How to Answer "Tell Me About Yourself" in a Job Interview (Template!)

hey folks my name is Aaron magoff and I'm a filmmaker and content creator based in New York and today we're talking about my viral and kind of famous template that millions of people have used to answer the most difficult yet most important job interview question ever tell me about yourself [Music] so this is a template that I made and that I've just used my whole life and like I don't know New Year's Day 2021 I posted it casually on Tech talk how to answer the most annoying interview question ever tell me about yourself and it literally changed my life overnight like I remember I woke up the next day looked at my phone and I had 300 000 followers like I was like what I went from from zero to today I have over 3.5 million followers it just keeps growing and it's all because of this one video that I made since I posted this video literally millions of people have used this template which is vile to think about to crush their interview and get their dream job and now I'm going to teach it to you okay so answering the question so tell me about yourself in a job interview seems really simple right just tell me about yourself do it tell me about yourself right now see it's not as easy as you think it might be who said it I think it was Martin Scorsese said simple is hard this interview question is actually incredibly difficult how are you supposed to sum up your entire life in like two minutes and you have to do it in a way that's relevant to this interviewer the way that you are going to spend two to three minutes answering this question is going to determine the fate of the entire interview what the interviewer is really saying is hey I've interviewed like 10 people today I've looked at like 200 resumes I honestly like didn't even have time to review your application like just just tell me who you are just give me a little refresher they are inviting you to kick off the interview they want you to introduce Concepts and show them how you ended up in front of them how did you end up in this interview and you want to think about it backwards instead of just telling them who you are you want to think about hmm how can I describe their next favorite employee to them when somebody is interviewing you they're just looking for things they're looking to hear certain keywords certain phrases they're looking to get a general buy from you to like your personality to like the things that you say and they're also on high alert for red flag so sometimes open-ended questions like tell me about yourself can be a great way to kind of like get that stuff introduced because you're going to say things that aren't necessarily a clear answer to one question but you're just going to offer up information so with the question tell me about yourself I have a template to answer it it's going to work every single time for you but the most important thing during this video or after this video to write out your answer and then to memorize it so to practice it over and over again practice it with family and friends you want to be like clockwork so you can just go on autopilot and answer your tell me about yourself okay hair is doing this video but now it's going to be like this you can't make a first impression twice you have one chance to make a good first impression at the end of the day they just want to see a capable employee that can do the job well that can play nice with others that's all they're looking for so when you are answering this question you just want them to think at the end wow the person sitting in front of me is a great fit for this role they're capable they're professional they have the proper experience they have the proper skills that's all we want them to think okay we're not talking about anything else that will not be conducive to that thought so let's talk about some mistakes that people make when answering this question the first mistake is rambling so tell me about yourself uh well um yeah so I uh I I grew up in DC and then I went to middle school I'm into this small school and then I actually went there for high school too and I have a bunch of older siblings they actually went there for school as well and then I I want to go in film school but originally I wanted school for marketing but I changed my mind halfway through and I ended up in a film school and while I was there I thought that I was gonna like work at NBC but then I realized that like I want to work in documentary and then so I kind of changed my mind halfway through and then I decided you know maybe maybe I want to work at this company but then I I try to get it in stock it don't ramble we don't want to ramble and the way that we're going to avoid rambling is by filling out the template and memorizing it we don't want to ramble it's a very bad sign the second thing that I just did that you don't want to do is tell your whole life story okay it's just like your resume we only want to include relevant information and the third thing that you don't want to do is just repeat your resume this is really common people will go into an interview tell you about yourself and they just repeat it my name is this I went to school here I worked here I did this I worked here I did this I wrote here I did this and like yes that is like generally what you're doing with the Telly about yourself question but you need to make personable tweaks so you're not just repeating what they can already read but rather you're telling the story of your resume so what is this template that I've been talking about it's very simple very intuitive all it is is past present future it's all it is and see your pass is pretty straightforward you know maybe give an example of maybe where you came from where you grew up if you feel comfortable sharing where you were educated where you went to college where you've lived all those kinds of things that you did before today and we have present which is what you currently do where you currently work where you currently exist what you do how you feel about what you do and then future is just a sentence or two about your future Ambitions what you would like to do what what you're interested in and that's where you tie it back into the role and you'll see what I'm talking about in just a minute when I give some examples but with this three-part template you're telling a story about yourself you're saying this is where I came from this is what I'm currently doing and this is where I want to go and that's what recruiters want to hear they want to hear about your qualifications your story you know maybe you've hit a bump in the road maybe you had a little bit of a rough start this is a good way to kind of explain to them what they couldn't gather from your resume so let's talk through some examples example number one is somebody who maybe didn't go to college but they're applying for a customer service or retail based job sure so I grew up here in New York over in Queens and my mom actually owned a hair salon growing up so I guess you could say customer service is in my blood I graduated from North High School where I actually played varsity volleyball for four years and I'm looking to go to Community College soon after I've reached my savings goal when I'm not working or studying I like to hang out with friends try new restaurants and go on walks with my dog see it doesn't have to be anything fancy just a nice simple personable tell me about yourself example number two is a stay-at-home mom trying to get back into the workforce after not having a job for two years sure well I'm Mary I'm an executive assistant with over five years of experience assisting a variety of c-suite Executives and a strong Communicator I'm detail-oriented and discreet and I work well under pressure I can juggle many different tasks from booking travel to managing calendars and emails during the last couple of years I made the lifestyle decision to step back from full-time employment to take care of my two young children and honestly it's only strengthened my organizational skills Poise and patience and I've been waiting for the perfect position to pop up so when I saw this role open up at ABC company I knew I had to apply so do you see how that example got a bit more into the weeds she talked more about the details of the role that she did because she has five years of experience she's probably applying to something where they want like a more mid-level career professional and so she lists out you know it's booking travel being discreet managing emails those are things that she would find in the job description and she's repeating them back also if you are a stay-at-home mom trying to get back into the workforce you don't have to mention that in your tell me about yourself it's entirely up to you if you think that that'll lead to you being discriminated against feel free to not do it however I think that if you are going to mention this in your tell me about yourself talk about how it was an active lifestyle choice and now you are taking your time with trying to find that next perfect position you don't want them to think that you are going to half-ass your job now that you have kids and they're going to distract you you really want to show them that you are a dedicated professional and that you take your job very seriously example number three here is a recent grad who has a little bit of internship experience but this is their first job they're trying to get out of college sure I'm from Chicago I'm a proud midwesterner and I graduated from Northwestern with a degree in marketing in college I was highly involved in campus activities and I interned at two marketing firms I'm really interested in digital marketing I have experience in display advertising paid social Google AdSense but I'm particularly interested in how the Creator economy has opened up a whole new era of digital marketing I'm really interested in working with integrated Partnerships with lifestyle Brands so when I saw this position open up at Studio company I knew I had to apply okay so you might be noticing a little theme that I have kind of at the end of all of these tell me about yourselves you want to tie it all together and like put a little bow on it so I love when you're telling this this career Arc story to end it with and that's how I ended up here when I saw your position I knew I had to apply because of this it's kind of like your thesis statement it shows how these building blocks have led you to this job and it makes the recruiter think okay I understand this is why they're interested in this role and next example number four is early career I'm Erin I grew up in Maryland and I went to American University for film where I was able to work on a ton of different production sets pets and internet companies like National Geographic currently I'm working as an editor for a production company that mainly does branding and Commercial work and I'm really loving all the projects I've been able to work on and the clients are great but now I'm looking to Pivot my career a bit more into the nonfiction space so when I saw Production Studio I had an opening I knew I had to apply I mean that docu series on Netflix last year was one of my favorite I've ever seen so some light flattery definitely doesn't hurt you don't overdo it and you definitely want to be genuine when you're giving you know compliments to a company don't compliment a company that you're not genuinely a fan of or else it's just going to come across what's the word disingenuous yeah I mean you don't want to come across just like a setup but if you have a genuine compliment for the company if you really like a project that they did tell them it shows that you did your research and that you would actually be a good culture fit too also you guys can always use like you know chat EBT or something to help you get some more ideas for this but you know at the end of the day you just want to tell a little story of your life if you don't want it to be more than two or three minutes and you just want to end it with and that's how I ended up here and you just want them to think wow this person they're a great fit we should just hire them right now come in here bring the paperwork in HR we just need to hire them and a little bonus example example five is just another one to get the wheels turning I'm from Charlotte North Carolina and I studied Communications at the University of Maryland because I actually really wanted to work in politics after school I really wanted to work in DC and although I found out that I don't love the politics route I do still love working in media in DC I currently work for big media company as a coordinator where we mainly work with the real estate and Tech Industries but going forward I'm looking to focus more on digital marketing in the intersection of platforms like Tick Tock and Instagram and AI I feel like we're on the cusp of this new era of marketing and I feel like this company probably has some pretty cool projects in the work that I would love to be a part of and in my spare time I like to do New York Times crossword puzzles go to O's games and go on runs with my dog I love adding just like a little personal thing at the end there and and never make it anything even remotely controversial like like those game thing I wouldn't maybe mention that you're a Cowboys fan in DC you know like don't don't do anything like that but you know like wholesome poppies I like to go on Hikes I like to hang out with my dog like these are things that everybody likes to do so I love to just mention those little things because you know they give the interviewer kind of like a positive Association would be like oh okay this person seems like a good culture fit as well so that is it that is a template past present future I encourage you down in the comments to write your Telly about yourself answer and maybe we can even turn this into like a little networking thing we can all get to know each other remember interviews they go both ways okay you're interviewing the company too you're just trying to see if you are a good fit for each other leave any questions down in the comments below and remember you got this I'll see you next time [Music] foreign

Channel: AdviceWithErin

Views: 53,593

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Id: eyehDPkAQRA

Length: 11min 45sec (705 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 03 2023