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Friday, February 24, 2012

TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF APPROPRAITE AND RIGHT ANSWERS

This is normally a first question an Interviewer ask his candidates. You work into an interview, greet the Interviewer and behold the first question, Tell Me About Yourself?

The normal response of many candidates is to review again their experience, skills and qualification. Some wrongly think that this is the time to talk about personal issues, such as: hobbies, interests and family. They miss the target..

Avoid talking about things outside of work unless you’re asked to. It’s not wrong to talk about these, but these details wouldn’t impress them.

Give them "your synopsis about you" answer, specifically your Unique Selling Proposition. Known as a personal branding or a value-added statement, the USP is a succinct, one-sentence description of who you are, your biggest strength and the major benefit that a company will derive from this strength. Here is an example of a Unique Selling Proposition: "I'm a seasoned Retail Manager strong in developing training programs and loss prevention techniques that have resulted in revenue savings of over $2.3Million for (employer's name) during the past 11 years."

What a difference you've made with this statement. Your interviewer is now sitting forward in her chair giving you her full attention. At this point, you might add the following sentence: "I'd like to discuss how I might be able to do something like that for you." The ball is now back in her court and you have the beginnings of a real discussion and not an interrogation process.

Be Specific

The key is that you must lead with your strongest benefit to the employer. Be specific and don't wander about with some laundry list of skills or talents. Be sure to put a monetary value on your work if at all possible and be ready with details when you're called upon. Give an estimated value to the $ you've either helped to make or save for your employer.

Be Prepared

When you walk into an interview, remember to always expect the "tell me about yourself" question. Prepare ahead of time by developing your own personal branding statement that clearly tells who you are, your major strength and the clear benefit that your employer received. The advantages of this approach are that you'll quickly gain their attention and interest them in knowing more. You'll separate yourself from your competitors. You'll also have a higher chance of being positively remembered and hired.

You can come up with an answers like "I’m motivated because I have participated many professional courses throughout my career in IT. I have good leadership skills because I was the only manager last year to be rewarded with a bonus, which is something that my reference will testify to. I have a track record of delivering results, such as handling big scale projects, budgets of x $”.