How to answer "tell me about yourself": a formula and answer examples

To answer "tell me about yourself", give a short, work-focused story in three parts: what you do now, two or three past experiences that fit the job, and why you want this role next. Keep it to about one to two minutes, as Robert Half advises, and leave out your personal life.

What the interviewer is asking

The question is usually the first one, and it is a request for a summary of you as a candidate for this job. Hong Kong's Labour Department says in its job hunting briefcase: "Please introduce yourself. The information you provide should be work-related." Singapore's MyCareersFuture site, in an article dated 24 July 2020, says to "skip your entire life story and focus on what the ideal candidate would say that will convince your future employer to hire you."

That makes the job description your starting point. MyCareersFuture's advice is to "always study the job description before you begin crafting your response". Pick out the two or three skills the role leans on most, and build your answer so each part points back to one of them.

Expect the wording to change. Robert Half notes that interviewers "may deliberately phrase it another way to catch out over-rehearsed candidates". "Walk me through your CV" and "introduce yourself" ask for the same thing.

The formula: present, past, future

Northwestern University's career centre calls present, past, future "an easy model to help you formulate your response". MyCareersFuture uses the same three parts in a different order, and Indeed's career guide lists both orders as the two common formulas.

Start with the past instead when your earlier work is closer to the job than your current one. Indeed's guide says that "if you're making a career transition and your previous experience is more closely related to the role, you may want to begin by describing your past."

How long to talk

The advice on length differs by source, so aim for the shorter end and stop once you have said why you want the role.

Tell me about yourself answer examples

The four answers below are illustrative. They were written for this page, and the names of employers and the figures inside them are made up. Use them to see the shape, then fill in your own facts. MyCareersFuture's article gives its own sample answers for fresh graduates, mid-career professionals and mature workers moving into a new career.

A recent graduate

Prospects suggests that "if your work history is limited, focus on the areas of academia that you've most enjoyed and how this relates to the job."

"I've just finished a degree in business analytics, and my final-year project was a demand forecast for a local grocery chain. I cleaned two years of sales data and built the model in Python. Before that, I spent a summer interning in a logistics team, where I rebuilt their weekly stock report in Excel so it took one person instead of three. I'm applying for this analyst role because your team does the same kind of forecasting at a much larger scale, and I want to learn it properly."

A career changer

This answer starts with the past, as Indeed suggests for a career transition.

"I spent six years as a secondary school maths teacher. A big part of that was explaining hard ideas simply and tracking how thirty students were doing week by week. Two years ago I started building the school's learning dashboards and found I enjoyed that part most, so I took a part-time course in UX research. Since then I've run usability tests for two education start-ups. I'm applying because this role sits between research and teaching users, which is where my experience is strongest."

An experienced professional

"I'm a customer success manager at a payments company, looking after forty mid-sized merchants across the region. Before that I spent four years in account management, where I learned to renew contracts by fixing the problem behind a complaint. Last year my accounts renewed at the highest rate in the team. I'm interested in this role because you're building the success team from scratch, and setting up the playbook is the work I want to do next."

Returning after a career break

The UK National Careers Service's advice for a long time out of work is to "explain why" and to "talk about the positive things you've done while away from work."

"I worked as a payroll officer for five years, most recently handling a monthly run of around 800 staff. I took two years out to care for a family member. During that time I kept my payroll certification current and did the bookkeeping for a local charity. I'm ready to return full time, and this role uses the same systems I worked with before."

What to leave out

Robert Half's advice is: "If it's something the interviewer can't or won't ask about, such as your marital status or number of children, leave it out." Indeed lists "discussing your personal life too much rather than your professional work" among the mistakes to avoid.

Two other habits make the answer weaker. Robert Half says "don't simply summarize your resume", since the interviewer already has it. Prospects warns that "preparation is important, but your answer shouldn't sound rehearsed". Memorise your three parts and the examples, and let the sentences come out a little differently each time you practise.

Robert Half also notes that "AI-generated responses often sound fluent but superficial". An answer drafted by a chat assistant tends to lose the specific details, such as the project, the number or the team, that make it yours.

Tell me about yourself in one-way and AI interviews

Many first rounds are now recorded. Imperial College London's careers service says "telephone interviews have largely been replaced by recorded video interviews in recent years", and that "it is normal to have around 20 seconds to read a question and consider your answer before recording begins, followed by two or three minutes to give your answer." It adds that some platforms now use large language models to ask "follow-up or probing questions based on your answers".

The UK National Careers Service points out that in a pre-recorded interview "you will not be speaking to anyone", so there are no nods or smiles to tell you how you are doing. Its tips are to look at the camera rather than the screen, and to use any practice question to check whether you can stop or re-record an answer.

Practise this answer out loud on camera, timed against the limit on screen, so that the part about why you want the role comes before the timer ends. If the platform asks a follow-up, answer it with one more specific example instead of repeating your summary. Our guides on the one-way video interview and how to prepare for an AI interview cover setup and practice in more detail.

If your first round is on ROUND.1, a hiring marketplace for Hong Kong and Singapore, it is one AI video interview in a web browser, with a camera and a microphone. It lasts about 20 minutes by default (roles can be shorter), 30 at most. There is one attempt, and the interview cannot be restarted. Each role is interviewed in one language, English or Mandarin Chinese. Accent, pronunciation, grammar and fluency are not scored. The interview is scored competency by competency, each score backed by quotes from the transcript, so specific examples count for more than polish. The full list of facts is on ROUND.1, explained.

Notes for Hong Kong and Singapore

Hong Kong's government advice matches the formula above. GovHK's job hunting tips (last revision November 2024) ask you to "present your answers in an elaborate yet concise manner", and the Labour Department's briefcase says your introduction should be work-related.

In Singapore, the MyCareersFuture article cited above is the government's own version of this advice, built on the past, present, future structure, with sample answers by career stage.

In both cities, practise in the language of the interview. If you are invited in English and your strongest examples happened in Cantonese or Mandarin, rehearse the English version until the details come easily.

Related questions

"Tell me about yourself" usually opens the interview, and "do you have any questions for us?" usually closes it; our guide to questions to ask at the end of an interview covers the second. For the questions in between, practise with our mock interview questions, and use the STAR method for any question that starts with "tell me about a time".