Self Description In Interviews

The way to create a favorable first impression is to be sure you appear confident and open. When you meet your interviewer for the first time, make eye-contact at the introduction and repeat the interviewer's name as you shake hands and thank them for inviting you to the interview. As you get seated, smile to indicate you are ready to get down to business.

What often follows is the invitation to 'tell them about yourself' which allows you to commence your self-introduction that is so important to your interview success. This is the phase where you develop the rapport that will carry you through to the positive outcome at the end of the interview.

Because self-introduction is your key to interview success, you must have previously prepared exactly what you are going to say. This is not some lengthy story about your life, but a short focused statement that sounds interesting to the listener. You make it interesting by keeping it short (less than 3 minutes) and by showing that you are interested in both the job and the organization. This means you need to do some research about the business beforehand.

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All organizations have a list of desired personal attributes that they aim to identify when recruiting new employees. Many of those organizations also use the same qualities as the basis for their competency framework or to underpin the appraisal process.

Therefore to get yourself hired, you need to become skilled at describing your personal attributes in an interview, which is the starting point for getting yourself the job you want.

To help you out, just about all companies and organizations will measure you on some or all of the key personal qualities in the list below. If you're unsure how to describe your own personal attributes, then I recommend that you take one of the free personality tests available on the website and get hold of your report.

Here are some pointers for describing your personal attributes in an interview:

• Communication Skills - Most important for any candidate is to be able to communicate clearly. Think before you speak. In your use of language, show organized, analytical thinking.
  
• Interest - Show that you have great interest in the company's activities as well as the position. Demonstrate your interest by mentioning what you know about the business.
  
• Positive Attitude - Keep the tone of the interview upbeat throughout. Companies want employees who can achieve great results.
  
• Professionalism - All companies want their employees to display this quality. It's something that shows up in a candidate's overall approach.
  
• Flexibility - Companies are seeking bright candidates who are able to analyze and adjust to changing circumstances, solve challenging problems, and quickly understand new concepts.
  
• Leadership - Candidates with the ability to lead are universally sought after.
  
• Self-confidence - Interviewers will watch your body language to see how self-confident you are. Stand straight; hold your head high, your shoulders back. Use a firm handshake. Look the interviewer in the eyes, even when confronted with unexpected questions.

Work out how you can use your your interview answers to include these attributes; it will increase the interviewer's sense of satisfaction and by describing your personal attributes in an interview this way, you will the hiring manager to justify employing you. One of the best ways to learn how to describe your own personality is to take a free personality test and read the free report you receive.

In your self-introduction you will include some examples of your strengths and achievements which relate directly to the requirements of the new job. This must also demonstrate your personal qualities that you apply when you are doing the job because the type of person you are is often far more important then just having the ability to do a job.

The way you outline your self-introduction, in particular the way you speak, tells the interviewer whether you are confident in your abilities so you must rehearse it well, but don't try to be what you are clearly not - you'll only be found out at a later date. Get a friend to listen to your self-introduction with a critical ear, because if it sounds false it will set the alarm bells ringing with the interviewer who will detect that it is not the real you and destroy the rapport you were building up. Practice speaking faster or more slowly, louder or quietly and try to vary it throughout.

When you have prepared your self-introduction, ask yourself this question: 'What does the interviewer need?'

The answer is that the interviewer needs to identify the best candidate to hire, whilst keeping the costs to a minimum and the fewer people interviewed the better. The need is also for the person who appears to be the best 'fit' in terms of both personality and technical ability. Also remember that they may need to justify their decision to hire you, to someone higher!

Prepared well, this self-introduction is your key to interview success because it helps to create that all-important first impression, helps you to build the rapport with the interviewer and satisfies the questions about whether you are the sort of person who will fit in to the organization successfully.

Visit my site at www.Your-Career-Change.com where you can learn more about how to use your self-describing skills to answer the 'Tell Me About Yourself' question at your next interview.

You need to be the best you can at describing your best qualities; particularly your key strengths. In my coaching practice I generally, at some point, ask my client: "What are you good at?" purely as a means to establish if they have already thought through this most important question.

Some have, but more often they haven't and the answer usually involves lots of head-scratching, umms and arrhs and then quite often a monologue on what they're NOT good at!!

Your answer to this should be your key strengths statement which we talked about in personal marketing on my website - let me remind you.

A "Key Strengths" statement is a summary of your most powerful skills and attributes.

The Key Strengths statement

* Highlights your most important skills and abilities
* Differentiates you from others
* Avoids generalizations
* Provides examples of your achievements
* Spoken naturally should take no more than two minutes

This short example I've given you here should get you thinking so give your Key Strengths statement some thought now and develop your own.

"I have very good communication skills; I work well either leading or being part of a team and I am self-motivated and capable of working on several tasks at once.

As a leader of small teams I involve people in the decisions so that they feel involved and ensure they have the opportunity to contribute to tasks facing the team. I manage the information, plan and organise and make the decisions as required.

With my strong communication skills, I have been able to motivate the staff to higher standards of performance meaning we have also helped our profits figures through increased sales and tighter cost-control.

Alongside this I have encouraged innovation and my team has produced several very good ideas for new products, services and markets. As an example the new widget has taken off in Eastern Europe and is contributing 7% of profits in less than 18 months.

Most importantly I actively seek to develop members of my team for their own careers sake but also for the future of the business itself. This means I also look for personal development opportunities to ensure my skills are kept up to date."

A Chief Engineer's Key Strengths statement might go like this:

"I have very good communication skills and work across all departments to ensure that issues are identified and practical solutions are prepared. Coupled with my project management skills and my hands-on leadership style I am able to consistently deliver and commission projects on time and to budget.

I am focused on internal and external customer's needs, rather than purely functional needs and I apply specialist skills in continuous improvement and world class manufacturing to increase efficiency, reduce waste and losses due to downtime.

As Chief Engineer I have initiated and managed strategic change programmes and implemented effective quality improvement programs all the way through to successful local level implementation. This has led to savings of £750k per annum and helps to maintain the position and financial strength of my employer".

These key strengths statements naturally answer many of the interviewers questions whilst being reassuring in content. You will find though, that they will create new questions for the interviewer, so be aware that you must be able to substantiate everything you claim.

Try working on your own statement using your own words and skills, blending them together to create a strong "key strengths" statement to meet your needs.