fresher then tell them the grades you got. If you have done something different than others then tell them. It surely adds a value!

3. Your experience:

Talk about your whole experience. Start from early years and gradually come to recent years. If you have a long experience then you must not be doing same thing all years. Then exactly what you were doing? This is what your interviewer wants to listen. If you are a fresher then talk about your projects and emphasize your role you played in it.

4. Your experience regarding to the post you has applied for:

Fresh candidates who do not have any kind of experience, you should show some positive attitude and exhibit willingness to learn and do new things. Be ready to do new things. Don’t worry that you will make mistakes. Fresher candidates are expected to do mistakes and your employers are well aware of it so you don’t have any reason to be afraid. Believe me no one will give you more work than you can handle.

5. Do not describe your salary or pay scale at this point of time (unless explicitly asked).

6. Avoid giving unnecessary details. Value your interviewer’s time.

7. The idle answer should not last more than 1 minute.

Good luck.