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TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF
Why is it that interviewers/companies still need this crutch question to begin their interviews• Some use it from habit, some because they didn't have time to prepare, and some because they don't know any better. But despite trying to prep our clients away from the dreaded opening interview question “Tell me about yourself,” we have never been successful in getting them to stop using this question. They use it, and we have resigned ourselves to this recruiting truth: Most interviewers/companies will start with some version of this opening question.
Fine, if they won't stop using this silly opening question, then let's make sure you are ready with a loaded gun for this question. If we, at EHS, prep candidates properly, we can make our candidates look prepared, confident, and focused right from the start of their interview. Furthermore, you will make a great verbal first impression.
Don't think this is a big deal• Let us share just one story about this opening interview question that cost our candidate a chance for a great opportunity. It is a perfect illustration to make you understand why you must add this information to your interview process. The scenario was this: We recently received a Job Order for a General Manager of a high volume, full service restaurant. We located an ideal candidate, and our initial impression was that the job was perfect for her. Our client joked that when she came to the interview the recruiter should send her with an invoice for the fee because they, too, thought she was the perfect fit.
You can more or less guess how the story ended. To start the interview the candidate was asked the dreaded “Tell me about yourself” question. Thinking that it was an inconsequential icebreaker question, she retorted, simply intending to cause an opening chuckle, “Well as you can obviously see, I am 15 20 pounds overweight.”
The candidate was only joking! Yet, due to the impact her answer had on our client, for all practical purposes the interview was over. That “amusing” answer to what the candidate viewed as a seemingly harmless question convinced the client that this $60k GM had an image or low self¬-esteem problem. Despite our insistence that it was just a joke, our client declined to make the candidate an offer. Her retort was just a joke! But not really. It was to the candidate who didn't get her dream job. This candidate attempted to humorously break the ice, but the interviewer misinterpreted her intentions and became convinced she was not their next GM.
The whole fiasco could have been avoided if the candidate had just remembered the simple formula for answering this question. Sure, we know this question is a stupid and unnecessary question with which to begin an interview. But because interviewers open interviews with this question, you need to know how to respond to it intelligently. The formula we teach has worked wonders for hundreds of our candidates over the last few years.
We at EHS know that most of our clients will open with some form of the “Tell me about yourself” question. The answer we'd ideally like our candidates to give would be a prepared and well thought out initial marketing statement of themselves and their skills, which are applicable for the open position. However, it doesn't matter if the candidate makes $25k or $200k per year, the very best candidates will typically respond to this question by answering with “What would you like to know• ” Let's get one thing straight: It is extremely poor form to answer the opening interview question with another question. But that is how most candidates will likely answer this question due to its ambiguous nature. We can prepare you to do better.
We need to teach you to answer this question with a Three Part preplanned marketing statement that can more or less be reused from interview to interview.
Part One of that three part marketing statement is always a one sentence summary of your career history.
You get the picture; your whole career needs to be condensed into one brief sentence that summarizes the most important aspects of your career, which you want to use as leverage in order to make your next career step.
The above candidate's accomplishment sentences were:
The Final Piece on TELL ME ! The marketing statement is probably the most fluid piece. It needs to be a one sentence summary of specifically what you want to do next in your career. The reason this third part is difficult is that it needs to specifically address what you want to do next, AND it needs to change from interview to interview to make sure it matches exactly what our client will be interviewing the candidate for.
Continuing with the above example of one of our recent candidates, two of his final sentences, which were used for two different clients, follow:
But for a second client this ending was significantly altered because of the candidate's multiple interests in differing opportunities:
These were two very different endings that perfectly matched two very different client needs. Clearly you can see why the first ending wouldn't t have worked for the second client or vice versa. With some simple revising, we made sure that each client heard from our candidate that he was interested in doing exactly what they were interested in hiring him for.
It will be apparent that you are a prepared and serious player right at the beginning of the interview when you answer the “Tell me about yourself” question with this memorized brief marketing statement which combines your career summary, an exceptional accomplishment, and company specific career goals as in this example:
“I am a professional, hands on restaurant manager with 7 years experience in the full service and fine dining industry. Recently, as a General Manager I was transferred to trouble shoot problems at one of our locations. After serious analysis, I was able to increase sales 7% through marketing, reduce my food cost by 8% through portioning and waste control and built morale substantially among the staff. For the next step in my career, 1 would like to move away from privately owned concepts and focus my talents on corporately owned, high volume restaurants.”
Clearly you can understand how a candidate who opens with this type of prepared response to the “Tell me about yourself” question will make a significantly better first impression than a candidate who responds to this question by answering “What would you like to know• ” or worse yet, “Well as you can obviously see, I am 15 20 pounds overweight.” A candidate who is prepared in this manner is confident at the interview's start, makes a substantial and positive first verbal impression, gives a clear indication of their interest in making a career move, and forces the interviewer to get past the icebreaker questions to the parts of the interview that will help both parties begin the process of seriously determining if this is a solid match.
Nonverbal Communications
Finally, Spice Up Your Answers
Take a look at these typical answers and how you can make them more unique.
Scripting Exercise
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