Transcription
So, the number one reason a lot of people don't actually get a job offer is because they don't properly answer the question, "Tell me about yourself." They either bore the interviewer to death, or they just talk way too much in a way that doesn't spark interest in learning more about the candidate.
Now, I'm curious: have you ever gone into an interview and totally bombed this question? Like, honestly, y'all put "yes" in the comments if you were asked that question and then you just totally screwed it up. Because honestly, trust me, when I first started interviewing, I hated that question because I would always mess it up. I didn't know if they wanted to know about me personally, or if they wanted to know what school I went to, or if they were asking about my home life. I just never knew how to answer that question, so I used to bomb this question so badly.
Then, I started actually asking for feedback, and some of the hiring managers were nice enough to tell me that that was a question that I bombed and how it just kind of sets the tone for the rest of the conversation.
For me, I always like to use The Bar Method. Now, The Bar Method is a simple interview hack that makes it really easy for you to answer "Tell me about yourself" in a really concise way. This is the same method that a lot of people are using to get jobs at places like American Express, Delta, Google, and all those other places.
So, when it comes to The Bar Method, the bar is an acronym. The "B" stands for background. You want to briefly discuss your professional background. Notice I said "professional," so you don't want to give a bunch of personal details or start talking about things that aren't relevant to the job.
Now, "A" is going to stand for accomplishments. When you talk about your accomplishments, especially your professional accomplishments, it's just a really great segue into why you're a perfect fit for the job. It really sparks interest when the interviewer is learning about things that you did to help the team achieve a certain revenue goal. Things like that get the interviewer really excited.
Now, when it comes to "R," it stands for relate. You want to relate your background experience to your actual achievements so that it all easily flows into why you're excited about the role and why you're a good candidate for the role. If you can conquer The Bar Method, you will increase your chances of getting a job offer significantly.
Okay, now, news flash: people don't necessarily care about your educational background or your experience because a lot of that stuff you're going to be trained on the job. So, don't ever try to put too much emphasis on not having experience or having gaps in your resume. Just understand that your first impression is your best impression, and the first impression that they have of you is going to heavily depend on how well you implement The Bar Method.
So, let's say you're going up for a help desk role, and let's just say that you have some experience in customer service. The way that I would answer "Tell me about yourself" is something like this: I would probably say, "Hi there, my name is Jasmine, and I've got about five years of customer service experience handling escalated inquiries, resolving complex issues, and also training new hires. I have a really deep passion for problem-solving and just making people feel good. I'm really proud to say that my passion is what led me to receiving awards for having the highest customer satisfaction surveys and also receiving awards for Trainer of the Year two years in a row.
So, when I was researching your company, I noticed that your CEO did get an award for best customer service, which made me really excited and shows me just how much you care about your customers. I'm super excited to learn more about this role and what I ultimately can do to make your life a little bit easier."
Now, another way that you could end that is, "I'm really excited to learn more about this role and how I can utilize my training experience to help our customers and to also make it a great experience for our internal teams as well."
I really love the "Tell me about yourself" question because it's actually a really fun icebreaker to use. I mean, of course, you're having a professional conversation, but it's just really great to break the ice, and you're sparking all of this interest and curiosity around you.
Now, a couple of don'ts that I really love to remind you about is when you answer that question, don't speak negatively about yourself or about your previous work experiences. Okay? When they say, "Tell me about yourself," they're not saying, "Tell me why you're looking for another job," and "Tell me how bad your last work environment was." That is going to be something that will automatically turn off the interviewer. It's going to leave a bad taste in their mouth, and you don't want to start your interview off on any type of negativity.
You want to be very upbeat, very excited, and just be that standout candidate. Because trust me, when you're a hiring manager and you've interviewed a bunch of people, the last thing you want to do is hear about somebody's personal problems or hear about why they need a job so bad.
Another don't is you never want to go into the interview talking about how you're needing this job for money. You never ever really want to discuss money with the hiring manager. That's going to be something you talk about with the recruiters. But I see a lot of people that will go into these jobs, and during the "Tell me about yourself" question, they'll talk about their professional experience, but then they'll say, "Overall, I'm just really looking for something that pays more," or "Overall, I'm just really looking for something that I can do from home because I'm tired of going back and forth to work and being stuck in traffic every day."
Again, you want this question to be all about your professional achievements and your background experience. You always want to keep it light and airy so that there's room for conversation.
So, another don't is you don't ever want to go into this job, especially during the "Tell me about yourself" question, talking about how chaotic your life is. Now, even if that's true, even if you've got a bunch of kids and a bunch of responsibilities, you don't want to answer "Tell me about yourself" by saying, "Well, I am a super busy mom," or you don't want to start it off by saying, "I'm someone that has a bunch of projects that I'm currently working on, and my head is just spinning, so that's why I'm looking for another opportunity that is going to allow me to have more work-life balance."
You want to come in as this calm, serene person that has everything under control, that's just kind of casually looking for a different job, and you want to learn more about their company. So, make sure you keep it light and airy. Don't come off as someone that is just trying to escape from something.
Right? Another helpful tip is making sure that you send a follow-up email. Now, a lot of people may see this as kind of like an old-school method that's kind of outdated, but for me personally, it actually separates you from the other candidates and makes you more memorable.
Because imagine interviewing ten people, and you don't remember who's who, but there's that one candidate that says, "Hey, thank you so much for your time. I really enjoyed the conversation and I enjoyed learning about your operations department. I know that I can bring my experience to your team to help you get those operational costs down, and so I'm really excited to learn more about next steps. Again, thank you for your time."
Now, if you need templates about follow-up emails, I do have those available in the resume portal, so make sure you check those out. But make sure that is something that you don't forget to do after you have an interview.
So, congratulations to all of you that are actually utilizing the resources in your resume kit as well as in your interview kit and you're landing jobs at places like Amazon, Yelp, American Express, Discover. Y'all are even getting some Google interviews now! That just made my day, so I am proud of all of you.
Until next time, people, I will see you in the next video. Adios! Bye!