You walk into the interview prepared for anything. You know the company inside out, you have strengths and weaknesses on the ready, and you’ve crafted the perfect questions to ask your interviewer at the end to seal the deal. And yet, immediately after your firm and confident handshake, you get hit with the big question right off the bat: “tell me about yourself.” Though it is a relatively expected prompt, its broad nature and open-endedness can prove to be a challenge if you do not know exactly what you are being asked. And how would you when there are so many ways you could respond? Should you talk about your favorite sport? Your life story? A research experience or past job? Joel Schwartzberg, writer for the Harvard Business Review, shares his strategy for constructing the optimal personal statement in his article “How to Respond to ‘So, Tell Me About Yourself’ in a Job Interview.”
According to Schwartzberg, when your interviewer asks you to “tell them about yourself,” they are NOT asking for a walkthrough of your resume or LinkedIn profile — they’ve already seen all of that through other elements of your job application. Instead, they are trying to figure out if you can best fill the needs of the role. In essence, they are looking for a reason to hire you over other candidates. While that prospect can be daunting at first, this portion of the interview is actually a great opportunity to convince your prospective employer that you are the right person for the job.
When preparing your “tell me about yourself” response, you should evaluate what the organization needs from the person who will fill the role. Schwartzberg recommends doing this through two avenues. The first way to get a sense of the position’s purpose is to evaluate the job description. Pay special attention to keywords such as “required,” “must have,” and “highly desired,” as these phrases mean what they say — you need these skills to be a competitive applicant. The second way to understand what the organization is looking for is to build an understanding of their company culture and core values. The “About Us” section of the company’s website is a good place to assess this. Try to use the mission and vision statements to assess how casual or serious of a workplace they cultivate and what their priorities are.
Once you’ve familiarized yourself with these two sources, you are ready to engage in Schwartzberg’s personal statement-crafting exercise. First, take a notecard and write down three personal attributes you think the company is most seeking based on the information you acquired. These attributes can range from “interested in healthcare” to “passionate about environmental issues” to “self-motivated.” Using these phrases, complete the sentence “They are looking for someone who is ___, ___, and ___.” Next, replace “They are looking for” with the phrase “I am.” This reframing exercise will help you shape how you as an applicant can demonstrate your ability to fill the needs of the position. After you’ve done this, identify a story from your academic or professional life that showcases you demonstrating these attributes. This exercise will help you generate the foundational information of your personal statement. After you have this information, the best thing you can do to make it into a cohesive and informative response is to practice! This can be to a friend or family member, in front of a mirror, or at a CEC mock interview, but must be done aloud and with confidence for the best results. Whispering or reciting your response in your head is not nearly as effective for promoting muscle memory, which is critical to nail down your response.
Using Schwartzberg’s exercise and advice, you have now successfully bridged your personal skills and attributes with the company’s values and expectations for their employees. This will make you an outstanding candidate by giving the company a point to hiring you. So, when you break it down, the expansive scope of the “tell me about yourself” prompt is not so intimidating after all!
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The article referenced in this post can be found here: Schwartzberg, Joel. “How to Respond to ‘So, Tell Me About Yourself’ in a Job Interview.” Harvard Business Review, Aug. 2019. hbr.org, https://hbr.org/2019/08/how-to-respond-to-so-tell-me-about-yourself-in-a-job-interview.