Many structured interviews, particularly those at large companies,
start with a question like "tell me about yourself." The
interviewer doesn't really want you to go back to grade school and
talk about your childhood. This is a specific question with a
specific answer...in two minutes or so, the interviewer wants to
get you to relax and loosen out your vocal cords, understand your
background, your accomplishments, why you want to work at XYZ
company and what your future goals are. Here's how to narrow your
life down into a brief but relevant and professional answer.
- Spend about 1-2 hours writing down your top five work or
personal experiences. These experiences should follow this format -
situation/task, action, result (STAR). What was the situation, what
did you do, and what happened?
- Narrow each down to a paragraph. Think about the STAR format as
a 100 point pie. Only about 15-20 points should go to the
"situation" with about 40 points going to your actions and 30-35
points on the results.
- Think about the themes that come across. Are you all about
growth, customer focus, sales excellence, product innovation, etc.
and how do the themes come through? How do your experiences reflect
a recurring theme?
- Pick your top themes. What are the top 1-2 things you want the
interviewer to remember about you? When you have finished answering
the question, the interviewer should know clearly what these top 2
things are.
- Put it together. A good way to finalize this is to use the
word-count feature on your word processor. At 150 words per minute,
you should not use much more than 350 words for your pitch. You'll
generally want to start with undergrad, unless that was a very long
time ago. Quickly move past undergrad and launch into your work
history, keeping in mind that you want to highlight your top 3-5
experiences and not every last thing you did in each job. Keep your
undergrad and work history to 75% of your time. Save the last
moments for why XYZ company and what your future goals are. These
goals should match the new position and/or the opportunities at
this company.
- Once you have your personal elevator pitch, practice it in
front of the mirror. If possible, try to video or audio tape
yourself, and watch it in fast forward. You'll be amazed at your
nervous habits!
- Even though you've prepared and practiced, keep it natural.
Remember to breathe and smile.
- Rehearse it, but make sure it doesn't LOOK rehearsed
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