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'Tell Me About Yourself:' 5 Steps to a Well-Crafted Answer

  • 'Tell Me About Yourself:' 5 Steps to a Well-Crafted Answer-

    Cut the Fluff

    Step #4: Cut the fluff.

    To keep your audience's interest, cut anything that may be considered unnecessary. To do this, tailor your general elevator pitch to fit the particular role you're applying for, professional you're speaking to -- you get the idea. Use the company's job description to guide your speaking points and just address the skills, knowledge, or experience it references.

    To further cut down your elevator pitch, practice it with a colleague and have them identify any excess or irrelevant information. Sometimes the best way to perfect something is to request a little help from a third party.

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'Tell Me About Yourself:' 5 Steps to a Well-Crafted Answer

  • 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
  • 'Tell Me About Yourself:' 5 Steps to a Well-Crafted Answer-5

    Cut the Fluff

    Step #4: Cut the fluff.

    To keep your audience's interest, cut anything that may be considered unnecessary. To do this, tailor your general elevator pitch to fit the particular role you're applying for, professional you're speaking to -- you get the idea. Use the company's job description to guide your speaking points and just address the skills, knowledge, or experience it references.

    To further cut down your elevator pitch, practice it with a colleague and have them identify any excess or irrelevant information. Sometimes the best way to perfect something is to request a little help from a third party.

If you've ever interviewed for a job or attended a networking event, it's likely you've been asked the dreaded "tell me about yourself" question. It's a short but tricky question that can lead to a rambling quagmire. Where do you begin? What do you include? Obviously, the person asking doesn't want to know about your early years in elementary school, but you want to make sure you cover all the salient points that would interest the interviewer and increase your chances of landing the job.

According to Heather Huhman, writing for Glassdoor, 49 percent of over 2000 hiring managers surveyed by CareerBuilder make a decision on whether a candidate is a good fit for their company within the first five minutes of an interview. Given this incredibly short audition time, it's critical that you have a solid, well-crafted answer ready to go.

To help you create an elevator pitch that can be used in a variety of situations and, most importantly, the job interview, Huhman has outlined a five-step plan on how to pitch yourself to others -- without going off topic.