Tell us about yourself

[chewb83]

Age old interview question: Tell us about yourself?

 

Any ideas on how to approach this?

[degoo_]

When mock answering this, I tended to talk about my family background, education background, and major themes of life (balancing all things, etc).

[muchdutch]

I went to an interview prep gathering, and they asked me this as the first question. The other interviewers (after) thought it was a pretty loaded question (though I'm not so sure of that) and pretty harsh for the first one (I'm not sure of that either). I was pretty much expecting something like this. I started out with my background, where I went to my k-12 and how that impacted me. Then I went on to discuss the various experiences I have had since high school up to university, and then university. Obviously a chronological ordering of all of the events in my life which included travel, employment, extracurriculars, etc. It was basically my life in a nutshell aka my med app in a few minute (I'm not sure really how long it was) schpiel. The conversation springboarded from there based on much of what I had said.

Baiscally this question (in my opinion) is a 'gimme' where you can highlight whatever it is you want to highlight about yourself.

[frenchfrog]

http://www.premed101.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7573

 

Too bad some of the replies are missing. . .but this questions has been asked many times before so try checking past posts.

[everyoneloveschem]

I know that this is easier said than done, but this question is almost a gift to you. It allows you to choose what you want to talk about, instead of being directed by the admin. You might use it to give a nice overview of yourself, adding more sparkle than what shows on your paperwork, or you may choose to highlight some of your features that did not come out on your application, such as casual hobbies and interests. It is worth thinking about this one for a while, because you need to know why you are unique and be able to show that to someone else. Also, having thought about it ahead of your time, if at the end of the interview they give you time to say a few words and you feel you did not emphasize a skill well enough, give it another go.

[blinknoodle]

I know that this can be a very gut-wrenching question, but I think oftentimes it is used to see where the interview will go by learning more about you and what you feel is important. Obviously you can't talk forever, so your choice of what to include says a lot of about you and your priorities.

 

To be honest, oftentimes if they are interested in something, there will be follow -up questions. I was asked specifically where I grew up, what I studied in school, because I didn't include them in my first answer.