How To Answer "Tell Me About Yourself" Interview Question | For Students & Professionals

[Music] hey and welcome back to the straight shooter recruiter i'm emily a senior recruiter by day podcast host by night and career coach on the weekends and today's video guys is so highly requested i had so many of you in my dms on instagram as well as in the comments asking for a video about how to introduce yourself what do you do when somebody says tell me about yourself at the beginning of an interview i'm about to give you a formula on how to execute the perfect answer regardless of whether you are a seasoned professional or if this is your very first interview i've got you but before we do that if you want so much amazing career content i'm talking interviews i'm talking networking i'm talking resumes you're gonna have to subscribe because i'm about to give you nothing but fire advice on this channel so hit the subscribe button comment down below give this video a like and let's get into it okay i'm first gonna have to address this janky setup for this video i'm so sorry the lighting in my condo was just not working with me this is the best it gets if you need to roast me do it in the comments i understand i will let it slide okay one of the biggest complaints that i get whenever i talk about how to introduce yourself at the beginning of an interview is i always have at least one or two people say why do i need to introduce myself they've already read my resume they can just read my resume and they'll know who i am and yeah that's true but it's really important that you introduce yourself in person over the phone virtually whatever it might be for a couple of reasons one of which is you're better able to tell a story verbally what i mean by that is we'll be able to tell as interviewers what roles you're passionate about i can hear the passion in your voice i'll also typically get a little bit more information rather about what you enjoyed maybe what you didn't enjoy so much and i can really hear what lights you up and what makes you excited about the work that you do the other reason is if you have a really well-structured introduction it just sets a really good tone for the interview okay i'm gonna walk you through the template that i personally find the most helpful you should think of this as level one so once you're comfortable with this version or this kind of introduction add more add a little personality talk to me about what some of your hobbies are so feel free to spice this baby up when you get more comfortable but think of this as the baseline you have to get this really really solid before we start adding more so a good introduction is going to follow something like this we're going to start off with who you are and what you do followed by what you're passionate about you're then going to introduce some of your key skills and accomplishments and you're going to finish it off with why you are an excellent match for this job at this company let's break this down a little bit more so for introducing who you are and what you do remember that you don't need to say your name if you already know the people if this is like your fourth meeting with the recruiter and you're starting with your name every time not a good look so skip your name if you don't need your name but when you introduce who you are and what you do this is essentially where you say what you do for work or potentially what you do for school if you're still a student for what you're passionate about you want to call out the specific things that you really enjoy about your field and again if you're a student you can call it what you're passionate about in your field of study and if you're well into your career call out the things that make you passionate and fall in love with the work that you do for the next part we get strategic so stay with me remember how i said we were going to call out some key skills and accomplishments that you achieved yes remember that but you also want to pull up the job description so look at the job posting for the role that you're interviewing for and actually see what skills that they wrote down do they want to see data management or leadership skills and make sure those are the skills and accomplishments that you share so you want to make sure you think really strategically about the one or two accomplishments or skills that you're actually going to call out as part of your introduction now the next thing that this company is going to want to hear in your introduction is of course not only why you're qualified for the job but why do you want to do the job here at this company so this is the point where we pull out our laptops our cellular devices and we research i talked a little bit more in depth about how to research companies in my last video i'll put the card here i don't know how this works i'll put a card somewhere in here and you will find it and you will click it but i literally walk you through how to look at a company's website to pull out key information so what you're going to do is follow that method go on the company's website and call out something that matters to you so maybe it's their mission maybe it's the products that they offer maybe it's their corporate social responsibility initiatives so you're going to add a couple of sentences at the end of your intro that really showcase why you want to do the amazing work that you do here guys i'm having such a bad hair day i don't i feel like i keep playing with it and it just keeps getting frizzier oh my gosh if you have naturally wavy hair you know what i'm going through anyways here is what my introduction sounds like hi i'm emily durham i'm a senior recruiter and content creator and i am deeply passionate about all things careers i'm so committed to career coaching and connecting people to their dream jobs through my years of industry experience i've become a creative problem solver and a pretty good public speaker and when i saw your company posted a job for a senior recruiter i knew i had to apply not only because i think i'm a great skills match but i love how your company is so committed to innovation and collaboration it's something that's really important to me like i would hire me i feel as though that was fabulous but do you see what i did there i took the general structure that i gave us so all of those key points that we had to hit and i added some conversational sentences in there for example when i said so when i saw this job posting i knew i had to apply that's what i mean by freestyling you want to add your own personality but still keep that base structure in there so you're hitting all of the key points now you might be wondering em i'm a student what am i supposed to talk about to which i say have i ever left you hanging if the answer is yes please don't tell me i feel like i try hard not to leave you hanging but students i've got you all right we're going to get into a student specific example next you don't need to panic about not having an amazing introduction full of years of experience because what i've done is tweak this introduction formula so that it works for you here is what your new formula is it's who you are and what you study it's why you're passionate about what you study it's what your career goals are the skills that you already have and then the skills that you're going to learn in this job let's get into an example i'm going to pretend that i am like the young bright-eyed bushy-tailed 18 year old emily durham and not the emotionally drained lots of baggage gray hair wrinkled sad lives alone emily durham okay let's jump into it i'm emily durham and i'm a human resources student i chose to study hr because i'm really passionate about people and the idea of connecting people to their dream jobs is really exciting to me which is why my career goal is to eventually become a recruiter i think i would be a great fit for this position because i already come to the table with amazing communication and collaboration skills and i would love to learn more about the hands-on recruitment skills that i'm going to need on this job okay so now you've got the formula to have an amazing introduction no matter what your experience level is so i don't want to hear anything no slander no talking about i don't need to prepare because i know myself so well none of that we always prepare our introductions in this house another thing that we always do in this house we write bullet point notes not scripts so when you practice after this video to put together the most creme de la creme introduction in the world make sure that you're writing bullet point notes and not a script the reason for that is typically when you write a script you'll be inclined to memorize it which means that your introduction is going to come off as really robotic like you've put way too much thought into every single word and it's going to feel less conversational and on the flip side of that if you don't memorize it it means you're probably going to be looking down reading off the script the whole time maybe looking up once or twice and i just want better for you okay so sue me sue me for wanting better for you and you know the next step in this video per usual it's just a little bit of homework i'm sorry i know we hate the homework but it helps i want you to practice putting together your introduction regardless of your skill level and get really comfortable with this kind of level one format get really comfortable speaking about your skills your experience and getting understanding of how to research companies and then when you feel ready i want you to spice this baby up i want you to add a little paprika on there maybe a little basil that's not really a seasoning people use like that but you get what i'm saying i want you to take it up a notch so when you're comfortable with this formula i want you to practice then adding in sentences about your personal hobbies you might include things like on the weekends i love hiking and yoga or on the weekends i absolutely love baking so when you get comfortable with that base introduction that level one start to add your hobbies i really hope that this video was helpful you guys i really hope that it gave you all the information you need to have really impactful introductions and remember even if you don't want to practice even if you feel like you don't need to practice something like this i promise you do it will help it will make you stand out it sets an exceptional tone for the interview and it keeps all of your skills and passions at the top of the interviewer's mind right from the jump so it's an amazing tool to have in your skills toolbox if this video was helpful if anything i said anything at all was remotely helpful please subscribe please leave a comment check out my other videos friendly reminder you can also find me on instagram join the instagram fam at emily.the.recruiter i also have a podcast called the straight shooter recruiter and your girl is back we're back in business baby i am back doing one-on-one career coaching resume reviews and mock interviews i've got a three-course meal waiting for you so if you're interested in any of that head to the description leave me a comment on what you thought on this video maybe you should try practicing your introductions in there i'll give you some feedback we'll hang out a little bit but i had so much fun i hope this was helpful love you and i'll talk to you later

Channel: Emily Durham

Views: 84,752

Keywords: how to answer tell me about yourself interview question, tell me about yourself, how to answer tell me about yourself, tell me about yourself good answer, tell me about yourself interview, how to answer the tell me about yourself question, job interview, interview, tell me about yourself interview question, job, interview tips, career, tell me about yourself best answer, tell me about yourself job interview answer, Emily The Recruiter, Emily Durham

Id: PXI0k9qhjnA

Length: 10min 25sec (625 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 07 2020