{"id":450,"date":"2015-11-02T09:30:59","date_gmt":"2015-11-02T09:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/?p=450"},"modified":"2025-10-22T15:57:54","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T14:57:54","slug":"how-to-answer-tell-me-about-yourself-interview-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/2015\/11\/02\/how-to-answer-tell-me-about-yourself-interview-question\/","title":{"rendered":"How to answer 'Tell me about yourself' interview question!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You are bound to have an interview as part of your placement or graduate job search, interviews come in all shapes and sizes \u2013 from an informal chat over a coffee to pre-designed questions seeking to uncover strengths, competencies and motivations. The word on the street is,\u00a01 in 4 interview questions is predictable; with typical interview questions falling into the following categories:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Biographical<\/li>\n<li>Motivation<\/li>\n<li>Competency<\/li>\n<li>Brain Teasers \/Technical<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This week, we are going to share with you our top tips and advice to answer typical interview questions starting with Biographical questions.\u00a0These types of questions are also called <em>\u2018un-structured\u2019<\/em> questions and they typically come up at the start of an interview. Most employers don\u2019t have a specific aim in mind, other than getting an overall impression of you as an individual. Questions are fairly open ended, such as:<\/p>\n<p>\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Tell me about yourself?<\/p>\n<p>\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Tell me about your education to date?<\/p>\n<p>\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0What can you offer our company?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/82\/2015\/11\/5.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-452\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/82\/2015\/11\/5-292x300.png\" alt=\"5\" width=\"292\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/82\/2015\/11\/5-292x300.png 292w, https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/82\/2015\/11\/5.png 570w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 292px) 100vw, 292px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Below are two examples of answers to the question \u201cTell me about yourself\u201d. If you were the interviewer, which candidate's answer would you score better?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Candidate A<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am a 2nd year student at Bath, I have 10 GCSE\u2019s and four A-Levels. I did Maths where I got an A*, Biology where I got an A, Chemistry where I got a B and Computer Science where I got an A. I decided to study Computer Science at Bath and I am really enjoying it. I have had good grades for my modules and I also work part time in Fresh. I think this placement is really interesting so, yeah here I am\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Candidate B<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am a 2nd year Computer Science student at Bath. I have an excellent academic record and am averaging 70% in my first year. I have a good grounding in the theory and practice of programming and am currently working on a group project to design an interactive App. I have excellent Java and C skills and have taught myself Python in my spare time. Outside of lectures, I work in Fresh which is an on-campus supermarket, it is a busy and fast paced environment. I have developed my confidence in dealing with a wide range of customers. This placement sounds really interesting, and I would love the opportunity to work with other programmers and to learn from their experience. I noticed that there is an opportunity to write code in Java which I am really interested in\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>How to answer Biographical Questions.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Impose a structure, treat the question like an essay so ensure you have a beginning, middle and an end.<\/p>\n<p>2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Select information, experience and skills from your CV that are most relevant to the job.<\/p>\n<p>3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Biographical questions are all about making the right first impression! So make sure you are smiling, sitting straight and are making good eye contact.<\/p>\n<p>Check in tomorrow for our tips on how to answer Motivation Questions. And remember, we can help in careers by offering you a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bath.ac.uk\/students\/careers\/one-to-one\/index.html#practice\" target=\"_blank\">practice interview<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You are bound to have an interview as part of your placement or graduate job search, interviews come in all shapes and sizes \u2013 from an informal chat over a coffee to pre-designed questions seeking to uncover strengths, competencies and...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":384,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[748],"tags":[179,44,180],"class_list":["post-450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","tag-biographical-questions","tag-interviews","tag-tell-me-about-yourself"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/384"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}