All of my career coaching clients go through “Tell me about yourself” during our first 10 minutes together. Why is this so pivotal? It is for several reasons. The most important one is that the first impression is a lasting impression. In a job interview situation it is of utmost importance to make a good first impression. If you don’t make that good impression, it will be very hard–if not impossible–to dig out of that hole. “Tell me about yourself” sets the scene. If you answer it well, you’ll be riding a good wave, and everything you say after that will be viewed through a positive prism. Otherwise, the opposite is true.
You may want to ask, ”So why am I being asked this question?” After all, the interviewer (hopefully) has read your resume and knows everything about your professional past and respective accomplishments. Nevertheless, the test contained within the question is twofold. First, do you know what your accomplishments are? And second, if you do, can you recount them eloquently and succinctly?
More important than everything I’ve said so far is your understanding of the reason you were called in for an interview. Think about it for a second. Oops, you’re wrong! It’s not about your having the opportunity to tell the hiring manager how great you are and to sell yourself. It’s clearly about one thing and one thing only: what you can do for the hiring manager. Now, if you agree with that contention, go back and rethink your personal marketing program. Your interview answers should universally focus on how your past experience and skills can help meet the hiring manager’s challenges.
Alex Freund is the founder of Landing Expert–Career Coaching. His Web site includes a current–and comprehensive–list of job search networking groups in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and the city of New York, and the site is visited by thousands of people every month. Landing Expert is a premier career-coaching service with the objective of preparing job seekers for interviews. Alex’s clients are gaining knowledge, receiving marketing material, and acquiring the know-how to beat the competition.
Alex can be reached at:
609-333-8866
All of my career coaching clients go through “Tell me about yourself” during our first 10 minutes together. Why is this so pivotal? It is for several reasons. The most important one is that the first impression is a lasting impression. In a job interview situation it is of utmost importance to make a good first impression. If you don’t make that good impression, it will be very hard–if not impossible–to dig out of that hole. “Tell me about yourself” sets the scene. If you answer it well, you’ll be riding a good wave, and everything you say after that will be viewed through a positive prism. Otherwise, the opposite is true.
You may want to ask, ”So why am I being asked this question?” After all, the interviewer (hopefully) has read your resume and knows everything about your professional past and respective accomplishments. Nevertheless, the test contained within the question is twofold. First, do you know what your accomplishments are? And second, if you do, can you recount them eloquently and succinctly?
More important than everything I’ve said so far is your understanding of the reason you were called in for an interview. Think about it for a second. Oops, you’re wrong! It’s not about your having the opportunity to tell the hiring manager how great you are and to sell yourself. It’s clearly about one thing and one thing only: what you can do for the hiring manager. Now, if you agree with that contention, go back and rethink your personal marketing program. Your interview answers should universally focus on how your past experience and skills can help meet the hiring manager’s challenges.
Last night I read the BusinessWeek Magazine on which issue the front page has a heading “The Permanent Temporary Workforce”. Their in-depth section The Disposable Worker highlights several facts. Most of them are expressing the negativity that currently exists in the labor market. “Since the early ‘80s, the US economy has been taking longer to regain all the jobs lost in a downturn”. Companies are hedging their bets by hiring temps instead a steady workforce. And this trend will likely continue similar to Europe which makes a lot more use of temporary and part-time workers. It mentions also that 26% of working Americans have “non-standard” jobs. These are those that work less than 35 hours per week, independent contractors, on-call workers or day laborers. The article talks about “labor on demand” and this is on all levels and not only low paying jobs. Because of these conditions Americans are willing to accept lower pay. All in all the current conditions are gloomy but let’s focus now on the positive. The article is predicting that as soon as the economy will show signs of improvement the better employees will jump ship to a company that pays better. This will lead to openings and opportunities. The long term prediction is that a decade from now the retirement of the baby boomers could cause labor shortages which again lead to opportunities. It is important for jobseekers to understand the big picture but they need jobs now and not in the next decade. So what are they to do? Because of the tough competition the answer is not simple. Since most jobs come through networking therefore more and more networking is the answer. But here I am not talking quantity but quality. People need to become more sophisticated with their job search. They also need to learn how to benefit from the fast-evolving social media. If you don’t buy into these concepts then somebody else will. Could you guess who is going to get a job faster?
