How To Tell Someone About Yourself: Circumstances will always arise for the need to tell someone about you. Such circumstance may arise while on a date with someone, in the course of interview, and even in an autobiography. During interviews, you may be required to take the presentation about yourself orally regardless of having submitted your resume. When you meet new people, the need to tell them about yourself will always arise.
Therefore, the manner in which you should structure and direct the story about yourself is dependent on the circumstance where the need has arisen. While telling about yourself in an interview, the very first thing to be mindful of is that an interview creates a formal setting, therefore, formal measures is the appropriate to employ in such setting. An interview is any face-to face meeting which is of an official nature, usually for the assessment of a candidate or applicant.
Being asked to tell about yourself in an interview is an open-ended question. Hence, the expectation is wide enough and at the same time, it pushes a burden on you which is the burden of streamlining your answers in such a manner that fits into the range of information needed or expected by your interviewer. When a person asks to known about you, the person most likely knows little or nothing about you, or maybe he only has come across your information as was provided in a written form duly submitted.
In fact, the center point is that, that person wants to hear you give direct information about yourself. He could have gotten this information elsewhere, or at most, he could have chosen to ask you direct or close ended questions in order to lead you and extract by himself the quantum of information he need. Yet, here you are in such a situation being faced with a wide autonomy of discretion to take it up as it pleases you. On that same hand, you are still expected and required to do it properly.
On that note, here are the rundown tips on how to answer the question, “Tell me about yourself”.
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1. Give an Introductory Personal: Information about Yourself: This should be the first set of information you should provide about yourself. Here you are required you state your official name, that is the name which you formally use for documentation and external purposes. Remember that for now, we are concerned with telling about yourself in a formal setting like an interview. After stating your name, it should be followed by your resident address.
Then tell your nationality, state of origin, hometown, talk about your religious inclination, your date of birth, marital status and also mention whom you are married to if married. You should then state your current status, whether you are a student, an employee or otherwise. Then you should talk about your academic journey by stating the schools you have attended so far and their addresses. By these information provided so far, the interviewer must have gotten a clue of the person before him. These are foundational information about a person.
Afterwards, you should take about your social inclination. This requires you to state your personal hobbies and other social areas of your interest. Inasmuch as personal information are required to be provided by you under this heading, it does not demand that you provide information which you consider too personal, as long as it does not relate to the setting and purpose of the interview.
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2. State your Skills: Here, you should provide information on both y our soft skills and hard skills. It would be more suitable to state your hard skills first in a formal setting. Hard skills are technical skills as opposed to soft skills which are interpersonal and unquantifiable.
For the hard skills, you could state qualifications such as computer literacy, fixtures expert, affiliate marketing inclined, graphic designing, music inclination as it relates to performance and musical instruments, and driving skill, etc. if there are hard skills which you have made some move to acquire, or those which you have not fully mastered, they are also worthy of mentioning, and it would be pertinent to describe the level at which you are operating on with respect to them.
For the soft skills, you can state them as they relate to the interview setting. You should emphasize on those which seem to have inspired the interview, and you should ensure that they represent your true self. You cannot be saying that you are a confident person whereas right there in the interview, your body languages suggests otherwise.
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3. State your Achievements: Stating your achievements is quite a wide duty. You should state your real achievements and not those that look like one. While doing this, it is quite tricky that you try not to express with pride.
Under this heading, you should also state the previous positions you have held in various realms of service, and of course, the current position which you hold if any. These are part of achievements too.
4. Work Experience: If you have had any work experience in the past, here is where you state them. While doing so, you should give information on the addresses of your past or current work offices as the case may be. State your position in the work area, and the nature of your work and services rendered.
You may find it wise to say the name of your employer or formal employers. This suggests an import of having had a good relationship with your past employers to the extent that they were worth mentioning. You should avoid all urge to say bad things about your past employers.
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5. Skills relevant to the purpose: While talking about your skills, you should relate it to the skills which you feel are most relevant to the purpose of the interview.
This is applicable while talking about both your technical and interpersonal skills.
6. Qualities relevant to the purpose: The qualities you should discuss should have some relation to the purpose of the interview. In a formal setting, there is always something the interviewer is looking out for. This does not suggest that you become less genuine as to your qualities by discussing them falsely.
Note that there is no reason to lie about your skills and qualities. In all ramifications, it does not worth the strike. Remember that you are assigned to specific areas by relying on the information you provide as genuine. Your weaknesses are not sufficient impediment as long as efforts are made to overcome them. After all, there is no perfect one out there.
Answering the Question “Tell Me About Yourself” in a Less Formal Setting
A less formal setting may be on a date or on an early encounter with someone. It can as well be a necessary course of discussion in a more relaxed setting. Under such setting, there is no hard and fast rule as to determining a better procedure for telling someone about oneself. The same recommendations which are applicable to a formal setting can as well be adopted for a less formal setting, though with some relaxations.
In fact, the only difference is the relaxational atmosphere of a less formal one. Also, it may not be necessary in a less formal setting to lay emphasis on your achievements since is seems less relevant for the purpose, unless it is otherwise implicated. Under this heading, emphasis should be on your interest and what actually defines you, as opposed to what is actually expected of you.
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Conclusion
How to tell someone about oneself is an event which most people do not consider a thing until the need arises. Some of the times, the need may arise unforeseen, and in such a circumstance, one may be left in the midst of stumbling and mumbling between lines. The manner in which you relate information about yourself imports confidence, focus and full understanding of oneself.
Edeh Samuel Chukwuemeka, ACMC, is a lawyer and a certified mediator/conciliator in Nigeria. He is also a developer with knowledge in various programming languages. Samuel is determined to leverage his skills in technology, SEO, and legal practice to revolutionize the legal profession worldwide by creating web and mobile applications that simplify legal research. Sam is also passionate about educating and providing valuable information to people.
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