How To Answer Questions Like Tell Me About Yourself In An Interview

Interviews can be daunting, and it is more nerve-wracking when you are a fresher. You have nervous energy around you, and there’s a mix of excitement and anguish for your very first interview. Interviewing for a job is not easy for experienced folks either. It needs as much preparation as you required when you got your first job.

So, speaking of interviews, here we will talk about the most common, and you can say, a mandatory question asked in every interview: Tell me about yourself. Nobody prepares you for this question. The way you tell about yourself to the interviewer will prove how confident you are, how well you know yourself and how articulate you can be. This is the first impression you create. So, make it a good one.

Here we will be sharing with you some useful tips on ace the tell me about yourself answer.

What NOT to Say in the Tell me something about yourself answer:

Before you know what to say about yourself, you should probably know what you should not say in the tell us about yourself answer:

• Do not start ‘tell me about yourself’ answers speaking about what you used to do in high school or which subjects you had in school. No, never do this! The interviewer must interview many other candidates, so he/she won’t have all the time in the world to listen to you from the beginning until now.

• Do not start speaking about where you were born and what your parents do, and so on. We know your parents are important to you, as they should be, but do not speak about their professions no matter how influential they have been in your formative years. Be thoroughly professional, start from your educational background and then move on to your professional experience.

• Do not give yourself compliments. In a ‘tell me about yourself’ answer, you can speak about what you have achieved but refrain from saying things like, “I am a great team leader”, or “I am a passionate engineer”, “I have seen it all” and words that glorify yourself. Keep it subtle.

• If you are an experienced person and have achieved something in the past, do not start speaking about how you have achieved it. ‘Tell me about yourself’ for experienced candidates can be a little easy as you have your past achievements and experience to speak about, but just mention the achievements, do not keep rambling about how difficult it was and how you did it. Save that for later.

• Do not speak for more than 2 minutes. You may want to speak more about yourself but refrain from doing so. Your every ‘tell me about yourself’ interview answer should be crisp, professional and articulate. You should adhere to no particular time duration, but try to keep it short and crisp.

How to Answer, "Tell me about Yourself"?

So, if this is the first question you will answer in an interview, make sure you make it a great one. You do not have to give some groundbreaking answers but keep it interesting and professional. It should not feel forced. Just flow.

Here are a few ways you can craft the best answer for ‘tell me about yourself’:

• Customize your answer according to the role and the organization – Keep the job description in mind and answer the question. Go through the company’s vision and job specifications and craft your answer accordingly. Explain what qualities or achievements you have that are perfect for the role and the organization you are interviewing for.

  For example: If you are applying for the manager’s position, speak about your experiences in management in previous companies.

  If you are a fresher, then the answer of ‘tell me about yourself’ for freshers won’t involve any mention of professional experience. Still, you can speak about your internship experiences where you did a similar role or exposure gained during completion of various projects in college.

• Have a definite structure to your answer – It is highly possible that if you don’t maintain a structure for your ‘tell me about yourself’ answer, you may start fumbling and rambling along the way because, after all, there’s so much to you than being a qualified professional.

  You should start your answer with what you do presently, where you work, and your responsibilities. Then you can speak about your job in the past a little, then you can end your answer by speaking about what you aspire to do in the future.

  Example of a ‘tell me about yourself’ best answer: “Sure, so my name is Srija, and I’m a business graduate from XYZ University.

  I’m currently working at ABC. My responsibilities include managing the dairy technical team, organizing weekly meetings with my team and other clients, directing new sales strategies and planning and coordinating team activity.

  Before that, I used to work in a start-up company as a product manager and was responsible for devising marketing strategies for their new products.

  As much as I loved that job and I enjoy working in the current company, moving forward, I’d also like to grow and diversify my skills and experience soon. I wish to implement my knowledge in doing better and newer things, which is why I’m interested in working with your organization.”

• Know about who you are speaking to – Different people from the organization can take your interview, so know who you are speaking to. You don’t have to ask; obviously, they will tell you their designation. It can be the HR Manager, the CEO, the recruiting manager, CTO, anybody.

  Suppose the HR Manager is taking your interview and you are interviewing for the role of a nutritionist. In that case, you will bore the interviewer if you keep speaking about the benefits of intermittent fasting for the ‘tell me about yourself’ answer.

  Here, you can speak about why you are interested in the company and why you think you tick all the boxes for getting this job and your future goals. Etc.

  If you speak to a senior dietitian or any experienced doctor, you may speak about your subject.

• Be inclined to your ‘work’ – ‘Tell me about yourself’ answers can get a bit tricky, and you may stray off along the way. So, keep in mind to speak about your skills, achievements, and experiences in work-related stuff.

  ‘Tell me about yourself’ answer for freshers can get a bit irrelevant for lack of proper real-life job experiences but remember to speak about your academic career and academic performance and achievements.

• Do not mug up answers There are numerous ‘tell me about yourself’ sample answers available on the internet. So, you may think that you will pick one up, edit according to your role and specification, memorize it, and recite it as it is during the interview. Do not do this.

  When you give a memorized answer, it may sound robotic. You don’t want to do that. Think and speak about yourself. Just speak as if you are talking to another human being at a place. Do you memorize your sentences whenever you speak? No right! So, do not do it here too. The advantage of this question is there is no right or wrong answer. You just say what you know about yourself. Make it conversational. You can certainly practice in front of the mirror but do not decide to cram up the night before.

Sample Answers for Freshers:

Well, ‘tell me about yourself’ for an experienced candidate can be a little less intimidating because you saw it coming, and you’ve been through a lot of these. However, we have an amazing example for ‘tell me about yourself’ answer for experienced candidates:

Interviewer: Good morning, Jake! I am the HR Manager of this organization, and today I’ll be taking your interview for the position of assistant nutritionist. Can you please tell me about yourself?

Fresher: Sure. So, my name is Rehan Sharma, and I’m currently 23 years old. I’m an alumnus of XYZ University, where I’ve pursued my B.Sc degree in Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics. My academic performance has been consistently good, and I maintained a 9 CGPA throughout my entire graduation.

While in college, I have thoroughly studied various subjects related to food, nutrition, diet, health, and I’ve always been keen on the role of nutrition in our body and the benefits of a balanced diet, which is why I took up this course. I also achieved the ‘Food Doctor’ award while in college, and I’ve had a lot of experience while planning different customized diet charts for patients during the 6 months internship in the hospital.

Moving forward, I’m enthusiastic about implementing my knowledge into something practical and contributing to the organization’s further development and growth.

Sample Answers for Experienced Candidate

‘Tell me about yourself’ for freshers can be easily answered by following all the tips mentioned above. However, here is a ‘tell me about yourself’ interview question and answers example for freshers:

Interviewer: Good morning, Gina! I’m the HR Manager of this organization, and today I’ll be taking your interview for the position of a senior dietitian. Can you please tell me about yourself?

Fresher: Sure. My name is Gina Patel, and I’ve been a registered professional dietitian for the last ten years now.

I’ve graduated from XYZ University with an Integrated Master’s degree in Food science and technology. Then I received my dietitian license from the MNO institution after I cleared the professional dietitian exam. After that, I got a job in ABC Hospital, where I worked for four years as an assistant nutritionist. My key responsibility there was to identify the patients' health issues by diagnosing, analyzing, and observing the symptoms and then curating a specific diet plan for the person according to his/her lifestyle, age, sex.

Presently, I am working for XYZ Company for six years as a Quality Manager for their packaged food products. Inspecting the quality of the products, planning the nutritional requirement for a new product are a few of my responsibilities here. Here. I’ve personally launched 8 new supplementary foods for babies and teenagers, which have been very successful in the market.

Next, I want to diversify my skills and use my knowledge in doing something new and better. Therefore I’m looking forward to joining your organization which will lead to the mutual growth of both the company and me.

FAQs:

Q. What are 5 words that you can use to describe yourself in an interview?

A. You should use positive words like enthusiastic, loyal, organized, skilled, reliable, versatile, etc.

Q. What are a few words that you should not use to describe yourself in an interview?

A. Try avoiding negative words that create fluff and have no real substance like world-class, unsocial, team-player, expert, obsessed, out-of-the-box thinker.

Q. Should I mention my strengths and weaknesses during the interview?

A. You should mention your key strengths and talk about them during the interview but try not to speak about your weaknesses right away. If the interviewer asks you to talk about your weaknesses, then definitely mention a few. Do not say, ‘I don’t have any weaknesses.’ A person can't be flawless, and knowing your weakness is one of the ways you can improve in the future and the interviewer judges you on the fact, whether you are acknowledging your flaws or brushing it under the carpet.