Tell me about yourself!
As irritating as it is, this is one of the first thing you will hear during a job interview.
It makes the candidates feel like a stand-up comedian in a room full of people. How to answer this question satisfactorily?
First of all, remember that no one really wants to know about you and your life. They are the least bit interested to hear about your interests, hobbies, extracurricular activities…
So, what do they want to hear?
They want to hear what you bring that is relevant to the job!
Let’s say that you are interviewing for a Data Analyst position, and the first thing the interviewer says is : “tell me about yourself”
The answer s/he wants to hear is something in the lines of:
I have recently graduated from college. During my studies, I worked as an intern at Braun Weiss😊 where I had the opportunity to work with complex data sets. I used Tableau, PowerBI, Excel, SQL (whatever is relevant to you) to analyze alpha numeric data. I worked with financial data as well as client data such as address, contact information and billing information. I received the data as flat files as well as downloaded from various applications using ETL tools. Besides from my hands-on experience, I am very interested in learning about Data Analytics and during my education I took Advanced SQL (or whatever is relevant to you) and worked as a Data Analysis tutor for other students.
This will give the interviewer opportunity to understand:
- Your communication skills
- Your ability to present information
- Your interest in the job itself
- Your skills and experience.
So, next time you are asked to talk about yourself, think what the interviewer is trying to gather from you before you tell them about your summer vacation😊
BraunWeiss 