I’ve got a job interview on Tuesday and I haven’t had one for a while due to a period of unemployment because of family health issues.
One part of interviews I’ve always struggled with is when they first ask you to tell them about yourself. I struggle to talk about myself anyway and never know what they’d like me to actually say, whether it’s about me as a person or about my work history.
So any tips or tricks would be welcome.
I work in a job where I have to introduce myself quite a lot. For a longer introduction like you would in an interview, I do the following:
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General statement about my career, one liner
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the professional topics I’m most interested, 3 or 4 bullet points
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a brief walk through my resume: what I studied (one liner) and where I worked, no longer than 1 minute total
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what am I doing currently, responsibilities, likes and dislikes, no more than a minute, they’ll ask you more about it later
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some personal details: family, kids, hobbies, favorite {teams, sports, countries, movies, whatever} keep it to 20-30 seconds
Total under 3 minutes
For a shorter one, like in a 1h zoom call:
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name, position (and description of the position if unusual), tenure.
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any relationship to the people in the call (I’m a customer of yours, my first car was from you, I would love to buy gizmo some day, etc)
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background info: previous jobs or studies if relevant (oh, i used to work in industry in college, etc)
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one hobby if relevant, or if it is in your background (movies, books, sports, photography, whatever)
Total 15 to 30 seconds.
