Have you been asked the job interview question, “Tell me about yourself?” It’s a tried and true question or maybe a tired but true question that many interviewers still ask. When an interviewer asks this question, it’s usually one of the first questions asked. What is the interviewer really trying to find out? He wants to get a general picture of you. this is how you Do not do I want to answer this interview question:

  • “Well, I was born in Kalamazoo”… NO… the interviewer doesn’t want a biography.
  • “I’m married with a baby, a dog named Rex, and a cat”…NOT…too personal and off topic of work.”
  • “I’m a hard worker”… NO… too cliche and doesn’t make sense.
  • “I’m a people person”… NO… another worse cliché. A serial killer could say the same thing.

The best interview response to the “Tell me about yourself” question is to talk about your successes in a way that tells the interviewer that you can meet their job needs. To give your best answer, you need to know what the job description is and what the company is looking for. If your interviewer really wants to know where you grew up, they’ll ask you that specific question. This could lead to an illegal question, but that’s a topic for another article. I pulled out a job listing for an electrical engineer. I read the general job description and the thirteen point job description. The overview is:

We are seeking to hire a Corporate Electrical Engineer responsible for maintaining and upgrading electrical systems for existing XYZ Energy facilities. The successful candidate will also be responsible for design guidance, review and construction support for future facilities.

Then I reviewed the vignettes and one thing that was technical and another that involved people. Here are the two points:

  • Lead investigations with site personnel to troubleshoot and resolve plant electrical system issues.
  • Work with site and construction staff to develop and implement small capital projects to upgrade site electrical systems, including providing electrical inputs for project proposal development.

There are many job requirements for this position. In this electrical engineer interview, you don’t want to limit yourself to sounding like you only have one or two skills, with the first interview answer you give. You want to give the actual results you have achieved. If you are known for finding problems that others miss and are someone who can get a team to work together, then your response to “Tell me about yourself” for the job listed above will be something like:

“I am an electrical engineer with eight years of working in a variety of situations. I am known for being able to find problems that others have missed and then work with the on-site teams to quickly fix the problems, to improve the electrical systems.” and facilities. The last company I worked for had a problem and I saved about $500,000 in equipment failures because I discovered the problem and we fixed it right away.”

You can see that the interview response incorporated part of the overview as well as the bullet points listed. Make sure you are always honest in an interview. Lying about your skills or achievements will catch up with you. The bottom line for answering any interview question is to give an honest answer and talk about your skills and results.