This introductory question serves as an icebreaker to lend an easy flow to the conversation. It helps the recruiter to get to know you in terms of hard and soft skills.It’s a great opportunity to demonstrate that you can communicate clearly and effectively.

Why Interviewers Ask to Say Smth about Yourself

<ul><li>Present: Talk a little bit about what your current role is, the scope of it, and possibly a recent achievement.</li><li>Past: Tell the interviewer how you got there and/or mention a past experience that’s relevant to the job and company you’re applying for.</li><li>Future: Continue with what you’re looking to do next and why you’re interested in this job.</li></ul>You do not have to respond in this order. Tweak it to suit you. Make sure to tie it to the job and company.

How to Present Yourslelf

Keep It Professional: This isn’t the time to talk about your family and hobbies unless you believe that it would be relevant.Share Your Passion: Tell your story from a passionate perspective, even if that touches on the personal territory.Be Concise: Think of it as a teaser that should attract the interviewer’s interest. Give them a chance to ask follow-up questions about whatever intrigues them most. Know Your Audience: Are you talking to a recruiter or a prospective boss. Keep It Positive: Do not speak bad about your previous employer. It is a big turn-off.

Checklist for answering the About You Question

Interviewers want to know how your answer about yourself is relevant to the position and company you’re applying for.This is an opportunity to articulate why you’re interested and how your objective fulfills their goals. In order to do that, spend some time researching the company. If your answers resonate with them, it shows that you really understand the role.

Tailor Your Answer to the Question about Yourself

I always wondered why I am being asked this one on all interviews

When Muse career coach Theresa Merrill does mock interviews with her clients, she always leads with, "Tell me about yourself." It's good practice because that's often the very first thing an interviewer will ask you to do-whether you're having a preliminary phone screen, speaking to your prospective boss, or sitting down with the CEO during a final round.

career

Career

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

communication

Communication

Your Guide to Answering "Tell Me About Yourself" in an Interview

Regardless of the stage in the hiring process, candidates should always have the opportunity to ask questions themselves so they can decide if the job is a good fit for them.The other reason that HR uses this question is to find out if candidates are truly interested in knowing more. They should ask smart questions about the company, and preferably, questions related to the role, too.

10. Do you have any questions?

<ol><li>Why did you decide to apply to this role?</li><li>What experience do you have that would be relevant to this role?</li><li>Tell me about your experience in …</li><li>What did you like most about the job description?</li><li>Why are you leaving your current job? / Why did you leave your previous job?</li><li>What do you know about our company’s product/services?</li><li>Tell me about this gap in your resume.</li><li>Describe the workplace where you’ll be most happy and productive.</li><li>What are your salary expectations?</li><li>Do you have any questions?</li></ol>

What are the top 10 HR interview questions?

This is one of the best HR interview questions to ask to start a conversation on requirements and responsibilities.It’s useful to assess how much the candidate has understood the role.

4. What did you like most about the job description?

With this question, recruiters can assess whether candidates have truly understood the role’s requirements and whether they think they can do the job.The best candidates will readily explain how their previous experience relates to the job ad.

2. What experience do you have that would be relevant to this role?

<ul><li>I know that your company manufactures machinery and factory equipment.</li><li>Actually, I used your brand when I was working at Acme SA a couple of years ago.</li><li>I was really impressed with how high-quality and durable that equipment was.</li><li>I also saw your company has recently opened a new manufacturing branch, a good sign for your company’s success.</li></ul>

Sample Answer for Question 6

In your job ad, you mention you want someone with talent in inbound sales. I was actually a sales associate at a local store in my area for about three years.During this time:<ul><li>I learned how to approach customers and ask them the right questions to understand what they need.</li><li>I learned to handle difficult customers and solve crises. I can also be persistent without being pushy, which I think is a great asset for any salesperson.</li></ul>

Sample answer For QUESTION 2

First, the job description itself was very well-written and gave me a good idea of what the role was about.Second, I really liked the fact that this accounting role involves collaboration with others. I love accounting, but I don’t want to sit at my desk to look at numbers all day – I want to have the chance to work as part of a team where we can exchange opinions and knowledge of new accounting methods and organize the company accounting department in the best way possible.

Sample Answer for Question 4

What questions should your HR department ask during interviews?<ul><li>Should include what interested the candidate in the role and clarify their experience and past responsibilities to determine if they are a good fit for the role.</li></ul>Why are HR interview questions important<ul><li>﻿HR department interviews help screen candidates based on their qualifications and if they would be a good fit for the company, not just the hiring role.</li></ul>What questions should your HR department NOT ask?<ul><li>Asking a candidate about their family life, medical issues, or even what they do with their free time could land you in hot water.</li></ul>

Frequently asked questions

Could you tell me what the next steps in the hiring process are?Also, I read an online interview where your CEO said that your company wants to work with voice recognition technology. I’m fascinated by that. Will this role involve work on these types of projects?

Sample Answer for Question 10

After I finished my master’s degree, I started working non-stop for six years. That’s why I decided to take a break from work and travel to other countries to volunteer.This helped me clear my mind and help other people while acquiring new skills (like communication and organizational ability).

Sample Answer for Question 7

I really liked my previous job and team. I started as a junior and worked my way up to a team lead in marketing. However, I think that my time in this company has come full circle – I’m actually the one who coaches others while I don’t learn anything myself anymore.Learning is important to me, so I want a new job that will challenge me and help me develop further.

Sample Answer For Question 5

While similar to the previous question, this question proactively asks about the most important aspects of the role.For example, if a company is hiring a copywriter, they’ll certainly ask about the candidate’s experience in different types of writing or editing.

3. Tell me about your experience in …

This is one of several very common HR interview questions that may refer to anything “out of the ordinary” or interesting in a candidate’s resume, such as a job that lasted for only a few months or that was seemingly unrelated to the candidate’s background, or an outright gap in the candidate’s employment history.The purpose of these HR interview questions is to clarify these points and make sure there aren’t any red flags.

7. Tell me about this gap in your resume.

Similar HR questions to this have to do with various “technical” aspects of the job, such as willingness to travel or relocate, or ability to follow a shift schedule.HR professionals use this question to ensure they’re not speaking to a candidate who has excessively high salary expectations (or who is generally unable to meet the demands of the job).Candidates shouldn’t be asked to divulge their salary history or current salary – in fact, it’s downright illegal to do so in some jurisdictions – but expectations are a good way to make sure both parties are in sync.

9. What are your salary expectations?

I have been following your company’s successes for some time now and I know you have a great software development team. I checked your careers page regularly and when I saw this job, I was thinking this would be the best environment for me to apply the skills I acquired during my internship & Master’s degree.I have experience in web development and I’m really interested in the projects you’re mentioning in the job – in fact, one of them was the subject of my thesis.I really think I’m a good fit for the job & can grow even more in your workplace.

Sample Answer For Question 1

I like workplaces that emphasize both autonomy and teamwork.I like collaborating with others and exchanging ideas, but I also want to have flexibility to work uninterrupted for some time. Also, I value the absence of restrictions, such as a casual dress code unless I’m meeting with customers or partners.

Sample answer for Question 8

I’ve done some research on the average salaries for this type of role in my area and I think I would expect this role to pay between X and Y.But I think we can discuss this further at a later time if you think I’d be a good fit for the role. Could you tell me the salary range you have in mind?

Sample Answer for Question 9

This question aims to evaluate the candidate’s interest in the role.Are they really motivated to get hired for this specific job or do they just mass-apply to every job ad under the sun? Candidates should show that this application was a conscious decision on their part.

1. Why did you decide to apply to this role?

During my time as a marketing specialist in Acme Inc., I got to write a lot of marketing copy. I was solely responsible for writing emails we sent to prospects and customers, including newsletters. I also wrote short copy for social media and, occasionally, articles for our blog.

Sample Answer For Question 3

The purpose of these types of HR questions is clear: the HR professional wants to ensure that the candidate has researched the company and understands what they’re applying to.Candidates don’t need to show deep knowledge of the company and its products, but they should certainly know everything that can be discovered via a simple online search – of course, if they have already used the company’s products/services or they know someone who works there, that’s a plus.

6. What do you know about our company’s product/services?

This can take other forms, too, such as “What can we do to keep you happy if you were hired?” or “What do you like about your current job that you’d like to find here as well?” These are examples of culture fit interview questions that aim to assess the candidate’s suitability as an employee of the company. Usually, there’s no right or wrong answer. It all depends on whether each candidate is a fit for each individual company.

8. Describe the workplace where you’ll be most happy and productive.

The best candidates will cite good reasons for moving on from their previous roles. Being negative or badmouthing their employer is a red flag. Of course, there’s a balance – honest candidates will often give an honest answer, and sometimes, their previous employer really is at fault for the end of their employment relationship. Attitude is what matters in these HR interview questions. For example, it’d be reasonable if a candidate mentioned they left their previous job because their employer wasn’t paying their workers the fair market rate.

5. Why are you leaving your current job? / Why did you leave your previous job?

Here's a list of the best human resources interview questions for candidates, plus sample answers. The purpose of these questions/answers is to gauge the candidates’ basic skills and interest in the role and to clarify various points about their application and resume.

Wondering what the top HR interview questions are? We provide the best 10 questions to ask with sample answers from candidates. Check them out.

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

HR interview questions: The top 10 questions asked in the HR interview

Children think and speak with ignorance of convention and that can be helpful.
Ask one how they might tackle a problem, or imagine how you might reformulate a problem so that a child could understand it.

Ask a Child For Advice

Learning gives you new information and ways of looking at and understanding aspects of your life and the world.
And this helps you expand how you look at problems and the breadth of possible solutions you can come up with.

Take a Class

To stimulate your mind, read something you’d never have touched otherwise. Pay attention not only to the story but to the particular problems the author has to deal with.
Try to connect those problems to the problems you face in your own field.

Read An Unfamiliar Genre

Pick some media from different industries. You may find that other industries have problems similar to yours but maybe they were solved in a different way.
You may also find new linkages between your own industry and another, linkages that may lead to innovative partnerships in the future.

Study Another Industry

Drawing a picture is a right-brained activity, and can help break the hold of your logical left part of the brain on a problem the same way a poem can. Also, visualizing a problem engages other modes of thinking that we don’t normally use, bringing you another creative boost.

Draw a Picture

Turning something upside-down, whether physically or just by re-imagining it, can help you see new patterns.
The brain has pattern-making habits that may obscure other, more subtle patterns at work; changing the orientation of things can hide the more obvious patterns and make other patterns emerge.

Turn It Upside Down

Anecdotal evidence links shower to creativity.
So maybe when the status quo response to some circumstance just isn’t working, try taking a shower.

Take a Shower

Embrace mistakes and incorporate them into your projects. Developing strategies that allow for random input, working amid chaotic juxtapositions of sound and form – all of these can help to move beyond everyday patterns of thinking.

Invite Randomness

Working backwards breaks the brain’s normal conception of causality. You can start with a goal and think back through the steps needed to reach it until you get to where you are right now.

Work Backwards

Poetry bridges between our emotional and rational capacities. Though it may feel foolish (and getting comfortable with feeling foolish might be another way to think outside the box), try writing a poem about the problem you’re working on.
Your poem doesn’t necessarily have to be seen or propose a solution – the idea is to let the more creative part of the brain work on the problem instead of the more rational one.

Write a Poem

Religions are a way for us to understand our relationships with the supernatural and with each other. Learning how such relations are structured can teach you a lot about how people relate to each other and the world around them.
Seeing the reason in other religions can also help you develop mental flexibility.

Learn About Other Religions

These hacks help you face a situation that “everybody knows” how to solve

books

Books

problemsolving

Problem Solving

teamwork

Teamwork

Think Outside The Box

The hardest part of socializing, for many people, is how to start a conversation. However, it is a big mistake to go about life not making the first move and waiting for someone else to do it [in conversation or anything].

11 Ways to Think Outside the Box

Save anything that “resonates” with you on an intuitive levelThis is often because it connects to something you care about, wonder about, or find inherently intriguing. By training ourselves to notice when something resonates with us at a deeper level, we improve not only our ability to see opportunities, but also our understanding of ourselves and how we work.

Keep what resonates - Part 3|Remember

Every time we create a note or make an edit, we can make it just a little easier to find and make use of next time.This can include:<ul><li>Defining key terms in parentheses in case we forget what they mean</li><li>Inserting placeholders when we leave off summarizing a source so we know where to pick back up</li><li>Adding links to related websites, files, or emails that we’re likely to forget over time</li></ul>saving packets of knowledge in a format that our future self can easily consume, we follow a “pay it forward” strategy that we get to benefit from in the future!

Design notes for your future self - Connect|Part 1

<ol><li>Uncover unexpected patterns and connections between ideas.</li><li>Reduce stress and “information overload” by expertly curating and managing your personal information stream.</li><li>Develop valuable expertise, specialized knowledge, and the skills to deploy it in a new job, career, or business</li><li>Cultivate a collection of valuable knowledge and insights over time without having to follow rigid, time-consuming rules</li><li>Unlock the full value of the wealth of learning resources all around you, such as online courses, webinars, books, articles, forums, and podcasts</li></ol>

Benefits of building a 2nd brain

<a href="https://fortelabs.co/progressive-summarization-a-practical-technique-for-designing-discoverable-notes-3459b257d3eb/">Progressive Summarization</a> is a technique that relies on summarizing a note in multiple stages over time. You save only the best excerpts from whatever you’re reading, and then create a summary of those excerpts, and then a summary of that summary, distilling the essence of the content at each stage. These “layers” are like a digital map that can be zoomed in or out to any level of detail you need.It allows you to read the note in different ways for different purposes: in depth if you want to glean every detail, or at a high level if you just need the main takeaway.

Summarize progressively -Connect|Part 2

The first step in building a second brain is “capturing” the ideas and insights you think are worth saving. How do you do that?Think like a curator - Make conscious, strategic decisions about what you consume. As you come across social media updates, online articles, and podcasts throughout your day, instead of diving in immediately, save them for future consideration. As you begin to collect content, you’ll be able to choose which sources to consume in a deliberate way.

Capturing - Part 1|Remember

Instead of organizing your files primarily by topic (for example, web design or psychology), which is time-consuming and mentally taxing, organize them according to the projects you are actively working on. This ensures that you are consuming information with a purpose – to advance your projects and goals – and only at a time and place where you’ll be able to put it to use.

Organize by project - Part 2|Remember

Add value to a note every time you touch itThis could include adding an informative title the first time you come across a note, highlighting the most important points the next time you see it, and adding a link to a related note sometime later. By spreading out the heavy work of organizing your notes over time, you not only save time and effort, but ensure that the most frequently used (and thus most valuable) notes surface organically, like a ski slope where the most popular routes naturally end up with deeper grooves.

Organize opportunistically- Connect|Part 3

<a href="https://www.buildingasecondbrain.com/">Building A Second Brain</a> is a methodology for saving and systematically reminding us of the ideas, inspirations, insights, and connections we’ve gained through our experience. It expands our memory and our intellect using the modern tools of technology and networks.This methodology is not only for preserving those ideas, but turning them into reality. It provides a clear, actionable path to creating a “second brain” – an external, centralized, digital repository for the things you learn and the resources from which they come.

What is it ?

Your second brain will serve as an extension of your mind, not only protecting you from the ravages of forgetfulness but also amplifying your efforts as you take on creative challenges.

Begin to think of your projects as made up of discrete parts. I call them “intermediate packets,” which can include any kind of content we’ve already mentioned: a set of notes from a team meeting, a list of relevant research findings,etcInstead of trying to sit down and move the entire project forward all at once, a more effective approach is to end each work session – whether it is 15 minutes or 3 hours – by completing just one intermediate packet. This allows you to work in smaller increments, making use of any available span of time, while getting lots of feedback and taking frequent breaks

Create smaller, reusable units of work - Create|Part 2

We spend a significant portion of our careers creating snippets of text, outlines, photos, videos, sketches, diagrams, webpages, notes, or documents. Yet without a little extra care to preserve these valuable resources, our precious knowledge remains siloed and scattered across dozens of different locations. We fail to build a collection of knowledge that both appreciates in value and can be reused again and again.By offloading our thinking onto a “second brain,” we free our biological brain to imagine, create, and simply be present.

Why adopt this methodology?

A common challenge for people who love to learn is that they constantly force feed themselves more and more information, but never actually put it to use. But information only becomes knowledge – something personal, embodied, grounded – when we put it to use. That’s why we should shift as much of our effort as possible from consuming information, to creating new things. The things we create – whether they are writing pieces, websites, photographs, videos, or live performances – embody and express the knowledge we’ve gained from personal experience.

Don’t just consume - Create|Part 1

By consistently sharing your work with others – whether that is your family, friends, colleagues, or externally on social media – all sorts of benefits will start to materialize. You’ll connect with new collaborators who you never would have imagined would find your work compelling. You’ll find clients or customers, in some cases even when you weren’t seeking them. Others will reflect back to you their reactions and comments and appreciation (and occasionally criticism). You’ll find that you are part of a community that shares your interests and values.

Share your work with the world - Create|Part 3

Each note in your second brain is a record of something you’ve experienced in your life – whether that is from reading a book, having an interesting conversation, or completing a project at work. With all your most valuable ideas at your fingertips at all times, you never need to struggle and strain to remember everything you’ve learned.Because you know how to capture and make use of anything, every experience you have becomes an opportunity to learn and to grow.

Conclusion

Amazing ideas which can not just help you stash mindfully but also how to connect with them again and put those ideas to use.

productivity

Productivity

Building a Second Brain 🧠  - Forte Labs

At the end of the first pass you should be able to answer:<ul><li>Category: What is the type of paper? Literature? Prototype?</li><li>Context: What other papers are related to this one? Can you connect it to something else?</li><li>Correctness: This is a validity measurement. Are the assumptions valid? Answer based on your hunch.</li><li>Contributions: Most papers have a contribution section at the beginning. Are these contributions meaningful? Are they useful? Which problems do they solve? Are these contributions novel?</li><li>Clarity: do you think that the paper is well written? Did you spot any grammar mistakes? Any typos?</li></ul>

The 5 C's 

Duration: Can take up to 1 hour. Activity:<ul><li> Read the complete paper. </li><li>Ignore details such as proofs or equations. </li><li>Take some notes at the margins of the paper and write down the key points.</li><li>Look at any type of illustration in the paper like tables and figures and see if you can spot any mistakes or discrepancies.</li></ul>At the end of the second pass it can happen that you still don’t understand what you’ve just read. Maybe this is not your field of expertise or you are lacking background information. Write down what you didn't get and fill the knowledge gap later.

The second pass: Grasp the content


Use this only if you have to read the entire paper. <ul><li>Make little boxes: Surround equations, figures and tables with boxes. Do this during the first-pass. It will help to quantify how many details in terms of math equations you can expect. </li><li>Highlighters: Highlighters are a great tool to mark sections in your paper and give them distinctive meanings.</li><li>Mindmaps: There are no strict rules in creating mind maps. This may help you to get the big picture more visually and will refresh your memory about a paper after some time has passed.</li></ul>

Optional extensions(Part 1)

Goal: To get the big picture of the paper Duration: Less than 10 minutes.Activity: Glancing over the following sections of paper: <ol><li>Abstract</li><li>Title</li><li>Introduction </li><li>Conclusion</li></ol>Ignore the content of section and sub-sections.

The First Pass: The bird’s-eye view

Srinivasan Keshav describes the three-pass approach which acts as a filtering system. It is an iterative and incremental way of reading a paper. It consists of: <ol><li>The First Pass: The bird's-eye view </li><li>The second pass: Grasp the content</li><li>The third pass: Virtually re-implement the paper</li></ol>

The Three Pass Approach 

Doing a literature survey is a bit different than reading a single paper. <ol><li>First pass: In the first pass you have to collect potentially useful papers. Find 3 to 5 recent papers. You can now continue with the usual first pass procedure. You can also skim through the references to see if the papers have any citations in common. Common citations are good candidates to include in your survey.</li><li>Second pass: Vist the author's websites and see if you can find any recent work. Download the commonly cited papers. </li><li>Third pass: Try to visit the websites of the top conferences or journals.</li></ol>

Doing A Literature Survey 

<ul><li>Pomodoro Sessions: If you feel intimidated by the paper and lack motivation, you can use the pomodoro technique. Start a 25 minute timer without any expectations and read the paper. </li><li>Feynman technique: Choose a concept you want to learn; pretend you're teaching it to someone with no prior knowledge; review your explanation and identify weak points; simplify your explanation. </li></ul>

Optional Extensions(Part 2)

Duration: Can take up to 4-5 hours if you're a beginner(you should carefully consider if this step is worth your time). Activity: <ul><li>Read the paper in its entirety and question every detail.</li><li>Make the same assumptions as the authors and re-create the work from scratch. You can virtually re-implement the steps in your head or use any tools(like flowcharts) that you may deem fit.</li></ul>At the end of this pass you should be an expert and know the paper’s strong and weak points. You can reconstruct the structure and explain to someone in simple language what the paper is all about.

The Third Pass:  Virtually re-implement the paper

Learn how to read scientific research papers in an effective way following the three-pass approach which is rarely taught at Universities.

Your Guide to Answering "Tell Me About Yourself" in an Interview

HR interview questions: The top 10 questions asked in the HR interview

11 Ways to Think Outside the Box

It's time to
Read like a Pro.

Building a Second Brain 🧠 - Forte Labs

CURATED BY

Your Guide to Answering "Tell Me About Yourself" in an Interview

HR interview questions: The top 10 questions asked in the HR interview

11 Ways to Think Outside the Box

It's time to Read like a Pro.

Building a Second Brain 🧠 - Forte Labs

CURATED BY

It's time to
Read like a Pro.