Best way to answer tell me about yourself | Career Interview Tips

tell me about yourself it is the one question you are guaranteed to be asked in an interview and yet so many people waste the answer on that question when it's the one that they could make the most compelling case for why they're a good fit for the job today I'm going to show you how to strategically answer this question how to prepare for it and make sure you stay till the end because we'll talk about some common concerns like how personal should you really get I'm Cassandra Thompson your career consultant and it's time to get down to business so the right way to answer tell me about yourself this question should be focused on work now we'll talk about the personal part later but the main focus should be your work journey any experiences from the past that led you to why you are in the room today so make sure it ends with why you're sitting in that chair your answers should be about three to seven minutes long some people say five to seven I think it depends on the position and how much past experience you've had yes they have your resume in front of them but they want to hear a little more about some of those things and the stories that go with it so you can go a little bit deeper you're not going to give every detail of every situation so just hit the highlights talk about the job the position you had there and what you did that matters to this position you're sitting in the room for it today alright so how to prepare a little story time first I used to work in casting game shows and I had to ask this question 50 times a day tell me about yourself the first question you're gonna ask tell me about yourself and people do not know how to answer it they sit there go well that's a loaded question really I just want to know about you and if you don't practice it for some reason it is super hard for us to figure out what do we want to say about ourselves for complicated creatures so we've got to practice the head time focusing on a strategic message that we want to give when someone asks us that question especially in an interview all right so to prepare and not vomit like the people did when casting game shows you want to go through your past positions right and past position right a highlight experience from that and what from it matters to the job you're sitting in the room for today use that job description that they gave you that you use when you applied use that to make connections between you and your past experiences and like I said before you want to hit highlights only because obviously you're sitting in the interview they're going to go deeper on some of these things and ask you more questions where you're going to talk further in length probably about some of these experiences so you just want to hit a highlight or two because this is your chance to show hey these are the experiences I've had and why I think they matter to you and to this position it's a great chance to get things on paper that maybe you're afraid they might not ask you about but you think could be relevant so as I said before this is your one chance to make a compelling case well it's the one chance you know you have to make a compelling case of wire great fit for the position so take those bullet points and I tend to put them on an index card I take each job or each position and what firm it connects the job and kind of bullet point them to formulate my answer and then don't forget why are you sitting in the room today now sometimes this question does come up tell me about yourself and why your interest in the position and sometimes ask tell me about yourself and then they'll follow up afterwards why are you interest in the position so if they just say tell me about yourself give a sentence answer of why you're interested and then just be prepared that they may ask you to dive deeper on that as question number two but you want to end on why you're sitting in that room that day so because of all this past experience I think it is prepped me that I am now qualified to take the role of manager or my past experience working in these teams taught me how to manage a group and so that is why I'm excited to take that into action in this position right yeah I don't know it's up to you you have to decide what that's going to be but figure out how it connects to today and then don't forget you also want to use this to talk about their mission their values maybe there's something there that you want to share as well and I'm excited for this position because I've only worked in this environment over here but now I want to work with the company that aligns with my mission and values my personal Michigan values and so I know that your company you really you know cares about let's say environmentalism or making everybody feel included and that aligns with my personal values as well something like that basically your answer to this question is your personal statement of who you are and why you are ready for this position so think about it in those terms don't forget when you have to go deeper on all those other questions those will most likely happen in behavioral questions and I've created a video for you on those I'll put a card to it here and a link in the description box below just because you wrote down those bullet points you are not done you now need to practice don't just go through it in your head it's really easy to look at that card or look at that piece of paper and breed it in your head as if it's blowing as a conversation and then try and say it out loud it tends to go south the first time but good you're home alone who cares you want south at home now you can practice it until it flows until those words come clearly and the transitions move together well and then you're going to give a great poised answer to that question so the biggest question concerned I got with this tell me about yourself statement is how personal should I get now overall it should be focused towards your work so this is not the time to say I love long walks on the beach or I'm obsessed with comic books unless you're interviewing at Marvel so if something personal about you really relates to the position or why you want to work at that company then please bring it up if it's at Marvel and you love comic books don't just say oh I really love comics prove it to me say I have every issue of x-men ever created and I save all my money every year to go to San Diego comic-con even though it's gone totally mainstream I'm still a fan right like whatever it is but if it goes to them share it some people tell you you should never answer this question with your personal life but I think there are places where it can have a fit and where the interviewer actually does want to know just more about you as a person so share some of those personal details but as I said before make sure they're related to the job maybe it's something of your fandom for this company or this industry and maybe it has to do with their values and how they align with yours and how you've done all this small and tear work in this area or this is a cause that you want to get behind that you learned about just last year like anything like that relates to the position the other way I see it coming out is if you have a lot of volunteer experience or something with church like you want it you're interviewing for an event planning job and you've never done event planning professionally paid but you've organized every youth group retreat for the last four years you got to bring it up right so I would share it in those cases just make sure those things are saying are relevant to the position it's not just a one-off like oh yeah and in my free time I make youtube videos okay so to recap the answer to tell me about yourself should be strategically crafted to highlight how past work experiences have brought you to the point of why you are sitting in the room today you should prepare by going through your work history and finding those stories and highlighting experiences that have prepared you for this new position and lastly it's okay to get personal at times as long as it's related to the company or the position you're interviewing for so to help you prepare and craft that awesome answer - tell me about yourself I have created a worksheet and I've got a link to it in the description box below so click down there and you can get started creating your wonderful crafted strategic answer - tell me about yourself with that we are done for the day if you like this video please give it a thumbs up be sure to subscribe if you haven't already hit the notification bellow so you know when new videos come out and leave a comment below telling me about yourself that's easy with that we are done have a great day and I will see you in the next one bye

Channel: Cass Thompson Career Advice

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Id: HD33YQMyhts

Length: 9min 28sec (568 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 29 2018