So how should we answer this question? Before revealing the secret of answering this question, we need to first understand why interviewers ask you to tell them about yourself. Interviewers acknowledge the fact that interviews make even good candidates nervous; they thus pose this question in order to make interviewees feel comfortable. This question helps the interviewers to decide on what questions to proceed with later, and how much time to allocate for the candidate.Keep in mind these two points to effectively answer this clichéd, but important question.
Experience or education
Start with your full name, and depending upon your experience and education start building up your pitch. Candidates with many years of experience can start with their most recent experience. For example, one can say: "Talking about my experience, I'm currently heading a marketing team in an electronic trading company where I've been associated for the last five years. I have also recently completed my Master's degree in Marketing Management from Tribhuvan University."
Candidates with little or no experience can start with their recent degree. In my personal experience, some smart candidates have also answered this question by first talking about their recent degree or the one they're pursuing, along with their experience of internship related to the job they had applied for. For example: "I am currently pursuing my Bachelor's degree in Electronics and Communication at the Institute of Engineering. As for my experience, I have recently completed my three-month internship in the network administration department of Nepal Telecom."
A bad example of answering this question, which many candidates unfortunately resort to, is: "My name is ABC. I live in Dallu, Swayambhu. I completed my SLC from XYZ School, plus two from PQR College, and BBS from VW University. My father is a businessman and my mother is a homemaker."
Skills with relevant examples
Most of you might have gone for a job interview together with a friend. Your interview took 10 minutes whereas your friend's lasted more than half an hour. You might have wondered why the interviewers took so much time to interview your friend while both of you are at equal level in terms of work experience and educational qualifications.
More often than not, interviews take long when candidates have supporting examples to back up the experience and qualifications they have mentioned in their resumes and/or cover letters.
In a recent interview that we conducted for the position of a Management Trainee at a bank, one of the candidates said that she is very good at meeting deadlines. She gave good and convincing examples as to how she had been one of the few students at her college to meet assignment and project deadlines. Also as an intern at some other bank, she completed works assigned to her before the due date. Meeting deadlines is one of the important skills for any organization, and she understood this very well. Confident and well-equipped with examples to prove her point, we talked to this particular candidate for about 45 minutes, while interviewing other candidates with pretty much the same educational qualifications and experience took us no more than 15 minutes.
Interviewers want to learn about the candidates' skills, because they are what make their future employees valuable. However, please keep in mind that not each of your skill needs to be mentioned. Prepare wisely for the interview in advance and depending on the post you're applying for, decide which among your skills are worth shedding light on.
Before you head for a job interview, don't forget to practice with your parents, friends, or just stand in front of a mirror and practice on your own. Remember, companies hire for their benefits not yours. So you should always try to sell yourself with the skills you have.
One advice: Whatever you decide to deliver during the interview should be based on the theme of 'What I can do for YOUR company.'
All the best!
The writer is an associate with Jobs Dynamics Pvt Ltd, an organization driven towards providing the widest range of job solutions to people looking for work in Nepal. He can be reached at rajiv@jobsdynamics.com.
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