February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
It isn’t innocuous at all. If you are nervous there is a temptation to babble on forever — or to clam up. Always keep one thing in mind — the interviewer wants to know if you can do the job. He or she wants to get some sense of you as a person, but they don’t need to know everything about you. The best answer to the ‘tell me about yourself’ question is to talk very briefly about your early life and education before moving on to your work experience. As always, try to tailor your answer to show how well suited you are to the job in question.
WHAT MAKES YOU SPECIAL?
Interviews are, in essence, a competition. You have to convince the interviewer that you can bring more to the job than anyone else. At first, some people might lack confidence about this. But try to be assertive. As soon as you know you will be called for an interview think about how you can ‘make the case’ for getting the job. Ideally, you will have done something in your current or past positions that highlights your suitability. Make sure you emphasize that to the maximum with your interviewer.