How to Answer “Tell Me About Yourself” in an Interview

What do first dates and job interviews have in common besides worrying over what to wear? Easy, you are likely to encounter the question: Tell me about yourself?

This article certainly is not positioned to offer dating advice, but it can certainly help you learn how to answer tell me about yourself type questions with some helpful job interview tips.

Understanding the Why

Before we go over how to answer tell me about yourself questions, it is important to understand why employers ask such open-ended questions. They are more than just softball, ice breakers to initiate casual conversation. They also offer the interviewer a quick and easy way to hear a short summary of your background and skills.

Planning Your Answer

Because you can almost certainly expect to face the tell me about yourself question, it is important to plan out an approach to answering those questions before your interview.

Here is a simple formula you can use when crafting tell me about yourself answers:

Past: Start by discussing your background and relevant work experience, making sure to cover how you got to where you are now.

Present: Next, describe your current role, making sure to hit on current responsibilities and accomplishments.

Future: Conclude by discussing what you are looking to do next and why you are interested in the position.

While this is not the only way to respond, this structure can help you craft a short, pithy narrative that will help create tell me about yourself interview question answers.

Three Essential Tips for Crafting a Response

Once you master the structure of your response, there are a few other tips you should weave into your tell me about yourself answer.

Brief: Keep your response concise and to the point. Something between one and two minutes is ideal.

Practice: Your response should not be memorized, or else it will seem forced. But be familiar enough with what you want to say so that you can speak freely and confidently.

Audience: Always keep your audience in mind when answering. For example, if you are an accountant meeting with an HR recruiter, and you start going into the details of your auditing experience, expect to see his or her eyes glaze over. But, if you are speaking to the CFO, you can get a little more granular.

Tell Me About Yourself Example

Here is a tell me about yourself sample answer you can use to craft your own:

Five years ago I graduated with my degree in Computer Science and immediately went to work for a tech startup in San Francisco. There, I not only learned to apply the coding basics I learned in college, but also developed greater insight into how I wanted to shape and grow my career. Now I manage a small team and recently oversaw the development and creation of a machine learning application that was sold to a Fortune 500 company. Now, I am looking to oversee a larger team to gain greater management experience and work for a company that uses machine learning and AI to create innovative products that will change the world.  This position will allow me to do just that, and I am excited to contribute to the current products you are developing.

There are plenty of other great tell me about yourself examples online. Take the time to look around for other tell me about yourself sample answers that may be relevant to your role or skillset.

What You Should Not Say

Now that you know how to answer tell me about yourself interview questions, we should quickly cover what you should not say in response to those questions.

First: Avoid going into something too personal or reciting your life story.

Second: Avoid bashing your employer or superiors.

Third: There is no need to go through your resume. Your interviewer already has that information, so no point in repeating it.

Are you looking for an interview? See who is hiring at CyberCoders.com.