BRIEFINGS PODCAST: Tell Me About Yourself – Answers!

Tell Me About Yourself – Answers!

NOTE: While this transcript has been reviewed, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript.

Jill Wiltfong:

Tell me about yourself. Why do we love asking it so much?

[Owen Wilson as Nick Campbell – ‘The Internship’ movie]:

Let's get weird.

[Vince Vaughn as Billy McMahon – ‘The Internship’ movie]:

No judgment, shoot.

Madeline Mann:

Who is this person? My mind was somewhere else. Say what type of professional you are.

[Will Ferrell as Brennan Huff – ‘Step Brothers’ movie]:

We're not particularly good listeners.

[Interviewer – ‘Step Brothers’ movie]:

That'll be a huge problem.

Jill Wiltfong:

What's your rationale behind sticking with tradition?

Maria Amato:

Put people at ease, what questions they should ask, and what questions maybe you shouldn't ask.

Madeline Mann:

Who are you again?

[Speaker]:

So, are you ready for your big job interview?

[Job Seeker]:

Yeah, it should be a total breeze.

[Interviewer]:

Next.

[Job Seeker]:

Looks like it's my turn.

[Narrator]:

Good luck.

[Interviewer]:

Well, your resume looks great, you went to a great college, you have all the right experience and skills for this role. So why don't you tell me about yourself?

[Job Seeker]:

Oh, great, I was actually expecting this question.

[Interviewer]:

What? Why?

[Job Seeker]:

Well, studies show that 93% of hiring managers ask it.

[Interviewer]:

Well, did you prepare something in advance or are you gonna tell me something authentic?

[Job Seeker]:

Uh, authentic, of course.

[Interviewer]:

Go ahead and tell me about yourself.

[Job Seeker]:

Well, I grew up in Boston, my dad ran a laundromat and my mom worked as-

[Interviewer]:

How about we fast forward, oh, I don't know, a few decades?

[Job Seeker]:

Right, well, I recently worked at Bettingham, Shaw and Wookie.

[Interviewer]:

You left BSW? They're the number one firm on the planet. What sane person does that?

[Job Seeker]:

I just wanted a change.

[Interviewer]:

We'll take your application under consideration. And by the way, what do you keep looking at?

[Job Seeker]:

Oh, nothing. Thanks.

[Interviewer]:

Next.

Jill Wiltfong:

Hi, I am Jill Wiltfong, Chief Marketing Officer for Korn Ferry, and this is "Briefings", our deep dive into topics that corporate leaders need to care about.

What are your weaknesses? Where do you see yourself in five years? HR pros have been asking these questions in job interviews for years, some, particularly Gen Zers, question how relevant they are to a job. But more importantly, hiring managers say even veteran executives fumble them. And that leaves us wondering why? Why are they not prepared? And does that lack of preparation reveal the very thing that HR teams are trying to assess? So today, let's look at the one question we are sure you're going to get on your next job interview. The question that is asked, get this, in 93% of all interviews, tell me about yourself.

Before we start, if you're watching us on YouTube, please be sure to like, subscribe and leave a comment to let us know your thoughts on this topic. I'm joined today by Madeline Mann, career strategist and creator of Self Made Millennial. Through her social media coaching platform, she's helped millions of viewers hone their job interview skills, so it's a real treat to have her with us here today. Madeline, thanks for joining us.

Madeline Mann:

It's so good to be here, Jill.

Jill Wiltfong:

So, we're hyper-focusing on this one often dreaded question, “tell me about yourself.” As I mentioned off the top, it's a favorite among hiring managers, but it actually has no direct relevance to any particular job requirement or skill. So why do we love asking it so much?

Madeline Mann:

Here's the reason they ask it is it really is more of that softball, you know, softball question where, let's get into the conversation, let's start off the call, it gets them because they are pivoting from another meeting, they want to get a focus on, okay, who is this person? My mind was somewhere else, just catch me up really quickly, who are you again? And that is the piece I think a lot of people get wrong, is they think of this question as the main event when it's really a simple appetizer just to start us off.

Jill Wiltfong:

We're gonna talk about what you should say or could say, but, first, you've got some pretty funny examples of how not to respond to this question and I'd love to start there. What does a bad response sound or look like?

Madeline Mann:

Well, a lot of people think that they should talk about their lives, where they're from, you know, I was one of four children, or I, you know, did this in high school, then I went to college and I did this, and on the surface, it sounds like that is exactly what they're asking, tell me about yourself. No, no, no, they're actually asking, tell me why I'm interviewing you, tell me why you are relevant to this position, tell me why you're relevant to me. And so, when people start getting into what I call autobiography syndrome, where we start telling our whole life story, it veers off and people get a little bit too detailed either about personal information or even just too detailed about their career, that is when you really lose the interviewer.

[Will Ferrell as Brennan Huff – ‘Step Brothers’ movie]:

We're not generally comfortable in an office setting, I would say.

[John C. Reilly as Dale Doback – ‘Step Brothers’ movie]:

I get cooped up.

[Will Ferrell as Brennan Huff – ‘Step Brothers’ movie]:

I won't go into an office that's ever been used before.

[John C. Reilly as Dale Doback – ‘Step Brothers’ movie]:

I am no good before 11:00 AM.

[Will Ferrell as Brennan Huff – ‘Step Brothers’ movie]:

I also get headaches from computers, so I can't be around them for too long.

[John C. Reilly as Dale Doback – ‘Step Brothers’ movie]:

I take stuff.

[Will Ferrell as Brennan Huff – ‘Step Brothers’ movie]:

I need to have someone go up and down with me in the elevator.

[John C. Reilly as Dale Doback – ‘Step Brothers’ movie]:

I have a weakness for sweets.

[Will Ferrell as Brennan Huff – ‘Step Brothers’ movie]:

Other weaknesses, we're slow learners and we're not particularly good listeners.

[Interviewer – ‘Step Brothers’ movie]:

That'll be a huge problem.

[John C. Reilly as Dale Doback – ‘Step Brothers’ movie]:

We're also slow learners.

Jill Wiltfong:

That's a scene from the comedy "Step Brothers" in which Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, of course, say all the wrong things about themselves in a job interview.

Madeline, what those two probably really needed was you, because you actually have a beautiful formula for how to tackle this question. Can you give us a brief overview of how that works?

Madeline Mann:

You answer this question using three parts. The first part is say what type of professional you are. So, for example, if it's me, I might say, "I am a human resources leader with experience at growing technology companies," something like that. The second piece you wanna do is to focus on your highlights. I want you to reach into your more recent roles and pick out a few highlights that are going to be especially interesting to the interviewers. So, if you say, "Well, in my most recent role, I had X title where I was responsible for blah blah, and I achieved X." The final piece is to say why this role is the best next step for you. Companies want people who want them, so if you can immediately put in their brain how you've thought about why this opportunity is the best next step, already, you're a step ahead of the other candidates.

Jill Wiltfong:

Obviously, it's best if you can tailor your answer toward the job you're applying for, which is what you're talking about here. But sometimes your current role and experience doesn't really match the gig that you're going after. And in those cases, you've talked about finding a through line between the role you have and the one you're aiming for. Can you elaborate on what that means?

Madeline Mann:

What you need to see is exactly how does your previous experience connect to what you're going for next, because you do not wanna put it in the hands of the interviewer to connect those dots. What you wanna do then is let's say you are in a software engineer role and you're looking to pivot into project management, but still in software, you're gonna be managing software projects. Instead of saying, "I'm a software engineer who has worked at X companies." You'd say maybe, "I'm a technology professional," or, "I'm a software professional," or something like that, or even if you have done project management tasks, but maybe not even held that title, you could even frame yourself as a project management professional if you really have actually done those things professionally. So, it's really about making sure that you are translating that experience so that the hiring team goes, "Okay, perfect, this all makes clear sense. You're the person we wanna move forward with."

Jill Wiltfong:

All right, Madeline, thank you so much for coming on and sharing all of this with us today.

Madeline Mann:

It's been my pleasure.

Jill Wiltfong:

So, we've drilled deep into the top interview question. When we return, we'll take a step back and look at the interview process from the company side of things. Is it time for firms to shake things up? Stay tuned.

Rupak Bhattacharya:

Hi, and welcome to "This Week in Leadership", I'm Rupak Bhattacharya and here's a quick look at what else is happening in business.

[Speaker 1]:

Not hiring Gen Z.

Rupak Bhattacharya:

More than one in three UK Gen Z job candidates believe they were discriminated against while applying for work, compared to only 12% of older job seekers who made the same complaint. Experts say part of the issue stems from companies not providing enough feedback to candidates as to why they weren't selected.

[Speaker 2]:

Fear that they're going to lose their job.

Rupak Bhattacharya:

A third of employees fear losing their job before finding a new one, up from 24% in spring of 2023. Contributing factors to their anxiety include recent pessimistic US jobs reports, significant fluctuations in the stock market, and a marked increase in the time it takes the unemployed to find new jobs.

[Speaker 3]:

Hybrid work is here to stay.

Rupak Bhattacharya:

Only 34% of CEOs expect workers to be in the office five days a week during the next three years. That's a precipitous drop from 62% in the same survey last year. Yet, despite leaders' increasing acceptance of hybrid work, experts say many organizations still haven't perfected their hybrid work arrangements.

For more insights on business and leadership, head to kornferry.com/insights. Now, back to Jill and our episode, "Tell Me About Yourself - Answers".

[Karen Ceesay as Female Interviewer – ‘The Internship’ movie]:

We are gonna ask you a few questions that some of our candidates find a little bit odd.

[Owen Wilson as Nick Campbell – ‘The Internship’ movie]:

Let's get weird.

[Vince Vaughn as Billy McMahon – ‘The Internship’ movie]:

No judgment, shoot.

[B.J. Novak as Male Interviewer – ‘The Internship’ movie]:

You're shrunken down to the size of nickels and dropped to the bottom of a blender. What do you do?

Jill Wiltfong:

With us now is Maria Amato, a Korn Ferry Senior Client Partner who works closely with the leaders of major companies to help them understand and improve upon the employee experience, which, of course, all starts with a job interview. Maria, thanks for joining me.

Maria Amato:

My pleasure.

Jill Wiltfong:

That last clip was from the movie "The Internship", where Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson have to answer a really ridiculous question right off the bat. We spent the first part of this interview discussing the popular, "Tell me about yourself," question that hiring managers often start with, and you've actually argued that firms are better off going in that direction than something more outlandish, like what we just saw there in that clip. What's your rationale behind sticking with tradition here, Maria?

Maria Amato:

I think in the very first few minutes of an interview, one of your important jobs as the interviewer is to put people at ease. And starting with an outrageous question that makes people feel uncomfortable, could just set them off on the wrong tone for the rest of the interview and not set them up to do their best, which you really wanna do.

Jill Wiltfong:

Looking more critically at the interview process, you've mentioned that bias can be a major factor. Four in 10 women, for example, say they've encountered gender bias or inappropriate questions during a job interview. How can companies get around this seemingly persistent and and challenging issue?

Maria Amato:

It's really a tough one because I think, most of the time, people really don't intend to be biased, but it can happen even when you least intend it. And so, this is a situation where I think there is nothing like a little bit of training to help people understand what questions they should ask and what questions maybe you shouldn't ask, even though it seems like it's coming from a good and genuine place.

[Megan Cerullo – CBS Money Watch]:

There are two main distinctions between the two different types of AI interviews, AI led interviews, you might be presented with a question and text on a screen, and then you're sort of staring at yourself and recording your answers into a box. But that will then be submitted to a human, a sentient being, who will evaluate your responses. Then there are interviews that are totally automated and even your response is evaluated by an AI bot or an algorithm. It means that qualities like likability and sociability, which can get candidates pretty far in an interview process won't matter as much.

Jill Wiltfong:

That's CBS Money Watch Reporter Megan Cerullo talking about the rise of AI interviews. Maria, four in 10 companies have been projected to use AI interviews this year. Getting a job these days is really hard enough, but trying to impress an AI bot in order to get a meeting with a human seems like it's throwing an entirely new challenge into the mix. What do you think, do AI interviews, is that in the right direction for companies to be going in or would you maybe steer people in a different direction?

Maria Amato:

There's a couple of challenges with the AI interview. One is if you're just sitting by yourself talking to an AI robot in a box, it's really hard to convey that energy, like, you know, now here when I'm talking to you, Jill, I think our energy is playing off of each other, it would be so much harder if I were just here in a room by myself and trying to convey all of the enthusiasm that I have for this topic.

The second piece of advice that I have for an employer is think about the experience though that you're creating for the candidates. So that candidate, whether they go on to become an employee for you, and they have to think back to that cold, sterile room that they sat in when that was their first meaningful interaction with you as an employer, if it leaves them feeling like you didn't care about them enough to even provide a human to talk to them, that might not be the best experience for your candidates.

Jill Wiltfong:

The last question before I let you go, you've mentioned in the past kind of this growing trend that firms are increasingly hiring now for skills versus experience. Can you give me an example of what that looks like?

Maria Amato:

Yeah, well, typically in the past, we have hired more for experience and so an interview question might be something like, "How long were you at this position?" or "What sorts of things did you do as a part of this role?" Whereas if you're hiring for skills, you're recognizing the fact that someone may have been in a position for five years, someone else may have been there for a shorter period of time, but actually learned more. And so, if you are interviewing for skills, you wanna ask for examples of how would you deal with this kind of a situation or that kind of a situation, and pick up on what they're sharing to see, if you're looking for skills like comradery, the ability to deal with other people, are you hearing that in the answers or are you not? And so, that doesn't really depend on how long someone has been in a position or what degrees they may have or may not have. So it's a really different style of interviewing that more organizations are interested in, but I would say that's still a pretty cutting edge trend.

Jill Wiltfong:

Perfect, Maria, thank you for such a good conversation today, appreciate it.

Maria Amato:

My pleasure.

Jill Wiltfong:

The Executive Producer of "Briefings" is Jonathan Dahl. Today's episode was produced by Rupak Bhattacharya, Nadira Putri, and Teresa Allan. And it was edited by Jaron Henrie-McCrea. It contains reporting by Russell Pearlman, Arianne Cohen, and Peter Lauria.

Our video segment contains original artwork by Frazer Milton, Hayley Kennell, Jonathan Pink, and Sasha Kostyuk.

Don't forget to read our magazine, available at newsstands and at kornferry.com/briefings. That's it for Korn Ferry “Briefings”. I'm Jill Wiltfong. See you next time.

Jill Wiltfong:

I'm going to sit for a moment. Oh, you can still see me, oh, I look so tiny down here.