Tell Me About Yourself — The Interview Question That Makes No Sense

Tell me about yourself. Yet another idiotic job interview question. What exactly is the point of this? If you had taken even a passing glance at my CV, you would already know who I am, what I have done, and why I am sitting in front of you.

Isn’t that what the CV is for? If you did not know me, how did I make it past the first cut and land this interview?

The most annoying part? The question is not specific. It is vague and open-ended. For this very question, I once replied, “Did you go through my CV? There are a lot of things I can say about myself. Be specific. Everything pertinent to the job is in the CV. What else would you like to know?” As you can imagine, that did not go down well. If looks could kill…

But honestly, if you are being interviewed by people who could not be bothered to read your CV before speaking to you, is that even an interview worth attending?

This question gets thrown around like some golden opener, but it tells you more about the interviewer than it does about the candidate. A good interviewer would ask something relevant, something thoughtful, something job-related. Not this lazy question that puts all the burden on you to guess what they want to hear.

My advice? Be honest. If they cannot handle it, maybe they were not serious about hiring in the first place.

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