🕺Crack the tell me about yourself interview question

This is how I figured this out after being rejected by 3 interviews

This is the question I myself googled 100 times when I was about to give an interview. After having an experience of about 5–6 good as well as bad interviews, well-research, and keen-observation I came up with this solution which will definitely help you to create the best FIRST IMPRESSION of yourself in the eyes of the interviewer.

Most of my interviews started with this question

Interviewer: “Ok Rahul! tell me about yourself”.

I used to practice this common yet important interview question by preparing the answer in my mind and each time I get confused on the following points:

• What are the necessary topics that I must include
• Which point to tell first
• How to present this achievement
• What will be the best order of topics

So, I decided to overcome these confusions and finally came up with this template, which literally helped me a lot to ace the interview.

The template will make you powerful enough to take control of the interview in your hand and you will be able to mold the interview in the direction you want.

5 point template is as follows(maintain the same order for a good result):

1. Resume Walk Through

1. Headline

2. Beginning of Career

3. Go through forward(chronologically)

This should be quick enough.

✔ Example- Hello, I am Rahul, pre-final year undergrad at IIITDM Jabalpur, majoring in CSE with current CPI of 8.20. I had a chance to gain experience from one internship and a few academic as well as non-academic projects.

2. Quick shows of Success

✔ Example- I used to participate in a lot of hackathons and managed to win two national-level hackathons organized by IBM and HackerEarth.

3. Key Stories

Just hint, let the interviewer ask for details.

✔ Example- I also have past experience of working as a Freelancer, Coordinator of FilmMaking Club, which all helped me to develop my communication as well as management skills.

4. Hobbies

• Technical: Programming, Development, Marketing, Blogging, Designing, Editing, etc
• Non-Technical: try to make them relevant(showing personality skills, hard work, teamwork, etc.)

✔ Example- In spare time, I love to write blogs, design(UI) websites and play Table Tennis.

5. Projects(at least 2–3 projects)

This is the most crucial section because at this point you will make the interviewer to ask questions. So tell only those projects which you are most confident about.

✔ Example- I spent this past winter in New Delhi, working as an intern in a product based company. There, I worked on the chatbot project. It was a great experience overall and I learned a lot about Cloud Technologies, NLP, Github, and TeamWork.

This will give the interviewer a hint, and he/she will ask you to explain the project in detail.

Start explaining the project in this order

1. Goal
2. Team
3. Technologies
4. Architecture
5. Your Role

To explain your role better follow this STAR principle:

• Situation
• Task
• Action
• Result

✔ Example- I worked a lot in developing the backend of the chatbot. After the chatbot went through the formal testing, My team was happy with the outputs but something is bothering us. The chatbot was not engaging enough from the user’s perspective. So, after a lot of brainstorming, I took the job of integrating the chatbot with Google Assistant. Within 4 days, the chatbot is working flawlessly on Google Assistant with the amazing user experience.

NOTE: Focus on your accomplishments, rather than bragging about the team. Avoid using words like we, us more frequently.

The overall intro will sound like this:

Hello, I am Rahul, pre-final year undergrad at IIITDM Jabalpur, majoring in CSE with current CPI of 8.20. I had a chance to gain experience from one internship and a few academic as well as non-academic projects. I used to participate in a lot of hackathons and managed to win two national-level hackathons organized by IBM and HackerEarth. I also have past experience of working as a Freelancer, Coordinator of FilmMaking Club, which all helped me to develop my communication as well as management skills. In spare time, I love to write blogs, design(UI) websites and play Table Tennis. I spent this past winter in New Delhi, working as an intern in a product based company. There, I worked on the chatbot project. It was a great experience overall and I learned a lot about Cloud Technologies, NLP, Github, and TeamWork. I am really excited about this opportunity because the job description is well-matched with my profile. I can assure you that if I get this opportunity, my skills and experience will add real value to the company.

I can assure you that preparing this question with the template provided will give you optimal confidence to ace any interview.