The sentence “tell me about yourself” is a really common one and sometimes one may wonder why certain people ask this question. Do you want to know how to give a reply to this question and also what to say and what not to say to the different type of people who ask this question then you should keep reading to understand. Why people you just met on an informal ground will ask you “tell me about yourself”?
Often times when at the mall, restaurant , schools e.t.c someone can walk up to you trying to talk to you and get to know you better. This is as a result of the fact that they want to be your friend or maybe they are spying on you. For that reason, you have to be watchful of what to say to people you just meet who ask you to tell them about yourself.
What to do and what to not do?
1: Keep your response brief and just give out a little bit of information
2: Only talk about you and don’t involve any other person’s information in the conversation be it your children, siblings , friends or anybody else at all.
Why you may be asked to talk about yourself at a job interview?
For any organization that want to hire you they do a little bit of background check not only on your resume but also your personality. When at an interview and the employer is asking you to tell them about yourself there are certain things to be said and not to be said.
People often make mistakes in giving the wrong answers to that questions. You may be wondering what then is the right way to answer this question? Keep reading the article to understand how to answer this question.
There are some steps to breaking down your answer to this question see them below:
1: Arrange your answers in a professional way.
Of course you want to set a tone of confidence in the air while answering this question so that your employer can be impressed and see that you are competent and capable. In that case you don’t want to spill out irrelevant information.
2: You need to state why you are interested in that role.
You will need to brainstorm on why this role fits your career goals, what excites you about this role and why you think it’s the best next step for you to achieving your career goals.
3: Is there something unique that makes you standout and be the best candidate for this position?
This is where you bring in your working experience, skills you have acquired, your degrees and any other qualifications that may be useful to buttress your point.
How to answer”tell me about yourself”at a job interview?
Usually I would recommend using a pattern of past present future. By doing this you are breaking down the whole information to your employer in steps and your employer might just end up been sold to your presentation.
Some examples are below which can serve as a guide to how to go about answering this question in a practical manner:
Example 1
In the previous years I have worked as a sales representative. But not until 2019 when I decided to take the pathway to becoming a Financial adviser. I took various courses on becoming a financial advisor. And in 2020 I went for my masters degree in Economics and Finance. I have always engaged myself in learning on how to spend, save, invest and how to maximize my finances.
I work with YZZZZ celebrity in 2021 till date in helping to grow her financial portfolio. I always scheduled meetings with her bank manger to track her banking activities, drew a timetable for every month finances making sure over 40% of her incomes goes into investment and saving portfolios and from 2021 till now her investment portfolio has grown 20% bigger.
Outside of the office job, I also own a YouTube channel with about 5,000 subscribers where I drop financial tips for my followers and I get great reviews from people talking about how my platform has been of so much help to their finances.
My goal towards earning this position at this company is to help grow the finances of the company with my skills. This is also a means to getting to my futuristic career goals.
Example 2
Having worked with 2 Telecommunications companies in the past, I understand the techniques, skills required and the does and don’t of a customer service representative. I also acquired a certificate for customer service representative at XXX in 2019. By acquiring this certificate, I wrote an examination to obtain it which means I studied, learned and understood the whole course and the necessary skills needed to become a customer service representative before I could proceed in taking the certification exam.
I hope on getting the position to becoming the customer service representative of this company. My intention is to make communication process easy between customers and the company easier and very well coordinated.
Summary
To give a brief recap, here are some of the key points to note from the article above when answering to “tell me about yourself” :
. Keep your response brief and short
. Avoid sharing of personal informations like marital status, religion perspective , family matters e.t.c.
. Don’t forget to always mention past experiences and skills to boost up your chances of a role in a job interview.
. Make sure to practice before going for the job interview and you can as well write down your practice answers just to be well prepared.
. Make sure to not give respond outside the box i.e give answers that befit the role you are applying for and not otherwise.
. Give details on your abilities and outcomes you can quantify
In conclusion, often times when going for an interview always be prepared for the sentence“ tell me about yourself “ and also you can be asked to “describe yourself” or “ tell me something about yourself that is not stated in your resume”.
So when going for a job interview you have to be prepared for all of this type of questions so you don’t look lost when it’s been popped up during the interview session. If it’s an in person or online interview always be prepared.
