Job Interviews | Tell Me About Yourself

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English club.com job interviews in

English scary difficult right

job interviews are difficult anyway in

any language even in your own language a

job interview can be very difficult can

be scary can make you nervous

how do you prepare how can you get ready

for a job interview

how can you give good answers i'm going

to continue doing shows on this topic

because it's an important topic and as

an English Learner there's a good chance

now or in the future you will want a job

using English often you can get more

money or get a better position if you

speak English well but for those

positions you often will need to

interview in English which is a little

scary

let's talk about a specific question

let's talk about of question is very

common i'm going to do some shows on

common interview questions and give you

ideas for answering them powerfully so

our first question

today's question job interview

tell me about yourself

tell me about yourself this is a very

common interview question now usually

this question is right at the beginning

of an interview sometimes they'll do it

on the phone sometimes in the

face-to-face interview but it's going to

be right at the beginning usually the

challenge with this question is it so

general but what should you talk about

tell me about yourself

I mean should you say well you know like

I'm really active and I like to exercise

a lot and physical fitness is important

to me and i was born in march and I'm 48

years old and married and but is that

kind of stuff

no no no you don't want to do that

so what's a good answer well how should

you answer this it's so general and

that's the the danger of this question

because if you're not ready for it when

they ask you a question like this you

might just start kinda nervously talking

right uh and you might start saying a

lot of stuff that is not necessary

that's not useful and possibly you might

say stuff that's even damaging that will

hurt your interview and that's one

reason some job interviewers like these

kinds of questions some of them will use

these very big general questions to try

to get you talking a lot and they're

looking for bad things they're looking

for you to say something that you

normally might hide because you're

nervous because the question so general

they just get you're talking above a

little and then you might reveal show

something that you normally would not

because the interviewers know the

interviewers the people doing the

interviewing they know that all of the

interviewees you and

the others they know you're trying to

hide the bad stuff the weaknesses they

know you're drawing to sound great and

show only your speak fantastic strength

so they know everybody's bullshitting we

say it's using its over bullshitting

kind of means lying right that means

faking is a better way to say it so they

know that everybody's doing that so

their job is to try to find the truth

about you

okay it's a little game that is played

in interviews your part of the game is

to just show all the super positive

stuff about yourself

make yourself sound fantastic you're

selling yourself but the interviewer

their part of the game to their part is

to try to dig in and find the real truth

find your true strength find your true

weaknesses find out if you really are

indeed great for the job or are you just

pretending so this is the little game

and they've got a lot of little tricks

to try to find out the truth and one of

the tricks is this very very very

general vague questions

tell me about yourself there are two

ways to answer this question and in any

very general question actually but one

thing you can do with the general

question

tell me about yourself

what are you like things like that

they're super general right one thing

you can do is you can ask for more

information you can ask questions

this also gives you a chance to to think

it gives you a few extra seconds to get

your brain moving it so you could say

well what specifically would you like to

know

see that that gives you a little time

first of all to think and get ready but

it also guarantees that you won't answer

in some weird way that they're not

looking for

right so you you ask them to be more

specific you get a more specific

question more specific questions are

usually easier to answer that's one

thing you can do and you can do that

with any very general question is vague

where you're not quite where the

question seems so huge and big and vague

in general you can always ask for more

details you can always say well what

specifically would you like to know

that's a good little sentence to to

learn it's a good question to learn you

can use it a lot in job interviews to

get more clarity to be more clear about

what they're looking for

so what specifically would you like to

know what specifically

that's the important word specifically

would you like to know this will help

you a lot with the big questions okay

now back to the that one question

tell me about yourself what are they

looking for that they don't they're not

looking for you anything about your

personal life don't talk about your

personal life don't talk about your

family don't talk about your religion

certainly not

don't talk about your hobbies and talk

about your general beliefs not of that

stuff a really safe and solid answer for

that question is just to review your job

history

that's all tell me about yourself

well you know I'm my most recent job was

as a in english teacher at a place

called I IC which you can see on my

resume and so number 1 i'm just giving

my job history right I'm basically just

repeating my resume in many ways I talk

about my most recent job if I was

currently working somewhere i would talk

about the current job so number one you

just talk about what was your position

where were you working next thing talk

about what did you learn at that job

what did you do with the job and what

did you learn

important okay so what did you do I was

an English teacher there i taught

english speaking classes mostly to

intermediate students really simple what

I did but here's the important part this

is what makes the answer powerful next

talk about what you learned at that job

and what you accomplished now you'll get

into this more later in the interview

this is a general question so you give a

general answer you don't need lots of

details and examples for this question

because it's so general so you just say

I taught speaking English and you know

there I learned how to be a more

energetic and entertaining teacher

because thats cool they needed more

students and my manager one of the

teachers to keep and to bring in more

and more and more students to help the

school so he wanted the teachers to be

entertaining to be fun to be interesting

and so I learned how to be much more

entertaining and fun from that challenge

at that job that's it that's all I got

to say that answers that

tell me about yourself simple so you

don't need to go on and on and on

forever that's not necessary

talk about your work history talk about

your most recent job and again where

where do you work

what did you do there what were the main

things you did and then the important

part that makes your answer better and

different than most

what did you learn their what important

skills skills did you learn there now

when you're giving that answer what you

learned the skills you learned be sure

that it fits the job you're trying to

get ok so if I was trying to get a job

where and I knew they they wanted a

high-energy teacher they wanted someone

entertaining they wanted someone who

would bring in LA

of students well that would be my answer

but if I was applying for a job that

wanted different skills then I would

focus on different skills in my answer

so you've got again you always have to

do your research for the jobs you're

trying to get you got to find out what

are they looking for what do they want

and then you fit your answers to what

they're looking for anyone that's a very

general formula for that

tell me about yourself question just

give your recent job history

where were you what did you do what did

you learn what useful skills that will

help you with this job you're trying to

get so that's it now as I said just to

repeat one more time the very very very

very general big questions like that you

can also ask for more specifics right

well would you specifically like to know

what specifically would you like to know

in fact really in in job interview

questions you can kind of use that trick

at any time to if you're not sure like

they ask a question

let's say they say what's your greatest

weakness and your mind just stops oh you

don't know what to say

use that same question ask them a

question back well what specifically

would you like to know right

you can always use that it's a useful

question you can use it with almost

every interview question we call this

buying time you're buying yourself time

it means your brain stops for a second

hook and you need a little time to get

thinking again

so how do you do that well there is one

easy way is you ask a question back and

just ask for more specific information

what specifically would you like to know

and who knows they might just repeat the

question again well just tell me about

your greatest weakness but it gives you

a few extra seconds

it sounds fine it's a it's a nice

question you can ask makes you sound

professional

but you get a few more seconds to think

so that's another little extra secret

now as I said in the past show you have

to have the general mindset in job

interviews of contributing right you

gotta sell the interviewer on you for

making a sales presentation so what you

have to do is to convince them that you

will contribute to their company their

department right you're going to add

something you're going to add value to

them it's not about you don't it's not

about oh I'm so great i'm so great i'm

so great that's not really the attitude

the attitude is I can help you

I can help you i will be useful for your

company i will be useful for you i'm

going to help you i'm going to solve

problems for you i'm going to contribute

and be useful

that's the attitude that's the very

general attitude you want to have with

every single job interview and every

single answer to every single question

and I finally you are part of the

effortless English family

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I'm here to be the coach

I'm the father of the effortless English

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we treat each other and this is so

important and the main one the main part

of our code is we show each other we

care we show each other we care so so so

important so I care about you and thank

you for caring about me and for caring

about all of the other effortless

English members

we're all independent learners but we're

also all here to support and help each

other

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