Tell me about yourself vs other questions?

I’ve read varying different things across different guides saying to include different things in this answer. Some guides say you should include why IB, others say you should show your strengths, and other guides say you should mention why this firm at the end.

I’m a bit confused as I figured that all of these different components normally have their own question attached to them, and wouldn’t want to be repeating myself too much throughout interviews. do you guys just briefly mention each part in this answer, or separate them for different questions?

 
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Imo the best answer to tell me about yourself is to tell them a little about who you are, briefly cover a hobby of yours that you think is unique. You want to humanize yourself. Now don't spend too much time on this part, just give them enough to get them interested, similar to how a skirt that's too long is boring but a skirt with the perfect length shows enough skin to capture one's attention. Got it?

Now after talking about yourself and the hobby, talk about the school and major (don't go too much in depth here because your interviewers will be bored as fuck honestly), and why IB (have a good reason for why you want to do IB. this doesn't have to be super complicated. The reason should be simple but should also let your interviewers understand you have an idea of what the job entails, ex: being able to foster relationships with multiple parties, etc). Afterwards, you can give a reason why this team at the firm, try to find something authentic or something that really matters to you about the firm. Example: Goldman Sachs, has great deal flow in X, likely driven by its culture of providing excellence and staying on top of all trends/products while also working as a team. < Now I took this out of my ass, but the point of this question why firm x is to see if you did the bare minimum research about said group/bank, and if you can kiss some ass? Some interviewers might be hardos and ask who is the CEO, what is a general trend about bank x, or what can you tell us about the deals group x has been working on.  Be prepared for these hardo questions. In my lateral interview, I gave some answers regarding culture and the deal flow of that group, and that was acceptable for them.

Tip - Remember to try to humanize an interview as much as possible. Make yourself human, but also show you're a great candidate for the role. A good candidate that's likeable > a candidate that can do the role almost perfectly but would fail the airport test, which is whether you would want to be stuck at the airport with the said analyst. A lot of guides on youtube and google will make you sound robotic as fuck and that's not good.

 

I would always get to why I’m in IB in an interview (hopefully previous internships/extracurricular/etc naturally points to this). Hard to have bank/group specific stuff in this answer without veering off topic (ie Goldman does cool deals doesn’t tell them anything about you). Maybe if you study CS then you can spin that into your answer if for a tech group/tech boutique, or if you started an e-commerce business explain how youre interested in consumer IB, but for the average candidate you just sound like a try hard explaining how your interest in the M&A group at JPM is a part of your story

 

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