Ask HN: In an interview, what do you answer when asked “tell us about yourself”

This is my favorite question!

My answer is always something that ties together my entire career. That changes over time (obviously), but my current answer is something like this:

"I like telling stories. I'm an engineer, for sure: my degree is actually in physics, and I worked my way out of that, eventually ending up as the first engineer in a Providence startup. When we were acquired, though, I found that I was really good at explaining not only what we did, but _why_ we did what we did. I moved into sales, closed our first 100 customers, and ended up running the marketing team. When you're small, storytelling is explaining to one person why your product is important. Marketing is just scaling that. No matter what, I want to understand at a technical level what's happening, then help close that gap to make it interesting to people, whether that's in code, sales, or marketing."

It might be apparent that I'm not a straight-up engineer anymore, but I do think it's hugely valuable to point out why you've taken a different path from others, or what drives you. Making it a single truth that guides everything you do (knowing that that's wildly untrue) makes it easy for the interviewer to ask you more in that frame.

Reading this thread I actually answer VERY different this question.

I almost never say anything even closely related to the job I apply. I talk about me, what I am as a person, what I like and also what I would like to do in the future. These plans might not even involved the company I'm talking to, I don't really see that as a bad thing.

In the end I'm just being myself, if it does not work I could probably have sneak my way into the job by lying or whatever but in the end, I would have probably ended up miserable so it's a win win.

From sitting on both sides of the table, here's the gist of what I'm expecting to hear:

"Most recently I've been working at <company> on <short summary of project>. When I was there, I <two to three things I did which demonstrate that I'm awesome>. In my spare time I've been <something related to programming>."

The point of the question is to get you comfortable with the interview and give you the chance to say a few words on your own terms. The best thing you can do is show me you're someone who can effectively execute on a project, and give me some hooks that we can talk about in more detail.

Don't overthink it. It's an elevator pitch - it shouldn't take more than a minute or two.

I think you're struggling because the question is so broad. I'm pretty sure that most interviewers aren't even sure why they are asking the question. Some are probably using it in order to get the conversation going. A much smaller, savvier group might be using it to see how you define yourself. Either way, I tend to ask a clarifying question: "What do you want to know about? My hobbies? Education? Work experience?"

Your answers to pretty much all interview questions should be tailored to the specific job and the story that you want the interviewer to remember about you.

It depends on the company you're interviewing with.

If, for example, you founded a tech company, the way you described it would differ whether you were talking to: your parents, a tech journalist, a potential client, a potential cofounder, a potential engineer, a potential product manager, etc.

Each company you talk to will be different and have different needs. No one can tell you what those are—that's your job as the candidate. But to give you an idea, let's say you were interviewing for a 4-person startup. A small startup typically needs generalists who show a lot of passion for the company and their work. Someone who can thrive in scrappy environments without a lot of process and push the company forward in more ways than what you were hired for.

Now your narrative should use any relevant experience, even if it were, for example, working at your parents' pizza shop when you were 15 (in lieu of any actual field experience). "I'm a naturally self-motivated worker who really thrives in smaller, scrappier environments. For instance, my parents' local pizza store was chronically understaffed so I developed a process that could combine X and Y while doing Z so that individual productivity went up 3x. I have a great deal of passion for what I work on and always own the result from start to finish."

"I've been playing games since we were old enough to go to the old arcade across the street in Ukraine and then fell in love with Warcraft 2 after we moved to the U.S. and got our own computer. My favorite types of games to play ended up being simulations, so I'm very interested in life simulation in general and have been working on a browser-based snail simulation for several years for fun. My first job in games was in Australia, at a then-AAA company that went down and after that I went on to contract for smaller games companies and businesses doing web development and software QA. Eventually I wanted to move to a country with a better games industry and help to make larger games again, so I arranged a move here while working on my own smaller projects at the same time, which you may have already seen on my website and GitHub [which I would have linked as part of my CV/cover letter]."

Or something along those lines, shortening or going deeper as in-between discussion guides. Mostly I outline my experience with and attitude toward games and making them.

Then again, the last time I interviewed was years ago, so it would no doubt change now to account for later experiences.

I give a pretty high level over view of things I would like to highlight. I try to make a point to mention things that will elicit more "concrete" questions. For example, I mention that I just recently moved to Seattle which is usually quickly followed by "Where did you move from?" I tell them I moved form NYC and almost always that is followed by "Oh wow NYC, That's a big change!"

I mainly describe things I want to talk about so that I'm asked questions about those things and I can elaborate on them. The interviewer isn't likely to have an extended dossier on your life (I guess if you were interviewing at the NSA they might) so you get an opportunity here to highlight the things that make you sound best. They can only ask you about what you tell them so tell them some cool things.

1.) Start general ("I'm an x developer with y years experience.) You want to tell them 2-3 selling points ( I have a lot of experience with x, I'm great at y).

2.) Always be closing. Whatever you decide to tell them, put yourself in their shoes and ask "Does this person sound like a great hire?"

3.) Don't be boring. Your 2-3 selling points should prompt them to ask you more about those things. Don't recite your resume.

It's not really a question, more of a command, and it's a terrible one at that, simply because it is so vague. I often will just ask the interviewer "what are you most interested in hearing about?" and that generally will lead to a more specific question from them, such as "tell me about your most recent project or job" or "What do you find interesting?" or something to that effect.

I'm a firm believer that an interview is a two-way process, and that if you don't feel a question is a good one, helping the interviewer rephrase/reframe it so you can have a more fruitful conversation.

At the tech interview bootcamp [http://InterviewKickstart.com], here is how we think about it:

* The interviewer is looking to break the ice and also get to know what to ask you next.

* For you, it's an elevator pitch, and shouldn't take more than one or two minutes. Too short isn't good either.

* You can give an answer which falls into either of the three categories:

a) An answer that subtly sells yourself. Not blatantly, but subtly

b) An answer that leaves it neutral

c) An answer with which you shoot yourself in the foot

* The key is to prepare beforehand.

If you are not prepared, then there are high chances you'll ramble for a time that's too long or too short, and/or you'll pick words that shoot yourself in the foot. e.g. "... and that project I did, failed. Man, I should have coded faster". Not good.

Or, without preparation, you'll leave it neutral i.e. you'd have wasted the opportunity to impress the interviewer, or lead them into a direction you want them to go into.

You want to target the best outcome (a) above. To do that, best is to prepare with someone (a friend, mentor etc) and choose your words carefully. A good answer to that, has:

1. Focus: Based on the position you're interviewing for, talk about related work.

2. A hook or two: A good company you may have worked for, a good OSS project, a good school you went to, any stats on scale you've handled, anything that led to broader recognition etc.

3. End with what you're looking for

e.g.

1. "My name is Mia. I am a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon, specializing in Cloud Computing. I previously interned at Google and Microsoft. I'm looking for a fulltime role at a company that interfaces with hardware and software"

2. "Hi, I'm Praveen. I work as network protocol engineer at Ericsson. I have deep interest in the area and have authored two papers on it. I'm looking to branch out into application level engineering"

3. "Hi, I'm Mani. I'm a DBA by profession. I held Oracle certifications back in the day. My most recent experience has been with MongoDB in a 24/7 environment with a peak QPS of 25000. I am also very comfortable with managing MySQL and have managed a hybrid environment of 150 instances. I'm looking to go to a place which has a mix of NoSQL and SQL environments"