the "Tell me about yourself" question

I hate this question! It's so hard to start it- I usually talked first about my major, then my family, a bit about what I loved to do outside of school. I practiced answering this one on tape before I went in to interviews so I would have some practice at it.

I think all my interviews started with this question and it was cake. I basically reiterated my journey to get to this position; ie (wanted to be a doc when I broke my arm when I was 14, went to college and did X, Y, Z, then I went and got my PhD because of A, B, C, but then realizzed I wanted to go to med school cause of M, N, O).

beebee0 said:

Just wondering, at interviews when they say "So tell me about yourself." Are you supposed to start with "My name is xx", or just start with something else, since they already know your name?

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They probably know your name..

ChiDO said:

I think all my interviews started with this question and it was cake. I basically reiterated my journey to get to this position; ie (wanted to be a doc when I broke my arm when I was 14, went to college and did X, Y, Z, then I went and got my PhD because of A, B, C, but then realizzed I wanted to go to med school cause of M, N, O).

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This.

I'd probably throw in where you are from originally (born & raised) and your parents & siblings education.

In a lot of ways it's not really about what you say but how you say it, and your poise in how you answer the prompt/question. But, it can be pretty telling what you decide to bring up with the "tell me a little about yourself" prompt. By how you answer, you're telling the interviewer with what things or activities you closely identify, i.e. if you say "I'm the oldest of five kids" then they might infer certain personality traits about you just by that short statement, or that family is important to you, or if you say, "I really enjoy windsurfing" they might think something else.

Whether or not it's open file or closed file, they know what you look like and they know your name, so try to veer away from superficial things, and stay away from making jokes unless you are particularly deft at it (don't say, "I'm x years old, I enjoy long walks on the beach, Doritos, and I invented salad-in-a-bag, true story.").

Just have a nice balance between academics (major, your school, etc) and personal life (born/raised where, family, hobbies, etc). Pretend that your friend is introducing you to his/her friend, and take it from there.

This is a favorite of those interviewers who have not read your file or who do not have access to it (closed file interview). While introducing yourself as you would to a friend's friend is OK, keep in mind that the interviewer is going to ask f/u questions based on what you say so be sure to highlight your volunteerism, research, or whatever else you'd like to be sure is covered in the interview.

beebee0 said:

Just wondering, at interviews when they say "So tell me about yourself." Are you supposed to start with "My name is xx", or just start with something else, since they already know your name?

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Shouldn't be hard to do -- this is one subject that you know about better than anyone else in the world. I think Dr. Evil gave a good example of a response. Simply adjust the facts to those of your own life and run with it.

"The details of my life are quite inconsequential. My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a 15-year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims, like he invented the question mark. Sometimes, he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring, we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent, I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds. Pretty standard, really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum... it's breathtaking- I highly suggest you try it."

worst question ever. best bet is just to rattle off a list of random things about yourself- i grew up in ________, my parents were _____ and _____, i majored in XXX, I love to ______, etc etc,. Make a list beforehand so you can give a well-rounded impression of yourself.

That question is so lame. I don't know why some schools just don't get it. All med schools are in competition with each other to grab the best new students that they can attract. The schools clearly put a LOT of time, resources, man-power, and money into trying to attract students, and trying to sell their school to us during the tours and presentations on interview day. So after spending all that money and effort to try and convince us that their school is the right one for us, why do some of them then go ahead and provide an incredibly lame interview?

To me, the interview is one of the more important elements that I consider in deciding which school I want to go to. The tour and the presentations are just a one-time show to dazzle you. The interview is one of the few times as an applicant where you are ACTUALLY interfacing with the school itself, and it shows you what it would really be like to be a student there. If my interviewer stares at a computer screen most of the time, or asks me standardized questions that aren't specific to me, or clearly demonstrates that he's barely glanced at what I wrote in my application, then I believe that says a tremendous amount about how they would treat me as a student.

Medical school is hard enough with just the medical material, I don't want to go to a school that's gonna make it harder for me. I want to go to a school that's gonna be supportive of me as a student, and interested in me as a person. If your interviewers aren't going to take the time to become familiar with my application beforehand, and aren't going to make the interview process interesting, then I don't want to go to your school if I have other options.

It's amazing how a medical school can be full of very smart people, but then as individuals within that institution they go ahead and do dumb things.

Doc Of Life said:

If your interviewers aren't going to take the time to become familiar with my application beforehand, and aren't going to make the interview process interesting, then I don't want to go to your school if I have other options.

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Do keep in mind that some schools use a closed interview format to avoid interviewer bias. What you reveal is all that they know about you and it how you are judged by the interviewer. The interviewer is so interested in you as a person that you are getting to drive the conversation! Run with it!

LizzyM said:

Do keep in mind that some schools use a closed interview format to avoid interviewer bias. What you reveal is all that they know about you and it how you are judged by the interviewer. The interviewer is so interested in you as a person that you are getting to drive the conversation! Run with it!

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You have WAY (WAAAAAY) more knowledge and experience with this topic than I do, so I'm not gonna be foolish enough to argue with you, but I'd at least like to clarify and support my viewpoint.

Firstly, to me, it seems like a ridiculous policy for interviewers not to have read my application before my interview. Obviously I described my biggest relevant accomplishments in the AMCAS experience / awards section, and obviously I described a ton of the most meaningful aspects of who I am in my personal statement essay in my AMCAS application, and obviously I wrote about whatever additional topics are considered important to each specific school when I answered their secondary application's essay questions. So it's incredibly redundant and uninteresting to have to re-tell most of the info that I already provided. To me, a closed-file interview screams out that this is a school which goes out of its way to make things more complicated and difficult than it needs to be. The interview should be about communicating the stuff that can't be communicated in writing, like rapport, conversational skills, level of excitement about what I've done and what I hope to do in the future, etc.

Secondly, especially in a closed-file interview, the onus is on the interviewer to provide good questions that allow me to discuss things that aren't already provided in my application. Asking a question like "Tell me about yourself" is insanely inappropriate for a closed-file interview, because the main parts of the answer to that question I've already provided to you in my application. So now I'm in the position where I have to either re-describe most of what's already in your school's hands in my app, or I have to basically disregard your question and respond with an answer that doesn't really offer the best response to that particular question but does provide info that's not already in my app. The onus is on the interviewer to ask interesting jumping-off questions that allow us to easily avoid repeating stuff that's already on our app.

Thirdly, in the specific interview I'm thinking of where I was given this type of question, it was officially an open file interview. So my interviewer had absolutely no justification in asking that type of basic-info kind of question. It smacks of pure laziness on his part and complete disinterest in his job, perhaps even bordering on disdain.

Fourthly, whether it's closed or open file, the questions the interviewer asks should be interesting. I've spent a tremendous amount of time and effort making my application interesting to read, so it shows a complete lack of respect to then ask me uninteresting unoriginal questions. Again, if the school's interviewer can't be bothered to take the time to come up with some interesting unique questions for us to talk about, then that shows that the school doesn't care about making things interesting for its students, and I don't want to go to a school like that.

I could go on, but I've probably already crossed the threshold into too-long of a response. Bottom line: the interview is one of the few times that an applicant gets to sample what it would really be like to really be a student at that school. So if the school isn't putting in the effort to make sure the interview is an interesting experience, then that's probably the same low level of effort they'll put into making sure your education is an interesting experience. And I don't want to go to a school like that.

Doc Of Life said:

You have WAY (WAAAAAY) more knowledge and experience with this topic than I do, so I'm not gonna be foolish enough to argue with you, but I'd at least like to clarify and support my viewpoint.

Firstly, to me, it seems like a ridiculous policy for interviewers not to have read my application before my interview. Obviously I described my biggest relevant accomplishments in the AMCAS experience / awards section, and obviously I described a ton of the most meaningful aspects of who I am in my personal statement essay in my AMCAS application, and obviously I wrote about whatever additional topics are considered important to each specific school when I answered their secondary application's essay questions. So it's incredibly redundant and uninteresting to have to re-tell most of the info that I already provided. To me, a closed-file interview screams out that this is a school which goes out of its way to make things more complicated and difficult than it needs to be. The interview should be about communicating the stuff that can't be communicated in writing, like rapport, conversational skills, level of excitement about what I've done and what I hope to do in the future, etc.

Secondly, especially in a closed-file interview, the onus is on the interviewer to provide good questions that allow me to discuss things that aren't already provided in my application. Asking a question like "Tell me about yourself" is insanely inappropriate for a closed-file interview, because the main parts of the answer to that question I've already provided to you in my application. So now I'm in the position where I have to either re-describe most of what's already in your school's hands in my app, or I have to basically disregard your question and respond with an answer that doesn't really offer the best response to that particular question but does provide info that's not already in my app. The onus is on the interviewer to ask interesting jumping-off questions that allow us to easily avoid repeating stuff that's already on our app.

Thirdly, in the specific interview I'm thinking of where I was given this type of question, it was officially an open file interview. So my interviewer had absolutely no justification in asking that type of basic-info kind of question. It smacks of pure laziness on his part and complete disinterest in his job, perhaps even bordering on disdain.

Fourthly, whether it's closed or open file, the questions the interviewer asks should be interesting. I've spent a tremendous amount of time and effort making my application interesting to read, so it shows a complete lack of respect to then ask me uninteresting unoriginal questions. Again, if the school's interviewer can't be bothered to take the time to come up with some interesting unique questions for us to talk about, then that shows that the school doesn't care about making things interesting for its students, and I don't want to go to a school like that.

I could go on, but I've probably already crossed the threshold into too-long of a response. Bottom line: the interview is one of the few times that an applicant gets to sample what it would really be like to really be a student at that school. So if the school isn't putting in the effort to make sure the interview is an interesting experience, then that's probably the same low level of effort they'll put into making sure your education is an interesting experience. And I don't want to go to a school like that.

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yes. zzz

Doc Of Life said:

... I want to go to a school that's gonna be supportive of me as a student, and interested in me as a person. If your interviewers aren't going to take the time to become familiar with my application beforehand, and aren't going to make the interview process interesting, then I don't want to go to your school if I have other options.
...

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While I agree that the question isn't a great one, and shows laziness on the part of the interviewer, I would suggest that it's actually a question that should work in your benefit. You get to talk about what should be your favorite subject, you, and are being given the reigns to steer the conversation to whatever strong points you feel are worth hammering in the interview. The importance of the interview is that there will literally be 10,000+ applicants at every school who look good enough to admit on paper. From that a school has to see who can continue to impress when they meet them in person. Basically they don't want someone with on paper stats, they want someone who jumps off the page. So they need to get you to talk. This is a service industry, talking to people is a big part of what we as doctors do, whether it's advising patients, giving lectures/grand rounds, or talking to other physicians. So open ended type questions can be very helpful in getting premeds to talk. Sure, it's nice if they use the resume as a spring board. But each interviewer has his/her own style and is trying to set up an atmosphere where the interviewee opens up and gives them a sense of who they are as a person APART from the application. If you wow them both on paper AND as a person, you tend to help yourself immeasurably. To a big extent the interview is the most important part of the process, and you need to go in there ready to talk, not waiting to be drawn out with resume oriented questions.

Watch talk shows like Letterman, Conan, Leno, etc. There are several kinds of guests, the ones like Robin Williams or Howard Stern who come shooting out of a cannon and really take control of the interview, and those with whom the interviewer basically has to pull teeth to get them to give more than a one word answer. Guess who gets asked back. Works the same in med school interviews. If you are good at interviewing, it shouldn't matter what kind of question you get asked, you are there to talk and can use almost anything as a spring board to steer the conversation to your strong points. Having an interviewer give you free reign like "tell me about yourself", while not showing a lot of thought on the interveiwer's part, certainly should be seen as an easy layup.

Law2Doc said:

it's actually a question that should work in your benefit. You get to talk about what should be your favorite subject, you, and are being given the reigns to steer the conversation to whatever strong points you feel are worth hammering in the interview.

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I agree with you that having a open-ended question can be good because it lets you highlight your main selling points, but I think questions of the "tell me about yourself" variety actually AREN'T open ended unless you twist things around so that you're not really answering the question, but force in the things you want to talk about.

Law2Doc said:

The importance of the interview is that there will literally be 10,000+ applicants at every school who look good enough to admit on paper. From that a school has to see who can continue to impress when they meet them in person. Basically they don't want someone with on paper stats, they want someone who jumps off the page. So they need to get you to talk.

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Oh, I totally agree 100%, but that actually bolsters my point. The best way to get people to talk isn't to ask them a vague question that is completely impersonal. The best way to get someone to talk is to begin the conversation with a topic to discuss. For instance, it's perfectly reasonable if they ask something like "tell me why you think you'd be a good doctor?" That's still open-ended enough that the person can talk about almost anything at all they'd like to highlight, but it's also a directed enough question that there's a purpose to your answering them. Saying "tell me about yourself" is about as conversationally interesting a jumping-off point as if they just said "please start talking now."

Law2Doc said:

Watch talk shows like Letterman, Conan, Leno, etc. ... If you are good at interviewing, it shouldn't matter what kind of question you get asked

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Again, this isn't about my ability to deliver a good interview, in fact in my not-so-humble opinion I think I actually deliver a great interview and I see it as one of my strong point. Rather, this is about me judging THEM. Even though I can answer that question with a reasonably good response, I definitely see it as a bad indicator for the quality level of the experience that that school offers.


edit: p.s. Just to clarify, my point is different than the OP's point. The OP was asking how to answer that question, while my main point is that it's a lame question for the interview to ask and a bad sign for how the school would treat you as a student.

Sorry for reviving an old thread, didn't want to add another thread to the crowded forum if I can get my question answered here.


Do you usually get to finish the "tell me about yourself" question, or do you usually get cut off at an interesting part with a follow-up question? I ask because I want to know if I should make my response front-heavy or count on finishing all aspects of it.

Tippyboat said:

Sorry for reviving an old thread, didn't want to add another thread to the crowded forum if I can get my question answered here.


Do you usually get to finish the "tell me about yourself" question, or do you usually get cut off at an interesting part with a follow-up question? I ask because I want to know if I should make my response front-heavy or count on finishing all aspects of it.

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Well, given that most physicans interrupt their patients only 18-23 seconds, front loading might be a good idea when your interviewer is a physician.