So you get to interview, and the opening question is “What can you tell me about yourself?”
- If you focus on your hobbies and family, the interviewer might decide that your focus is on your family and hobbies and you are only fronting up for the interview, because you need to put ‘bread on the table’. (This might be very true and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this attitude to life, but not something you want to reveal at interview).
- If you rant and rave about your current job in an enthusiastic and energetic way, the interviewer might conclude that you are there to use a job offer from them to leverage a pay rise from your current boss (rather than being seriously interested in moving into another job).
- If you focus on your competencies, education and skills, then the interviewer will think you are work orientated and if your background fits the job, they will be interested in hearing more about what you can offer them.
Now that you know how revealing such a broad interview question can be (hence its usage), it is important that you always prepare for this question in advance of an interview.
In order to prepare, write a rough outline of what you can offer to a potential employer. For example, your key competencies, skills and experience for the job, your positions of leadership, job specific training, degrees and major achievements. From this rough outline, you can develop a 30 second commercial that tells an interviewer exactly what you offer them.
So for example, a response to What can you tell me about yourself’
‘I’m Denise and I’ve worked as a senior manager for the last 20 years. I’m currently working for ICorp, developing business development strategies for the insurance side of work.
My strengths include national and international stakeholder engagement, which has included the rebuilding of relations within the UK and the successful building of state teams – with the team model I facilitated being adopted nationwide. I also developed the first dedicated team that effectively addressed business growth in New South Wales, resulting in increased sales of 31%.
My qualifications include a MBA and I’m interested in seeking an executive position within insurance, so I can continue to provide top-level executive support in the areas of strategic development, stakeholder engagement and policy development and implementation’.
Adapt your 30 second commercial to meet the specific needs of the potential employer (in particular make sure the reasons for a new job match with the interviewers requirements).
This one strategy alone will enhance your interview outcome, because while it might seem obvious (and a ‘no brainer’) to prepare for this question, most job candidates don’t, so you will have a huge advantage over other job seekers.
Leave a Reply