Tell me about yourself

“I don’t need to spend much time on my elevator pitch. It’s just an ice breaker for the interview.”

WRONG!

Your elevator pitch is what sets the tone for the entire interview!

In fact, 33% of interviewers say that they can determine if a candidate is going to be a good fit within the first 90 seconds of an interview.

One out of every three interviewers are going to form an opinion on you before you’re even done with your first answer.

You’ve got to win early, or you risk losing early.

Most of the job seekers I work with tend to wing it on the “tell me about yourself” question.

We’ve all done this. Make it up on the spot and throw out some things you think are important.

Is this a terrible strategy?

Technically, no.

It’s not a terrible strategy because it keeps the conversation natural and not robotic.

You don’t want to answer that question with a script that is 100% memorized.

But you don’t want to fully wing it either.

The best strategy is somewhere in the middle—to have a structured outline of what you’d like to say and then fill in the middle with details on the spot.

So, what’s the best structure?

Hook > Today > Past > Future

If you’ve gotten to this point in the email and you’re thinking, “I don’t need this advice, I know how to interview well,” no hard feelings.

Just know that I’ve worked with some candidates who have 30+ years of work experience who have terrible elevator pitches.

No matter what your experience level is with interviews, there can always be some polishing.

Now, let’s get into it.

Hook

Grab attention immediately with a one-sentence career summary that shows your peak value.

Instead of launching right away into a specific position, give a confident snapshot of who you are and what your qualifications are.

Some things to potentially include:

• Your position title

• Your number of years of experience

• Your specialty or area of expertise

• Your greatest skill or area of impact

Example:

"I'm a Product Manager with 8 years of experience deploying SaaS solutions to drive seven-figure revenue growth in both the startup and corporate sectors."

Why is this effective?

It shows:

a) your total years of experience

b) the specific skill set you have

c) a standout achievement

d) what problem you can solve or value you can add

Today

The “today” section is what you are currently doing or what you’ve done most recently.

Some candidates opt to start in the past and work their way towards present day.

Here’s why you should reconsider this strategy and instead start with today:

Your skills and experiences change over time. What you were good at 5-10 years ago may not be the same strengths you have today.

The skills that you currently have are probably your strongest.

Therefore, that information is most relevant to the interviewer and should be said first.

How to structure the today section:

1. Use a clear transition after your one sentence intro. For example: “Most recently, I…” or “My current role is…”

2. Give a 3-4 sentence summary of your role and/or most important areas of experience (make sure they’re relevant to the role you’re interviewing for).

3. Include impact! Don’t just describe the role. Instead, focus on highlighting what you accomplished while in this role. What areas were your biggest value-adds? Quantify your achievements if possible. This attention to detail will leave a lasting impression.

Past

Use another transition to let the interviewer know that you are now pivoting to a different point on your career timeline. You can say things like, "In my past...," "Before this...." or "Previously..."

Once again, highlight the 2-3 most important achievements from a past role or past roles. You don't need to mention every role that you've had. You can merge multiple roles together and treat the past as a summary. In either case, only include the most relevant and impactful information.

Most importantly, make sure that everything you mention from your past experience is relevant to the role you’re interviewing for.

Future

This section is often overlooked, but it is CRUCIAL. Don't ignore this section. When you talk about your future, you should include two important parts:

1) Your goals for your next role.

The key: You must be extremely specific. Don’t say: “In my next role, I want an opportunity to grow and learn.” To put it bluntly, this is recycled cliche garbage that doesn’t mean anything.

Instead, say: “In my next role, I want to leverage my 5+ years of client-facing experience and my strengths in relationship building to help build new customer retention strategies and improve annual revenue growth.”

Boom. Fireworks.

2) Why you feel that this role is a good fit for you and what value you can bring.

The key: Tie it into the needs of the role. This is the time to flex the research you’ve done on the company or the role and show them how your goals (see above) help them solve a problem they’re having or improve a specific aspect of the business. Focus on your VALUE ADD here. Don’t talk about the role being a good fit for you because of what you will learn.

Again, companies aren’t interested in hiring you based on what they can teach you. They’ll hire you based on what value YOU bring. Explain to them why the role matches your strengths perfectly.

That’s it! Use this “Hook, Today, Past, Future” structure to win the first impression battle in your next interview.

For our premium subscribers, please see some examples below of elevator pitches I’ve developed with candidates with my “Tell me about yourself” exercise.

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