Interview Question: Tell me about yourself? 18

[AeroNucDef]

Hi

I was having a chat with one of my friends whose been looking for a new job (Design Engineer), he's been for a few interviews but he told me that he becomes stuck when the interviewer asks the "tell me about yourself" question. I tried to give him an answer, but I got stuck as well. I've been thinking about this question for most of the day now, and it's driving me up the wall. Being an engineer I'm quite good at talking about science & technology, but when talking about myself I can't think of anything that sounds right.
Not kidding here but my friends answer was: I'm a man, I'm a engineer. Quite blunt but right to the point.

What would you consider a good answer?

Yours
Fish

 

[monkeydog]

Oh, I would love to tell you about myself.
I am one of 5 chidren, middle child actually. I have 1 older brother, 1 older sister, 1 younger brother, 1 younger sister. I grew up in a small college / lumber mill town. I first realized I wanted to buid things when my uncle brought my brothers and I rubber wound airplanes as gift. He showed us how to assemble them and fly them. I was in complete awe in the whole concept of flight. I then would ask dozens of questions a day on airplanes, air, flight ...

After about 10 minutes they will be begging you to stop.

 

[AeroNucDef]

Monkeydog, That was brilliant, my stomach is hurting from laughing.

 

[jmw]

This is the sort of question that ought to be restricted to the social sciences candidate jobs, it is asking for trouble to ask it of engineers. If they want chatty sociable types who have a good conversational skill they shouldn't be advertising engineering jobs and expect really good answers.
But I'd guess IT types are the worst to ask this of.
My wife, by her account, managed to get one of those computer programmer types talking in the pub the other week (but since she does all the talking its pretty hard to tell if he actually took part in the conversation beyond saying "I'm a computer programmer."..... )
Social skills are not a major expectation of these people...

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[MadMango]

I was asked this question while interviewing for a medical device company. My reply was, "MadMango is a 32yr old half-breed mutt that like poetry, long walks on the beach, and..." The interviewer let out a great laugh, and I ended up getting the job.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of these Forums?

 

[IRstuff]

While social "skills" might not be a full expectation, an engineer is expected to be able convey ideas and discuss issues and problems. You can't be a "good" engineer if no one knows about it.

TTFN

FAQ731-376
Chinese prisoner wins Nobel Peace Prize

 

[KENAT]

Just refer them to your twitter feed.

Posting guidelines faq731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[IRstuff]

Or, if you don't really want the job, refer them to Charlie Sheen's twitter feed...

TTFN

FAQ731-376
Chinese prisoner wins Nobel Peace Prize

 

[JohnRBaker]

Trust me, that's the last question you'd want to ask me

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[KENAT]

More seriously, in some places there are anti discrimination laws that limit what personal questions they can ask you.

For instance depending on location they may not be able to legally ask questions that in any way relate to if you plan on having children (more relevant to the ladies perhaps but I'm trying to be equal opportunities here;-)).

They may also not be able to ask about your age, ethnic origin (though they may be moderately obvious in a face to face meeting), religion, sexual orientation....

So arguably, why would you volunteer information about any of these things, in fact it's arguably better for your interviewer if you don't. If you mention any of these taboo subjects, and don't get the job, maybe you'll bring a discrimination suit.

So then, what's left that really tells much about you outside of directly work relevant areas?

Hence it's a pretty dumb question really.

Still, beats the questions from my interview with Edwards AFB. We were in the middle of moving and I got a call saying they were interested in giving me a phone interview and they would call back a few days later for a panel interview with a few other technical types. Well I'd been a bit busy so hadn't really prepared as much as I should, and what prep I did do was more on technical/job aspects than 'how do I answer inane HR personality profile questions' given it was meant to be tech folks doing the interviewing.

Mistake, turned out it was almost all personality profile questions etc. such as "How many cars are there in America?" and "Describe yourself in 5 words" stand out in my memory.

Posting guidelines faq731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[FeX32]

I think a compressed version of monkey's response would do.


Fe

 

[Ron]

"I was born a poor black child. I remember the days, sittin' on the porch with my family, singin' and dancin' down in Mississippi....."

 

[TDAA]

Quite a classic, Ron.

 

[jmw]

an engineer is expected to be able convey ideas and discuss issues and problems

and probably can when asked an engineering question. These HR questions, and they all like to ask the "difficult" ones like "why do you want to work for us?" ("'cos I need a job.") and many of them may not get such a fluent response as an engineering question.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[ctopher]

Tell them in pictures, bring a family photo album.

Chris
SolidWorks 10 SP4.0
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[JohnRBaker]

Back in the 60's, when I was in college, they were still asking for information like race, religion, ethnicity, your selective service status, etc. but the Fed's soon put a stop to that. Then for about a year recruiters started to ask that a B&W 'passport-like' photo be attached to your application. Like I said, that only lasted about a year and this practice was halted as well.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[berkshire]

John R Baker
I was hired in the UK for a job in the States in the late 1960's
I got asked all of the now forbidden questions and had to attach the B&W photo.
At the time I sported a beard, navy style, well trimmed.
A comment was made on my hiring papers that I had a beard.
The company paid my airfare from the UK, I duly arrived at JFK, was met, and escorted to the plant, where I met the owner of the company. His first words were "Are you here to take the job"? I thought that was a bit of a daft question since they had just paid my airfare over the Atlantic, but I replied, well yes. Good he says, "because we don't want your beard", he continued, "you can either shave the beard, or you can take the next plane out of here". The company then made it clear that if I left they would not pay my airfare.
I shaved the beard.

How do you think a company would fare if they pulled that today?
B.E.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Well I worked for EDS (Ross Perot's old company) for about 11 years and while the 'dress code' had been relaxed a bit when our company was acquired by EDS in 1991, the rules that were left were still pretty stringent. For example, men had to wear suits with matching coat and pants (in otherwords, no sports coats), shoes with laces (no loafers), neckties (no bow ties), white shirts with botton-down collars. Women had to wear dresses or blouse and skirts (no slacks). And while they still had the no facial-hair policy for new hires, they did allow people who became EDS employees as the result of an acquisition to keep their beards/mustaches (I was sporting a sort of van dyke at the time but am now down to just a well-trimmed mustache) but you didn't dare wear your hair long (no 'Beatles' hair styles). By the time they spun us off 11 years later, the formal dress code had been officially ditched, but it hung on in certain parts of the company. I remember their first big concession, which happened a few years after we started there, was when they allowed employees who were 'permanently' assigned to on-site positions at EDS customers (such as all the people working at GM and other large accounts) to adopt the local dress-code of their customer. Up until then if you visited one of these large customers you could always spot the EDS people as they generally stood-out due to the way they were dressed.

Note that things are pretty casual at our location although I refuse to wear jeans and tee-shirt/sweatshirt to work (but some people do). No more ties (except when visiting certain customers in certain parts of the world), sport coat and white shirts only occasionally.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[tygerdawg]

Oh, fer cryin out loud.

Tell me about yourself is a standard gatekeeper question. It was dreamed up by HR weasels with delusions of grandeur who think they're psychologists. The interviewer doesn't care about you, or your opinion of yourself. They are trying to determine if you're greasy-haired, pocket-protector carrying geek with no conversational skills, poise, or aptitude for verbal articulation. They KNOW you can do the job as an engineer. They want to know if you can fit into their organization.

Develop & practice a 30 second self-biography response that emphasizes aspects of your background suitable to the company and how you will solve all the company's problems, and why they'd be fools not to hire you and pay you an extravagant salary & bennie package.

TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Virtuoso Robotics Engineering

http://www.bluetechnik.com

 

[SLTA]

Yep, Tygerdawg.

Try throwing something in that is interesting about yourself but answers none of the taboo questions (I am amazing at finding four-leaf clovers) or about your hobbies (I love rollerskating and trail running). In my job, I have to talk with homeowners, builders, building departments, architects, etc, and they aren't always in the mood to be pleasant. In my interview, my boss needed to know I could talk easily and nicely, even when the other people couldn't.