Tell Me About Yourself
the most powerful question in the interview
A few years ago I was on a panel interview for a support IC role. We’d just done the round of team intros. Names, what we each did, a quick bit about what we liked to do outside work, etc. The candidate, who I’ll call Ylvis (pronounced “Elvis” but this rooster is Swedish) after my current favorite rooster, sat across from us. The rooster is kind, generous with his flock, vigilant, outspoken (often at 5am), and an all around good guy. I’d hire him if I could.
Candidate Ylvis had been watching us do our introductions and picking up on the vibe, as it were. So I asked the question I always ask at this point:
“Okay, Ylvis. Tell us about yourself.”
He smiled a real smile and said, “You want my elevator pitch?”
Yes. Yes I did. Oooh boy.
That’s the moment I started actually thinking about this question. Because what Ylvis did in those four words was show me he understood the game. He matched our energy. He showed confidence without arrogance, and he offered me a structured version of an answer instead of fumbling into one. He hadn’t even said his pitch yet and I was already taking notes. In the world of job interviews, this was the rare exciting moment for a support nerd like myself.
I’ve been the panel interviewer for hundreds of these now. Ylvis-level answers are rare. Here’s what I usually get instead.
The most common bad version sounds like nothing. Completely unprepared. The candidate has been told this question is coming, and they show up without an answer anyway, and what comes out is a kind of structured shrug. Sometimes it’s parroting the team intros we just did, swapped one word at a time. “I also like food and cats.” That’s a real thing I have heard. I am not sure what to do with it.
The other failure mode is the over-share. The candidate launches into their full career history starting with a paper route in 2009. Or worse, and this happens more often than you’d think, straight into personal medical information, family drama, why those things might affect their attendance…etc. WHY are we disclosing all of it in advance of even being offered the role?? I’m here for it as a fellow human. As an interviewer, I am sitting across the table going, please. Please stop. I cannot un-hear this and now I have to pretend I didn’t. Any career coach will tell you - limit the personal talk to things that might make you interesting. There are laws about what interviewers can and cannot ask - your health status is very high on that list. If interviewers aren’t allowed to ask about it, you shouldn’t be answering it.
So between the structured shrug and the medical disclosures, there is a lot of room to be better. There is a simpler way to do this.
Confident. Concise. Natural.
A real version sounds something like this. “I’m Ylvis. I’ve worked in support off and on for seven years, most recently as a lifeguard and a summer camp counselor. In my free time I teach puppies how to ride skateboards, and fun fact, I once got asked by Shaquille O’Neal to grab something off the top shelf at the grocery store.”
Obviously that’s not what he actually said. But it’s the kind of fresh, attention-grabbing introduction that begs for follow-up questions. And every one of those follow-ups is your opportunity. The puppy line gets me asking about patience and teaching, which is most of the support job. The Shaq line gets me asking how you handle being approached out of nowhere, which is also most of the support job. The career arc gets me asking about the through-line of how you think of these past roles as support-related, and you get to tell me the real story.
OK, so what am I actually checking off in my head while you talk?
Mostly, energy. If you’re sitting across from me telling me, with whatever confidence a probably-nervous human can muster, that you love hiking 14ers or growing hot peppers in your garden, and in the same breath you’re telling me you’re excited to talk about the support role, that’s a lot. I learn a tremendous amount in those fifteen seconds. Energy tells me whether you’re looking for a job or a career. Both are valid. Support isn’t always a career move and it doesn’t have to be. Many folks show up for the job and find the career. But all things equal, I’m going to put the ten-out-of-ten enthusiast in front of customers before I put the chill-and-silent one there.
That said, the chill candidate can blow us away too. I’ve hired them. The thing that gets them through is confidence. Not volume, or energy, but the ability to speak authoritatively about themselves. If you can tell me what mattered about your last role, how it made you a better listener when a customer was upset, how it sharpened your troubleshooting, you’ve done the work this question is asking you to do. The format doesn’t matter nearly as much as the capacity does.
The “tell me about yourself” question is free ad space.
It’s going to show up in every interview you will ever have. It is the one moment in the room that’s reliably about you, on your terms and in your words. Treat it that way. Prep an answer. Practice it until it’s unforgettable. Then keep working on it until it sounds natural, until you’ve dropped the filler words, until you’re making eye contact with your camera instead of with your own face in the corner of the screen.
This is the cheapest interview prep in the world. Most candidates will not do it but you should be one of the ones who does. (”One of the Ones” sounds like an indie band from Portland.)
I’ll close out with the worst version I’ve ever heard.
This was pre-COVID, in-person. A support manager and I were sitting across from a candidate with a moderate web-designer resume, applying for a support role, which is an interesting pivot on its own. I asked some version of the question. “So, tell us about yourself and why you’re interested in this role.”
He leaned back. Locked his hands behind his head. And said, “Well, you’ve got all my info there on the resume. I thought maybe you should tell me why I’d be interested in this role.”
I genuinely thought we were being pranked. We weren’t. I went through the motions for another fifteen polite minutes and walked out. Today I would just end it right there. I wish this were a joke.
Ylvis got the job and (predictably) the web developer did not.
Be positive and be yourself, good things are coming!
Thanks. I love you. Bye.