Nail the Interview! Pro Tips for Job Success

So tell me about yourself. That's the question you know is coming in every job interview, and yet we dread it. Oh, my gosh, what do I say? The key to acing this question is to rewrite the question before answering. Can you tell me about yourself? Is so general, vague, and broad. You could talk for hours, and all you do is put the interviewer to sleep. You first got to rewrite it. What is this person really asking? What the interviewer is asking you is, what can you tell me about yourself that would help me as the person trying to figure out who gets the job, as to why you would be the best fit for this job? What can you tell me that's not already on your resume? Because I read the resume. That's why you're here for the interview. What can you tell me that shows you're likely to be different than 10 other people who all have similar things on their resume? So I don't need to know about all your hobbies or where you grew up or where you went to college, unless there's something unique about one of those things that's going to make me say, oh, that is exactly the person we need for this job. That's the sort of experience credential we need for this job. So you've got to look at it very narrowly through the lens of what this person is really asking. They're there to do a job. They're trying to figure out how can they make a selection of the best person for this particular job. So everything you say in answering that question needs to help the interviewer. So you don't have to talk about your favorite hobby. You don't have to talk about where you went to summer camp unless it's really relevant to this person making this decision.