This is one question that employers ask to judge how confident you are

Job interviews can unnerve anyone especially if it is your first. The key to impress your potential employers is simple. Recruiters often ask some basic questions in an interview, which may seem easy, but actually needs a lot of work. BI India will pick one such tricky question every day and will demystify it so that you are better prepared for your future job interviews.

‘Tell us something about yourself’

This question sounds simple but by asking this question, most recruiters want to gauge if a candidate is articulate his resume well. “Employers want to know if he is able to position himself as the candidate of choice from the employer’s side. In a nutshell, a lot of recruiters filter out a lot of candidates in this one answer itself,” V Suresh, executive vice president and chief sales officer at job Naukri.com had said sometime back.

Recruiters often expect the candidate to know himself thoroughly. They expect the candidate to briefly tell them about his academic qualifications followed by his professional experience.

So how do you answer a question such as this? It’s simple; talk about yourself. Talk about things that are not mentioned in your cover letter or your CV. Talk about your interests, your hobbies. This allows the recruiter and you to start a conversation on an informal note, which helps him gauge your personality. Besides, it also gives you an opportunity to question him about the organisation’s values and ethics, which gives you an insight into the kind of employer you will have.

Apart from this, share your experiences and the lessons you learned in your previous workplaces. Believe it or not, most of the times, recruiters want to gauge your confidence. A little into the conversation, your answer also helps them understand if you are a positive person or been a complaining employee. Besides, your reply also gives them a fair idea if you have had the necessary experience that the job really requires.

So the next time you are asked this question, you know what’s going on in the employer’s mind. Don’t you?

Image Credit: Businessinsider.com