What’s up Explearners.
I’m so happy to see you back and for those of you who are new here welcome this is the
place for you if you want to become better communicators and better public speakers so
welcome and definitely don't forget to subscribe to my channel all right so today we are going
to dive into a terrifying question in the interview process tell me about yourself so
for something that is almost intuitive everybody can talk about themselves it's actually quite
difficult when you are asked that question on the spot this question can also be seen
in different forms like tell me about your background or what's your elevator pitch point-blank
tell me about yourself and elevator pitch are fairly synonymous in the interview so
we’re going to learn today what to do to answer that question so that you're not just
pulling stuff out of your hat and trying to recite your resume because that is not the
question the chances of getting this question is 99.999999 you get the idea you will be
asked this question every single interview in some way shape or form it can be as casual
as oh tell me about your resume or what have you been up to lately or like I said point-blank
elevator pitch what are you doing let's uncover the three steps to answer this question confidently
and comfortably in an interview you’d think that if we're asked to talk about ourselves
we can do that smoothly and flawlessly but for those of you who actually been in this
situation you'll know that it's actually not that simple and it's not uncommon for somebody
to blurt out a response that they hadn't really thought through or to just go through their
resume and recite it to the hiring manager or to say something nonsensical right so instead
of doing that let's look at how we can make our elevator pitch better and give us that
confidence we need in the interview first of all I'd like you to think of the elevator
pitch that tell me about yourself as a gallery walk imagine you are taking the hiring manager
on a tour of your gallery now when you do this you going on a gallery walk you're only
going to stop at three pieces of artwork that you've chosen for the hiring manager because
you say that those are the three pieces of artwork that hiring manager will enjoy instead
of stopping at every single sculpture and painting and portrait or whatever else there
is in your gallery you're just going to choose three salient pieces of artwork let's get
right into it just one who are you for this I want you to start with the most compelling
information that you have what are you doing right now what's your current role and don't
start by talking about the first thing on your resume don't start at the beginning of
your life don't give too much information we avoid TMI in the elevator pitch and you're
going to do in a concise and compelling way to answer the who are you part of your elevator
pitch so you lead with what's impressive about you right now or something about your current
role what are you up to right now at this given moment when you're speaking with the
hiring manager the tip here is to tell them how you want them to see you you're setting
the impression that you want to give off how do you want to project yourself to the hiring
manager how do you want them to perceive you so you're basically telling them how to do
that I'm a cross-cultural Communications coach with over a decade of teaching experience
coaching experience and in the field of Applied Linguistics and language acquisition something
like that where you lead in with information that's pertinent relevant and compelling step
two why are you qualified for this role for this position whatever you're applying for
for this I want you to stay two points if you go beyond that then you're going to start
to go off on a tangent or you'll leave the hiring manager astray you'll give too much
information and then it's the purpose of just having two points right so then you're leading
the hiring manager in the other direction on the other side of the gallery which is
not what you want to do try to keep it under 2 minutes so 2 minutes max because otherwise
it's just going to start going on and on and on and then you're going to be talking too
much about yourself and the hiring manager might not have time to get through the other
questions that they want to ask I've spent the last ten years of my career in Asian and
European countries training Professionals in the corporate world and business people
around the world for better communication my second Master's is from Columbia University
in the field of Applied Linguistics right something like that so that it for this is
that you want to make sure that you emphasize relevant experience and proof of performance
so here's when you mention your promotion certain awards you won published articles
television appearances whatever you can have as the proof of performance and if you go
back and watch my video about anecdotes as interview ammo this is also a good place as
the proof of performance of course in 2 minutes you don't have that much time to relay a long
story but you can weave that in in other ways step number 3 why are you here so for this
if you want to show enthusiasm for the position and I don't mean you know jump off the walls
and be ebullient it if that's not how you actually show enthusiasm but whatever is authentic
to you you want to be able to convey passion and enthusiasm for the role nobody wants to
hire somebody who's not interested in that position so you want to make sure that that
is conveyed somehow for this you can think of keeping it between one and three sentences
the sweet spot is too so am for that because remember you have all this information and
this is just your elevator pitch this is the last step of your tell me about yourself so
you want to keep it concise and succinct say I'm trying to answer the question why I'm
on YouTube I might say something like I want to be able to reach as many people I can across
the world and help them become better versions of themselves through effective communication
and cross-cultural communication strategies using over a decade of experience in the field
the tip for this step is to tailor your answer as specific as you can to the job right you
don't want to have anything irrelevant to the position even if it's on your resume even
if you've done that well need a skill or an XP points so you just want to bring in the
pertinent information and that which can answer the job description question is also good
place to show that you research the company or the group of people that you would be working
with and then you want to wrap it up nicely and its distinct and concise way so that the
hiring manager can ask you the next series of question right because this is just your
elevator pitch this is the first thing that they will ask you the tell me about yourself
all right Explearners I hope you enjoy this video please be sure to give me a like I hope
that you found it informative and try to practice it on your own you can even time it and see
if your answers fit within those time restrictions because you don't want it to be too too long
and have fun with that leave a comment below on other types of interview related questions
or public speaking strategies and cross-cultural communication tips that you would like in
more videos on Explearning Communication Happy Explearning.