Tell Me About Yourself

 

I’ve conducted countless interviews over the course of my professional life. Untold resumes screened, characteristics identified, questions prepared – over and over and over again. What a concept: deciding whether to meet someone based on one piece of paper, and deciding whether to hire someone based (in part) on one brief conversation. Talk about thin slices!

I used to frown upon people having a “Personal Interests” section. I want to know about education, experience, and volunteer opportunities, I contended, not what you do in your spare time. I wouldn’t ding folks for it, but nor would I bring it up.

But I’m coming around to how it helps me as an interviewer. Still not sure I’d recommend that people do this. But, if you do, that tells me something is so important that in an otherwise professional document you are eager to share something somewhat personal. And, given that the professional and personal are inseparable, I’m going to take the opportunity to probe on that.

My goal is not to make small talk; after all, I have an objective in the interview, as does the interviewee, and it’s not conversation for conversation’s sake. Rather, I’ll ask something like, “I notice you mention that X is a hobby of yours. Tell me a life lesson you’ve learned from that that would be applicable here.”

I’ve found this question to be invaluable in my interviewer arsenal. Think about what it unlocks in the interview. First, it shows how people process experiences in one setting to advantages in another. Second, it forces people to think about how something important in their life can be of help in our firm. Third, it often gets people revved up because they get to talk about something meaningful to them, and in doing so you get a window into what moves them and how they communicate it.

This applies not only to the hobbies people sometimes put on the bottom of their resume, under “Interests,” but also to non-traditional items in the rest of the resume. Someone who did a semester abroad in an unusual place or studied something unrelated to their major. Someone who, before racking up more traditional professional experience, was a professional athlete or artist. Someone who started a non-profit and did something amazing through it. These are the kinds of experiences that are invaluable in making for the kind of person I want to work with.

Not trying to denigrate the standard qualifications and signals that we look for when screening candidates. College still matters. Work experience is invaluable. What you study and what responsibilities you had at your previous jobs has direct relevance to my feeling comfortable that you can succeed with us. But the converse is not true. An econ major doing a year in Hawaii studying marine biology: that’s not an irrelevant experience. Neither is playing D1 football if you are applying for an entry-level marketing position. So long as I’m in the business of hiring people and not robots, this will always be the case.