How to Answer “Describe 3 Words About Yourself” in a Job Interview

Describe yourself in three words. Companies may ask you this question in the job interview. I've heard this asked quite a bit story time. I was actually asked this when I was applying to colleges way back in the day. It was asked me on an application. My response was make it count. And I wrote about how that was my motto and how I integrated that into everything I do. I thought I was being clever. I expected that probably all my competition were going to list three adjectives and I wanted to stand out from the bunch. Is this the way you should respond to the question in a job interview? Maybe not. Since applying to college is an absolute cattle call and these application readers are nearly going blind from reviewing seemingly identical passages over and over again. I think that shaking things up could be really great. But typically, if you've made it into interviews with a company, you're likely competing meeting with a handful of candidates, so you're not having to stand out in thousands at this point. So being unusual and creative isn't as important as getting a clear message across to the interviewer so that they are confident that you are the correct person for this job. So if you're going for a more creative role like marketing or you have to truly see stand out in a crowd like in a group interview, then you could try my college approach. But here is an alternate strategy you can try on for size that I personally think is better. Oh, and silly me, I should introduce myself. I'm Madeline Mann. I'm a human resources leader and job search strategist who turns job seekers into job shoppers. You may recognize me from being a top job search instructor for Spotify and LinkedIn learning, or you may have seen me on ABC, Bloomberg, New York Times, and more. Be sure that you're subscribed so you can get new videos to elevate your career. In order to ace this question, you need to understand, why are they even asking this? Well, this question is actually a bit of a lazy way to evaluate someone. A more advanced interviewer would ask less direct questions and actually infer your character based on your answers. But this question is basically where the interviewer doesn't know quite how to craft a more thoughtful question. So they're essentially saying, can you tell me what you're like so I can compare this to what we're looking for in this role? For this reason, you should be excited when you get this interview question, because this is just about as straightforward as they come, and it's time for you to shine. Going into the job interview, you have deeply studied the job description and reviewed your notes from your previous interviews where they gave you additional information about the role. Right? Right. So when you answer these questions, use three words from the job description. Let's take this job description for example. Some of the words that we see here are energetic, meh, skip. We have references of being innovative and that comes up multiple parts in the job description. Then there is strateg, entrepreneurial and empathetic. And hint, you can also use these for your answer for what is your greatest strength? Be sure to watch my video on how to answer that question. Because identifying these traits is not just because we're doing this for this one niche question that could potentially come up in the job interview. No, there are countless other applications for you doing this pre work. This pre work will influence the most impactful parts of of your job interview, especially the way you start the interview and conclude it. Yet so many people don't know what to say to start and end their interviews. To leave the best possible impression because you need to make a powerful introduction, describe yourself and then at the end, imagine wrapping up an interview by getting the interviewer to completely be sold on you. So those scripts are already written for you. Go ahead and grab them below for free. Okay, so if I was going for this role at ebay, the first adjective I choose is innovative, since that was clearly the most popular word they used in the job description. There are two massively important things that many job seekers mess up as a part of their answer. First, instead of focusing on what the job description emphasized, they describe themselves as the three words that are most relevant to their job experience and the way they see themselves so vividly. I know you are a unique starfish who is multifaceted, but this is not how you win the game. Oh, there are so many tips out there for this question and they will actually give you a word bank and phrases to say, which is so aggravating because what you will say should not come off of some generic list that comes from a video or article. It comes from the specific, specific opportunity. You win the game by being hyper specific about exactly what the company wants to hear. So don't get distracted. This is an important component of the job shopping strategy I teach that helps you to have inbound job opportunities coming to you for the rest of your career. It's another reason why my clients do so well in interviews and land so many offers. So if you want to deep dive on those strategies, I will link a free job shopping class below. Okay, the second mistake I see job seekers make when answering this question is they will simply make their answer full of self describing such as the wrong way to answer this question sounds a little something like I describe myself as innovative, I have a fresh perspective on things and I'm always staying up to date on what's happening in the market. That's okay. It's not very convincing though. Say something that is objectively true that could be proven it in a court of law. Instead, here's what you're going to do. You're going to name one trait and then give a quick example from your experience for each trait. So your answer would sound something like the first word I'd use to describe myself is innovative because as a product leader in my most recent role, I use market research to launch two new product lines that opened up completely new markets to us. Okay, and then do that for the following two words I'm curious what approach you are planning on doing. Are you going to share three traits or say the three word phrase? Put traits or three word phrase in the comments and if you are planning on doing the three word phrase, what is it going to be? So let's review. Describe yourself using three traits that are emphasized in the job description. Or come up with a three word phrase like make it count or let's get weird to set yourself apart. I hope you know I'm joking about that second phrase because sometimes if I don't laugh, people think I'm serious. For the three traits, include examples of how you have shown those traits in the work in your career. And then be sure to grab the download of the exact scripts of what to say to start your interview and end the interview flawlessly. And be sure to also go to that job shopping webinar to attract these job opportunities seamlessly for the rest of your career. Did this video help you? I sure hope it did. If so, please hit a like on this video and subscribe to this channel if you haven't already. You've got this WI Fi high five.