Top Interview Tips

Disclaimer: We’re not aiming to “sell” or in any way “dupe” your audience into “believing” you. We present this strategy in good faith that you can grow in your education and career journey. We want people to like you because, in everyone, we believe, there is so much to like!

For the majority of people how to answer the question Tell Me About Yourself, it’s obvious they don’t know our top interview tips. It’s asked for a variety of reasons, however, the most notable are:

1. It’s one of the standard questions that is asked and every company asks it so, in turn, every company feels that they should ask it.

2. They want to see how you respond and how you think.

3. Power. The interviewer wants to put you on the hot seat and watch you squirm uncomfortably.

Now, when I ask this during my mock interview practice sessions about 95% of people get it wrong as they start regurgitating their long-winded work history. Yawn…now I’m getting sleepy…Furthermore, I’ve surveyed the top blogs on this question and they seem to give the same long drawn out answers that are completely missing the point. Of course, you should not give a rehash of your career, and yes you should give an overview of your work history with specific examples.

But there is one concept that they all miss out on that will make your interviewers fall in love with you. And you can easily do it too!

The secret top interview tips that will make your interviewers fall in love with you

You should be providing an answer that incorporates EMOTIONS as well as ASSOCIATIONS so the interviewer UNDERSTANDS and LIKES you. In essence, why do you do the things that you do? With this in mind, you’ll be set up to develop your personal “Why”. Once you start explaining yourself on a deeper level, beyond superficial answering and associate yourself with positive attributes you begin to control the conversation and get your interviewer to comply with your “brand”.

I was guilty on many occasions of trying to explain myself with what I thought was a deeper, more meaningful way to describe myself

For example, when asked the question:

First, I’d respond by describing my years of experience or “passion” for the profession, the follow up with “I want to help people” or “I like to solve problems”.

Next, I’d think I’m being smart by providing an example or two of when I performed them in my work history.

Sound familiar?

While this is not entirely wrong, it lacks an emotional appeal. Additionally, you did not give the interviewer the chance to associate you with something that “stands out” that is highly regarded to the community, or industry.

This might be fine for most people, but when working with Ideal Career Coach – we don’t want you to be “most people” we want you to stand out

To thoroughly answer these questions, it’s best to do a few assessments that can dive deeper into motivations and behaviors as they can be powerful tools that can help reveal as well as provide language to describe ourselves that we’ve never thought of before. Some people (including myself) are not the best at explaining themselves in detail right off the bat. It’s not a muscle we’re instinctively trained to do. If you’re great at it, then more power to you.

For everyone else, here are the top interview tips I suggest you do for some “inventory” work to develop your personal “Why”

Either on your own or with a coach, dictate, meditate and/or speak aloud

1. What am I motivated to do? Why am I motivated to do them?
2. What gets me up in the morning?
3. What can I do that no one else does? What separates me from my competition?
4. What are the unmet needs of my audience?
5. How have I routinely gone about solving challenges around me?

Refine your answers, then refine them again. Don’t rush. Make your answer as succinct and as natural as possible.

Circling back to my “I want to help people” example above, after I challenged myself with writing as well as assessment analysis, I concluded:

I’ve always been relentlessly driven and motivated to help people and accomplished great personal feats when I focused on those that wanted my help

However, to fully satisfy the question, and get the interviewer to fall in love with me, I’d summarize my “Tell Me About Yourself” along the lines of something like this:

I’ve always been drawn to provide an ROI for people and myself as I’ve never been one to aimlessly give up my time. I want to see them improve in their optimism, freedom, knowledge, and joy as well as bring clarity to their lives and my involvement with them to pay off.

Furthermore, as I look back on my career choices and direction, I displayed a pattern of following this motivation, but not realizing at the time, starting with my choice of a degree in Health and Medical Science to wanting to become a physician to my laboratory cancer research then to transitioning to Google as a technical recruiter. With my continued personal growth and self-analysis as well as working with a coach, my life’s calling revealed itself and has become my mission with Ideal Career Coach. Now I’m able to help busy working professionals find the meaning, financial freedom, and respect, all while doing what they love.

As an analysis on how to answer the question “Tell Me About Yourself”

I led with my personal WHY – helping people that want my help and differentiating it from blind altruism. This is what gets me out of bed in the morning. I mixed in some emotion and I then delivered an association that people can understand – Medical Science Degree, Doctor, Google recruiter – positive attributes that I associate with and my interviewer will view as favorable. Finally, I wrapped it up with something that is unique to me that I can do that my target audience needs and I can solve for them.

I hope you see this as a way of getting “through” to your interviewer, so they can understand you better and fully understand your intentions, character, and motivations.

A deeper communication in the workplace is required since jobs are now like partnerships

Now you know the top interview tips that get the company, boss, or team to know where you are coming from and how you operate, and it’s going to be a far better working relationship for all parties involved going forward.

If you want to work on your motivations or discuss what you’ve found, we’d love to hear from you! Book a time to schedule for our free consultation.