Eps 118: what more can you tell us about
— podca
| Host image: | StyleGAN neural net |
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| Content creation: | GPT-3.5, |
Host
Charlie Harris
Podcast Content
Before diving into The Great Interview Formula to create a perfect response, let us go over some of the more common mistakes that you may be making in your answer to tell me about yourself. The tables are always turning during interviews, and one of the biggest mistakes you can make as a candidate is to avoid asking questions. The interviewer does not want to know everything about you, but giving away too little information may leave him or her wondering why you are not more open.
They have seen you answer all kinds of questions before, but they want to see something really concrete from you now. When the interviewer asks you this question, he wants to learn about all your positive qualities. These positive qualities should relate to what your interviewer wants and is looking for. Especially if they are asking about other things that they need to know about you, it means that they are actually giving you the opportunity to show them the things that make you unique.
The person or people who are interviewing you are only going to be looking at you negatively. Give a good answer, and an interviewer will eagerly pepper you with more questions. Keep the interview nice and succinct, and you will give your interviewer a chance to dig in and ask questions. Since this is usually the first question asked during the interview, this is your biggest opportunity to make an initial impression.
Having a list of questions to ask an interviewer makes you seem interesting, passionate, and engaged -- all qualities that employers are going to look for. Generally, the reason why the question is asked is that interviewers are really looking for the best people for a job, and this means someone who knows and understands themselves well enough to be able to communicate what makes them interesting to others. Interviewers ask these kinds of questions in order to figure out whether or not you are the right person for the job.
Every interview and interviewer is different, but there are certain questions that are nearly guaranteed to come up. Below is a list of 10 common interview questions, with response techniques to help dazzle your prospects -- and, hopefully, land that role you are looking for. While we cannot know for sure what employers are going to ask, below are 10 common interview questions, along with tips for answering them. If you cannot answer a "Tell Me About Yourself" interview question, then the whole interview process goes downhill from there.
It can be helpful to understand what the interviewer is getting at so that you can show why you deserve the hire. You will probably be given a sort of "tell me about yourself" question at each and every step of a job interview process, from phone screens through to the final rounds, but this does not mean that you have to provide the exact same response each time. If your interviews went well, if you were more-or-less happy with the answers you gave them, and if you felt like all of the big points in your application and resume were already being discussed, then there is no need to add any. Start the interview strong, finish strong, and you can probably get away with fumbling some questions in between, too.
Practice answering it briefly and in meaningful ways prior to your interview, so that you are giving an answer that makes sense. This is incredibly important for an in-person interview, and it is a great response if you are ever stuck and cannot think of anything else to say. Usually asked near the end of in-person interviews, this question is not meant as a gimmick.
Keep it short, keep it sweet, and remember the fact that your interviewer is basically asking this question in order to close the interview. When you are getting ready for the next interview, make sure you put just as much thought into this question as you do into every other. This is a very open-ended question, so use this opportunity to sell yourself, always structure your answers in a way that shows advantages to hiring you versus your next applicant, and do not be afraid to reveal some of your personality.
Your response to this question will determine an interviewers first impression of you, and it sets the tone for the whole interview, so allow you to come out ahead with your strongest sales points. Answering this initial question effectively gives you the opportunity to make a great first impression and set up the rest of your interview for your advantage. If you answer this question effectively, the interviewer will start learning about the reasons you are a great candidate for the job, both in terms of your hard skills and experience, as well as soft skills.
Remember, just like Tell me something about yourself that is not in your resume, one purpose of this question is to learn something about you outside of your professional background and your attitude and on-the-job experience. Your goal in answering, Tell me something about yourself, is to provide a short, succinct overview of your career history, which shows off the pieces of expertise you have.
To avoid a awkward conversation, you will want to prepare for the answer, what makes you unique for the interview. Much like you would respond to What are your passions?, your response here should provide an insight into how you are as a collaborator and a person in real life.
These types of questions are good ways to get a hiring manager a sense of your personality, so it pays to be prepared when answering them. The dreaded interview question acts as a lead-in, and depending on how you respond, will help the interviewer determine what to ask next.