How to make “tell me about yourself” truly resonate with a recruiter?


I’m doing a round 1 interview with a MM investment bank on Friday, and have done lots of prep, but am struggling with one area.

1st round is with an HR so it’s just a screening and all behavioral questions. I want my story to resonate emotionally as I usually just talk logically.

What do you think is the best way to resonate or create a story in a “tell me about yourself” question while still being concise; and not sounding fake. I have the chronological order but I need some type of story or way to present it that comes across more resonating. Any advice would be great. Thanks all.

5 Comments
 

Go to a TV competition show that awards the prize to the person with the saddest backstory (Americas got Talent), copy it event for event, and you're good!

Tell me about yourself is a checkbox question that alone does not seperate you from the pack unless you got a super untraditional story. Just hit 1. Year Major at X School, 2. Where u grew up and why u chose X school 3. Chronological Internship & EC activity, 4. How it led to the job/firm you're interviewing for

 

why th3 fuck would your story resonate with them. Its your story not theirs. Its likely not to resonate with them. There is nothing wrong with that

 
Most Helpful

If I ignore the pure autism seeping from this post and assume that you actually mean you want to make this answer more compelling then I can help.

Tell me about yourself/walk me through your resume can easily become a boring recital of what's on your resume. That's not how it should be. Instead you should walk me through your brief reasonings, motivations and thoughts as you go through it.

E.g. say you had an internship in sales and trading and then a macro HF. You could say "I first did an S&T internship at blablabla then went on to do a macro internship at blablabla"

Or you could say all that + briefly the elements you liked about S&T but what you sought more of that led you to pursue exploring macro HF. Now these reasons/motivations are likely to be partially made up, you probably went to these internships simply because that's what you landed but you should be able to come up with something that sounds reasonable.

So you've moved away from just simply telling me what you did, to actually telling a story that indicates to me that you've really thought about your path here. Also really cements your motivations for eventually applying to whatever you're applying for as a natural progression of previous experiences.

 

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