The “Tell Me About Yourself” Interview Question: Answer It With a Memorable Story

This guest post is by Katharine Hansen, PhD, author of the newly-released book, Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career

What’s the most effective way to respond to the most frequently asked job-interview question of all, the “tell me about yourself” question?

Consider telling a story.

Behavioral Interview Questions

Many career experts advise candidates to respond to behavioral-interview questions with stories. This very popular type of interview question is based on the premise that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. A typical behavioral question is “Tell me about a time when you [used a certain skill or dealt with a specific problem].”

“Your examples are best told through a story format,” writes Carole Martin in Boost Your Interview IQ “The more interesting and relevant the story is, the more the interviewer will want to hear further examples.”

Non-Behavioral Interview Questions Like “Tell Me About Yourself”

Many experts and job-seekers, though, don’t realize that the same storytelling approach works well for interview questions that are not behavior-based -– questions like “Tell me about yourself.”

A perfectly valid choice, as many experts advise, is to respond to “tell me about yourself” with an answer specifically tailored to the requirements of the targeted job. But another excellent choice is to draw your interviewer in and create a connection with him or her by responding in a story format.

Why Does Storytelling Work in a Job Interview?

Storytelling works because stories:

• Establish your identity and reveal your personality; they satisfy the basic human need to be known.
• Help you know yourself and build confidence.
• Make you memorable.
• Establish trust.
• Establish an emotional connection between storyteller and listener and inspire the listener’s investment in the storyteller’s success.
• Help you stand out.
• Illustrate skills, accomplishments, values, characteristics, qualifications, expertise, strengths, and more with vivid pictures.
• Explain key life/career decisions, choices, and changes.
• Help you portray you as a strong communicator.

As part of my research for the book, Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career, I conducted focus groups in which participants evaluated a set of story-based interview responses compared with responses that did not contain stories. Participants commented:

• The story responses presented more information.
• The story responses incorporated the job-seeker’s personal style into handling business.
• Job-seekers who gave the story responses communicated/sold themselves in a very positive light.
• The storytelling respondents were more memorable, since “I would have had more time to get to know them through their answers and the time I spent with them.”
• The story responses were quite the opposite of those without stories in that the storytelling job-seekers expressed themselves in a “colorful” manner, incorporating into the stories terms that employers like to hear during an interview -– such as “reliable,” “trustworthy,” “loyal,” “team player,” and “creative.”
• The storytelling responses allowed the interviewer to see how the job-seekers took on a task and handled it.
• The non-story responses, although concise, did not impress upon the interviewer how the job-seekers could benefit the organization, nor did they provide a sense of the candidate’s personal style and ways of handling day-to-day situations.

The one caution these participants had about the story-based responses was to make them as concise as possible and not too wordy. Participants wanted details –- but not too many.

My focus groups were’t alone in liking responses in the form of stories. Career authors Shelly Goldman and Wendy Enelow suggest that “Tell me about yourself” is a great interview question because it “gives the candidate total control of the interview process” and is “a wonderful vehicle to build rapport.”

Sample “Tell Me about Yourself” Answers

These sample “Tell me about yourself” responses show how incorporating story elements can build rapport:

A story that moves effortlessly from a confession of personal challenges to a declaration of personal characteristics that helped in overcoming them and are characteristics any employer loves to see:

I was born and raised in India by a very loving and caring family. I moved to the United States five years ago and started high school a month later. Everything was new to me; the whole experience was shocking because of the cultural difference. The school, students, and the language were unfamiliar to me, and there were times when I really felt down and discouraged. In the first semester I had a tough time coming to terms with the whole new experience in school.

But I did not give up; I asked for help when I needed it and worked hard. My experience has taught me to be resourceful and persistent.

Here’s another example, in which the interviewee discloses his small-town roots in a way that evokes empathy and paints a picture, making him seem much more modest when he closes with a distinct note of pride in his athletic and academic achievements.

Much of who I am today was shaped by the fact that I come from a very big family in a small town. The number of Ellises in my town is more than 80, so I grew up constantly being compared to those who came before me. When I started playing football in high school, I heard constantly how good my cousins Brad and Lance were at football, and that helped me try just a little harder. In the classroom, it was my cousin Angie who set the standard for me to follow.

Even within the last few years, as I have begun planting the seeds of a future public-service career, most introductions are quickly followed by “Are you one of THE Ellises?” Growing up in the shadow of my family wasn’t bad, though. I had constant support in everything I ever tried, and because I am one of “THE Ellises,” some doors have opened up for me that may not have opened otherwise. And because I constantly had to try to match the achievements of my forerunners, I worked hard and gained many rewards for my efforts.

My family was on hand when I won a prestigious award for outstanding high-school athlete for my achievements in football, track and field, weightlifting, and wrestling. When the door to my chosen college slammed in my face following the first of several knee surgeries, and my hometown university offered me a full academic scholarship, I jumped at the chance to shine in my own back yard. When I become the first Ellis to ever earn a college degree, I think you could hear the noise from miles away.

Next time you’re wondering how to answer the interview question “Tell me about yourself,” try a story.

This article is adapted from a chapter of Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career, one of seven books authored/co-authored by Katharine Hansen, Ph.D.

Hansen is creative director and associate publisher of Quintessential Careers, as well as an educator who provides content for Quintessential Careers, edits QuintZine, an electronic newsletter for jobseekers, and blogs about storytelling in the job search at A Storied Career.