How to solution ‘tell me about yourself’ using nine attempted and actual hints

The first time I was asked to “Tell me about yourself” in an interview, I remembered how much I love helping people – I was sure that this would impress the interviewer. But when my clichéd answer brought a disappointed look on her face, I panicked.

I ended up raving about how “fun” I was, citing my time as lead singer and guitarist for Blink-182 in the sixth grade as compelling evidence. Needless to say, I didn’t get the job.

As the old saying goes, you never get a second chance at a first impression. To ace your interview, learn how to answer the question, “Tell me about yourself.”

What interviewers really want to know

If you’re in the process of interviewing for a new role, you know how difficult it can be to come up with a unique and compelling answer to this common prompt.

“Tell me about yourself” is very open-ended, but one of the most popular ways interviewers start a conversation. This answer greatly affects the interlocutor’s first impression of you and can shape the entire conversation.

To gain insight into the best way to answer “Tell me about yourself,” I asked Claire McCarthyRecruiting Manager at HubSpot, on the best way to respond to a call.

“There’s no perfect answer to ‘Tell me about yourself,'” he says, “but I always encourage candidates to create their own value proposition that touches on a few things.”

According to McCarthy, the ideal value proposition includes:

• Your motivation
• Specific challenges that excite you
• What you can bring to the table
• Why you want to work for the company you are interviewing for and why now
• Why is this job a good fit?

Armed with McCarthy’s advice, we’ll help you develop a strong, cohesive value proposition that answers all of these questions.

1. Be honest.

The most important thing in answering this question is to be honest.

If you start an interview by embellishing details about your experience or lying about your skills, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Even if the hiring manager isn’t aware of it at the moment, they’re likely to discover inconsistencies later.

This question is hard enough to answer, don’t make it difficult for yourself. Instead, skip the games and bring your full self to the interview.

2. Tell a story.

Think of this question as an opportunity to tell the interviewer a short story about yourself.

Just as a story has a clear beginning, middle, and end, so should yours—just as long as you cover the past, present, and future.

Throughout your answer, you will weave in several elements that will highlight your abilities, motivation and future goals.

3. Enter personal information.

This step requires a delicate balance.

You’ll want to include personal information about yourself that will help hiring managers discover what makes you tick and get a holistic view of who you are.

But you don’t want to dive deep into your personal life.

Therefore, only highlight personal information that is related to a professional skill or goal. For example, you can mention your love of storytelling from an early age and how it led you to start a career in content creation.

4. Describe what motivates you.

One of the most important (and common) qualities that hiring managers typically look for in candidates is their intrinsic motivation. Research shows that intrinsically motivated employees provide a higher quality of work than extrinsically motivated employees.

So if you can tell a personal anecdote that demonstrates that you’re a craft-driven professional and not just someone excited about the company’s lucrative stock options, you’ll get the hiring manager’s attention right away.

To do this, start your value proposition like this:

“As I approach my five year anniversary in the content marketing space, I’ve learned a lot about myself. More specifically, I realized that I feel most fulfilled when I can create compelling stories that actually help and inspire people.”

5. Explain what challenges excite you.

Hiring managers typically don’t hire candidates to maintain the status quo of their team. They hire candidates who will challenge and propel their team to greater heights.

To show that you can be a catalyst in a team, talk about the challenges in your industry or that particular role that you’re passionate about, like in the example below:

“Today, we both work in an industry where countless brands fight for a limited amount of attention and saturate our space with mediocre content. It’s never been harder to cut through the noise. But it doesn’t scare me or put me off. In fact, it excites me because it forces me to constantly innovate and find new ways to connect with my audience.”

6. Emphasize your most important skills.

Once you’ve explained what challenges pique your interest, you can then naturally move on to how you have the necessary skills to overcome them and excel in the role, such as the example below:

“There is a fierce battle for attention in content marketing right now, and this has pushed me to brush up on my writing and analytical skills. Data drives decisions in our industry, and I know that if I want to make an impact on a team, I have to be creative and strategist. Fortunately, my ability to adapt allowed me to acquire the necessary skills to accurately extract insights from data and weave them into a compelling story.”

7. Describe why you want to work at the company you are interviewing for.

Highlighting your most important skills will get your hiring manager’s attention. To really impress her, communicate how your passion and skills align with the company’s interests and goals, like the example below:

“That’s why I think you’d be a very influential employee here — you really care about doing two things right: making objective, data-driven decisions and telling great stories. I believe I can help you become better at both.”

8. Illustrate why you want to work for the company right now.

After explaining why you want to work for the company, dive into why you want to work for them right now.

This shows that you’ve taken the initiative to find out about the latest company updates, and the hiring manager will definitely take note of your proactivity. Check out the example below:

“It’s also one of the best times to work at HubSpot – I was at INBOUND in September and was blown away by all your new product launches. It’s clear that HubSpot is duplicating innovation and striving to reach the top of the industry. I would be thrilled to be a part of it.”

9. Prove that you would be suitable for the job.

To add punch to the end of your value proposition, show the hiring manager how you’ve used your skills to improve your current team by quantifying your accomplishments.

These past experiences will prove your worth and train you as an employee who can take the team to the next level. Conclude your answer with:

“And as the most successful content strategist at my current company, where I doubled blog views and grew our email subscription list by 40% in just one year, I think I could help you develop a killer content strategy, write some the best stories in MarTech and build an even more loyal audience than you can boast now.”

What not to do when asked “Tell me about yourself”

Just as there is a long list of things to say when answering this question, there is also a list of mistakes to avoid.

When you answer “Tell me about yourself,” don’t:

• Skirt your answer – Remember the key points you want to make so that you can provide a concise answer every time without sounding familiar.

• Focus on your personal life – Depending on the context in which this question is asked, you should rather focus on your career path.

• Talk about controversial topics – Topics like politics, religion and sex have no place in an interview, much less during this question.

Sample answer “Tell me about yourself”.

In its entirety, a strong response to the “Tell me about yourself” prompt would look like this:

“As I approach my five year anniversary in the content marketing space, I’ve learned a lot about myself. Specifically, I realized that I feel most fulfilled when I can create compelling stories that actually help and inspire people.

Today, we both work in an industry where countless brands fight for a limited amount of attention and saturate our space with mediocre content. It’s never been harder to cut through the noise. But it doesn’t scare me or put me off. In fact, it excites me because it forces me to constantly innovate and find new ways to connect with my audience.

There is a fierce battle for attention in content marketing right now, and this has prompted me to brush up on my writing and analytical skills. Data drives decisions in our industry, and I know that if I want to make an impact on a team, I have to be creative and strategist. Fortunately, my ability to adapt allowed me to acquire the necessary skills to accurately extract insights from data and weave them into a compelling story.

So I think he would be a very influential employee here – you guys are very careful about doing two things right: making objective, data-driven decisions and telling great stories. I believe I can help you become better at both.

It’s also one of the best times to work at HubSpot – I was at INBOUND in September and was blown away by all your new product launches. It’s clear that HubSpot is duplicating innovation and striving to reach the top of the industry. I would be thrilled to be a part of it.

And as the most successful content strategist at my current company, where I doubled blog views and grew our email subscription list by 40% in just one year, I think I could help you develop a killer content strategy, write some of the best stories in MarTech and build an even more loyal audience than you boast now.”

Framing “Tell Me About Yourself” as “Pitch Yourself”

“Tell me about yourself” may be one of the most dreaded prompts in interview history.

But if you understand why hiring managers encourage candidates to do so, you can turn your answer into your own performance.

Then structure your value proposition as we did above and you’ll make a strong first impression.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in November 2018 and has been updated for completeness.