How to Answer "Tell Me About Yourself" | Interview Question

so tell me about yourself it's probably one of the most difficult questions to answer it sounds so simple what we have to do is talk about ourselves but first impressions are very very important in a job interview and that's why everybody finds this so difficult so today I'm going to give you the perfect method for answering this question next time you have a job interview let's go hi everybody it's me your British pronunciation coach Elliot from ETJ English now today we're actually doing something a little bit different to pronunciation we're going to be focusing on job interviews specifically that dreaded question so tell me about yourself it's quite a difficult question to answer because there are so many different things we could say we could tell them that we like long walks on the beach we like holidays we'd like playing with our dog but that's not what they want to hear this is how you sell yourself so make sure you do it right now I think I have the perfect method this is a method I've seen people I've interview for four job positions used and it's also a technique I've used when I've answered this question in job interviews in the past before I started ETJ English so if I abbreviated all of the steps into one word it would say hunka hunka which doesn't really work unless that works for you maybe you can remember that usually all of these kind of instructional videos come with some kind of amazing word which you can remember I'm not I'm not good enough for that I'm just going to tell you the different steps and and find your own way of remembering them so step one is H how how did you get here what brought you to this interview how have you achieved the opportunity to get to this interview and and start here to is achieve what have you achieved what achievements have you made that would be valuable during this time that you building to get to this job position so achievements things you have achieved M motivation what motivates you what has motivated you in the past and what is motivating you now that could benefit the company in the future and K it's a bit of an interesting one it's actually kill yes kill I like to use this because it's the final blow you could even say knockout kill or knockout just don't bring any knives or guns with you to the interview that would be very very unfortunate and you probably wouldn't get the job summarize everything and kill them by showing them why you are the best person for this job all the things that you've just said are now leading up to this final position of telling them why you're perfect for the job so let's start now let's start with step one and we're going to build a sample answer so number one how how did you get here let's say you're applying for a sales job so a job in sales just start by simply saying well I've been working in sales for about five years now that's all you need to say just tell them how you got hit how it all began right well I've been working in sales for about five years now okay so you're showing an overview of the experience you've had you might have also noticed I started with the word well well is a great friendly way to start so well I've been working in sales if you just immediately say I've been working in sales it can sound quite aggressive so when you use that word well at the beginning it kind of introduces what you're going to talk about and it also prepares you it's a nice formal filler word that you can use to begin now let's say you have no job experience or you could say well I've been studying law for however many years well I've been taking a course to become a personal trainer over the past however many years so just think about what has led you to this position how did you get here include the years or the time that you've spent studying or working in a related job role or your previous role or learning experience that's all you need to do for the first step now you need to link it with the second step which is achievements so the best way to start this is over this time or during this time now when I say achievements I don't just mean achievements as in winning an award or something like that if you have that's brilliant please include it in this answer but what else have you achieved mentally physically maybe for example and during this time I've built a great deal of leadership skills people skills and overall generally I've just built a lot of confidence now you could mention an award you've won so you could say the highlight was when I was promoted or the highlight was when I won the award for best salesman of the year something like that right so it's good to include a little award or a special achievement maybe you're shocked that you worked in one a special award of all the other shops in in the area or something like that so always try and include some kind of achievement if you have one but if not just talk a little bit more about those leadership skills the confidence you've built and other special traits which would be useful to the person interviewing you now motivation is the next step and this is very very important you want to show them how motivated you are to achieve goals reach targets and this is how I would answer this section I'm always looking to improve both professionally and personally by surrounding myself with successful people and making sure I'm always meeting my targets which have been set by my manager what we're showing us that you are a motivated person you want to meet those targets that your manager gives you you want to reach those goals that they set you no matter how hard they are you're also showing that you want to improve yourself and a job like this could help you improve yourself you've already built a lot of skills which you mentioned earlier but you're still looking to grow you're still looking to become better and that's what you've shown here and finally you want to kill them knock them out finish them off whatever you want to say and here it's very very simple this is where you complete the process and you sell yourself so working for this company which has such a good reputation okay listen to me again so working for this company make sure you use the words so because what you're doing now is finalizing all of these things you've just mentioned they're now leading to this final moment so you begin with so or therefore so if you want to be very formal you could say therefore working for this company which has such a great reputation would definitely be the best opportunity for me to show my skills and use them and continue to grow and there you go call the paramedics you've killed them well done so it's very simple you don't need to talk for ages when you answer this question just briefly explain a few things step by step process begin how did I get here well I've been working in sales for around five years achievements what did you achieve during that time you want to manage your award you build some confidence and people skills leadership skills working as a team ability to handle money the ability to deal with clients whatever it is list around three things there and then motivation what motivation have you had let's help you achieve those achievements you just mentioned okay you're motivated to always impress your manager you're motivated to always show how good you are at something to meet targets okay to stay in the good books right so show that motivation and then finally all of this summarizes into a therefore or a so this company which has such a good reputation such a famous great company would be the best place for me to use the skills I have and to further myself to grow to get even better than I already am now of course we don't want it to sound like we're just reading you know reading something that I've just explained to you so you have to allow yourself to just let the words come out my best advice is always have this structure in your mind and think about which step you're on while you're speaking but please never ever memorize don't memorize what you're going to say in an interview it sounds terrible you'll sound like a robot you need to inject your own intonation your own personality into this make sure you're doing bits of rising and falling add some rising tones to some important words to show emotion okay and it's okay to have little pauses and have a quick think about what you're going to say next they're not judging you on that it's not an IELTS test they just want you to give a good answer and if your English is good enough then you'll be fine you just have to answer the question in the correct way so I hope this helps practice it a few times come up with a few different phrases you'll use but just let it happen when they ask you the question and of course if you really need to improve your intonation then maybe you'd be interested in taking my British pronunciation course where you learn about all the rules of intonation how to use it in maybe that important job interview and also all of the sounds all of the techniques in the British accent side-by-side with me on whatsapp sending voice messages or WeChat if you're in China and yeah I'm a professional accent coach so that's my job that's what I do on a daily basis but if you prefer just to watch these free YouTube videos please make sure you give me a thumbs up subscribe it really does help me and I will see you in the next video please stay safe take care I'll speak to you soon Cheers [Music]

Channel: ETJ English

Views: 169,414

Keywords: british english, etj english, tell me about yourself, interview question, how to answer interview questions, british pronunciation, how to answer tell me about yourself

Id: Pra9WkCbyN8

Length: 10min 44sec (644 seconds)

Published: Sat May 16 2020