Why interviewers ask you to “Tell me about yourself”
As with any interview question, the key to crafting an impressive answer is understanding why people are asking in the first place.
“It lets them ease into the actual interviewing,” says leadership development coach Alina Campos, founder of Rising. “Often when the conversation starts it’s a lot of small talk, and it’s a way to transition into it,” especially for less seasoned recruiters or hiring managers. “The interviewee’s nervous, but the interviewer’s trying to get their bearings [too].”
This question is also a great starting point that can help inform the direction of the interview, says Muse career coach and Better Works Labs founder Al Dea: “Depending on what you say it’s going to help them figure out the next question,” which might help start a chain effect of follow-up questions, lend an easy flow to the conversation, and help recruiters and hiring managers accomplish one of their major goals in the hiring process: getting to know you.
If you answer it well, the interviewers will begin to find out why you’re the best candidate for this job, in terms of hard skills and experience as well as soft skills. It’s a great opportunity to demonstrate that you can communicate clearly and effectively, connect with and react to other humans, and present yourself professionally.
A few common variations of “Tell me about yourself”
There are plenty of times when you’ll hear these exact words: “Tell me about yourself.” But interviewers might have their own versions of the prompt that are asking pretty much the same thing, including:
- I have your resume in front of me but tell me more about yourself.
- Walk me through your resume.
- I’d love to hear more about your journey.
- Tell me a little, a bit more about your background.
A simple formula for answering “Tell me about yourself”
Career coach Lily Zhang, former Manager of Graduate Student Professional Development at the MIT Media Lab and a writer for The Muse, recommends a simple and effective formula for structuring your response:
- Present: Talk a little, a bit about what your current role is, the scope of it, and perhaps a big recent accomplishment.
- Past: Tell the interviewer how you got there and/or mention previous experience that’s relevant to the job and company you’re applying for.
- Future: Segue into what you’re looking to do next and why you’re interested in this gig (and a great fit for it, too).
This isn’t the only way to build your response, of course, and you can tweak it as you see fit. If there’s a particularly potent story about what brought you into this field, for example, you might decide to start with that “past” story and then get into what you’re doing in the present.
Whatever order you pick, make sure you ultimately tie it to the job and company. “A good place to end it is to give a transition of this is why I’m here,” Dea says. You want to be absolutely certain your interviewer is left with the impression that it “makes sense that [you’re] sitting here talking to me about this role.”
8 more tips for answering “Tell me about yourself”
OK, so you’ve got an interview coming up, and you know it’s probably going to start with some form of “Tell me about yourself.” Here’s what else you need to do to nail your answer.
1. Remember, this is often your first impression, and it matters.
“We really only have one chance to make a first impression,” says Muse career coach and recruiter Steven Davis. “My opinion is that most hiring decisions are made in the first minute,” which includes your greeting, handshake, eye contact, and the first thing you say, which may very well be your response to “Tell me about yourself.”
Even if the powers that be aren’t making an irreversible determination shortly after the conversation begins, a first impression can color the rest of the interview. If you have to spend the rest of the time making up for a bad opening, you’re in a very different position than if you gave a succinct, confident, and relevant answer right off the bat.
“Be prepared for this question and show interviewers you prepared for it,” Campos says. “The confidence that comes across in this is a really good place to start from.”
2. Tailor your answer to the role and company.
“When an interviewer asks that, they really mean tell me about yourself as it’s relevant to the position you’re applying for and this company. I think they’re giving you an opportunity to articulate succinctly why you have the right qualifications,” says Muse career coach Tina Wascovich.
Take advantage of the opportunity! In order to do that, you’ll want to spend some time combing through the job description, researching the company, and figuring out how you can tell your story in a way that makes it crystal clear why you’re interested and what you bring to the table that aligns with the role and company.
This is the best chance to be very direct and share your objective. But your objective needs to fulfill their goals, 'Davis says. For example, a client he worked with was leaving a job where her team had developed a new antibacterial cream and got it ready for clinical trials. The new job she wanted entailed working on an entirely unrelated product, so the important thing for her to mention in this case was that prior to her current role, she’d never had experience working on antibacterial creams and was able to come in and figure out how to move the process forward, just as she could do in this new role.
3. Know your audience.
As with any interview question—or conversation for that matter—you’ll want to make sure you understand who you’re talking to. You might get some form of “Tell me about yourself” at every single stage of the interview process for a job, from the phone screen through the final round, but that doesn’t mean you have to give the same exact answer every time.
If you’re speaking to a recruiter who’s not immersed in the hard skills of the team you’d be joining, you might keep your answer more focused on the bigger picture, whereas when you speak to your prospective boss, you might get a little, a bit more technical. If you’re talking to a C-level executive as part of your final round, it’s probably smart to touch on how you can help achieve the overall mission of the company they run.
You can also enhance your answer and make it more specific to the role and company based on what you learn as you progress through the interview process, Campos says, such as, “When I talked to so-and-so it really resonated with me that your mission or value is…”
4. Keep it professional.
As you know by now, this question carries an invisible addendum: “as it’s relevant to this role and company.” So you’re best off keeping your answer professional. The norm in some countries might be to share personal details at this point, Wascovich says, but in the U.S. you should avoid talking about your family and hobbies, for instance, unless you know something very specific about the company that would lead you to believe otherwise.
5. But speak with passion.
Keeping your answer professional, however, shouldn’t stop you from shedding light on why you’re passionate about your work or about this company, even if that broaches slightly more personal territory.
For example, Wascovich once worked with a special education administrator who’d actually been a special education student in elementary school. Her teachers inspired her to pursue the career she did. “So in telling your story about how you got your start, that could be a unique hook.”
You don’t have to go into a huge amount of detail, but if your goal in an interview is to stand out among the applicant pool and be memorable, then infusing this answer with some passion can help you do that. “People don’t want to talk to robots—they want to talk to humans,” Dea says. “I love it when someone tells me, ‘I knew I wanted to work in marketing when I was a kid. I’ve always really loved writing.’”
6. Don’t ramble.
Whatever you do, don’t waste this time regurgitating every single detail of your career. “Most people answer it like they’re giving a dissertation on their resume,” says Davis, but that’s only going to bore the interviewer to tears.
It’s not just about entertaining or engaging your interviewer, Campos explains. You’re also giving a hint as to how you’ll speak in meetings with coworkers, bosses, and clients. Are you going to ramble for 10 minutes every time someone asks you a somewhat open-ended question?
You’ll have to decide what feels right for you in any given context, so make sure to read the room as you’re talking. If the other person looks bored or distracted, it might be time to wrap it up. If they perk up at one part of your answer, it might be worth expanding on that topic a bit more.
7. Practice, practice, practice—but stop short of memorizing.
You don’t want to wait until you get this question in a live interview to try out your answer for the first time. Think through what you want to convey about yourself ahead of each interview, and practice saying it out loud.
Davis recommends leaving yourself a voicemail or recording your answer and then waiting an hour or more before you listen to it to give yourself some distance and perspective. When you finally play it back, see if the answer sounds solid and credible to you.
If you can, go beyond practicing solo. “It always helps to practice with other people to hear yourself say it and hear feedback from how other people are interpreting what you’re saying,” Dea says. Asking a trusted colleague, friend, or family member to listen and react to your answer will help you hone it.
Practice will surely make your answer stronger and help you become more confident giving it. Dea warns, however, against memorizing and reciting your spiel word-for-word. “There’s a fine balance between practicing and memorizing. It needs to come off as very authentic,” he says.
8. Keep it positive.
If you were fired or laid off from your last job, this probably isn’t the best moment to mention it. “There’s a time and place for everything—you don’t have to cram it all into this answer,” Campos says. “If you view this as your first impression professionally, give them a window into that, but don’t give them everything. The conversation’s not ready for that.”
As you move further into an interview, things get more comfortable. So wait until you get a specific question about why you’re looking to change jobs or why you have a gap on your resume to address those topics.
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