Let’s get one thing straight. Nobody, and I mean nobody, enjoys the question “So, tell me about yourself.” It’s a verbal Rorschach test designed by some long-forgotten HR guru, probably named Herb, who thought ambiguity was the key to unlocking a candidate’s soul. It’s not. It’s the key to unlocking flop sweat and an internal monologue that screams, “Do they mean my professional self? My Dungeons & Dragons character? The version of me that sings Cher in the shower? WHICH SELF ARE WE TALKING ABOUT, HERB?”
For most of us, we manage to cobble together a semi-coherent, pre-rehearsed spiel about our “journey” and how we’re “passionate about synergy.” It’s a dance. A boring, predictable waltz. We all know the steps.
But every once in a while, you get someone who didn’t get the memo. Someone who hears that question and decides to take a swan dive into the deep end of the weird pool. And as someone who’s been on the hiring side of the table for more years than I’d care to admit, I’ve seen some things. Oh, the things I’ve seen. These aren’t just wrong answers; they’re masterpieces of misunderstanding, symphonies of social awkwardness. They are, frankly, the only thing that makes the endless parade of interviews bearable.
The Existential Crisis Candidate
You can spot this one from a mile away. Their eyes glaze over for just a second too long after you ask the question. You see the hamster on the wheel in their brain not just running, but having a full-blown meltdown, complete with tiny hamster-sized picket signs.
I once had a young man, let’s call him Kevin, who was interviewing for a junior marketing role. He had a decent resume. Looked the part. I lobbed the softball question at him, expecting the usual.
Kevin leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers, and stared at a point on the ceiling just above my head. A silence stretched. And stretched. I was about to check if he was still breathing when he finally spoke, his voice barely a whisper.
“Who am I?” he began, his voice trembling with the gravity of a thousand philosophers. “It’s a question that has haunted mankind for millennia. Am I merely the sum of my experiences? A collection of memories and synapses firing in a fleshy prison? Or am I… something more?”
I just sat there. Blinking. My pen hovered over my notepad, but I couldn’t figure out what to even write down. “Candidate is contemplating the nature of consciousness?” seemed a bit off-brand for a marketing gig.
He went on like this for a solid five minutes. He touched upon Sartre, the illusion of free will, and the possibility that we’re all living in a simulation. He never once mentioned his work experience, his skills, or why he was even in that room. He was just a man, sitting in front of a hiring manager, asking her to solve the riddle of his existence.
“Ultimately,” he concluded with a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the world, “to tell you about myself would be to lie. For the ‘self’ is a fluid construct, an ever-changing river. And as Heraclitus said, you cannot step in the same river twice.”
I think I just nodded slowly and said, “Right. Heraclitus. Of course.” We did not hire Kevin. I hope he eventually figured himself out, but preferably not on company time.
The TMI Specialist
Where the existentialist goes deep, the TMI (Too Much Information) Specialist goes… wide. And messy. They hear “tell me about yourself” as an invitation to unpack every piece of personal baggage they’ve ever accumulated and lay it out on the interview room floor for you to inspect. There are no boundaries. No filters. Only chaos.
These are the candidates who tell you about their messy divorce, their weird rash, their cat’s ongoing battle with irritable bowel syndrome. You ask for a professional summary; you get a medical history, a relationship post-mortem, and a detailed rundown of their family drama.
My Pet, My Soulmate
I remember one woman, applying for an executive assistant position. A role that requires discretion, mind you. She started off strong. “Well, I’m a highly organized and motivated individual…” Good, good. “…and that’s something I really learned from my parrot, Horatio.”
And we were off to the races.
For the next ten minutes, I learned everything about Horatio. His favorite snacks (cashews, unsalted). His political leanings (decidedly left-wing, apparently). His complex and often tumultuous relationship with the neighbor’s cat. She explained, in painstaking detail, how Horatio’s refusal to eat store-brand birdseed taught her the importance of quality control. She got genuinely emotional when she recounted the time he learned to say “I love you,” which she felt was a major breakthrough in their—and I quote—“journey of mutual self-discovery.”
It was… a lot. I felt like I knew the parrot better than I knew the candidate. I’m still not sure what her previous job was, but I can tell you that Horatio has a gluten intolerance.
The Medical History Monologue
Then there’s the medical oversharer. This one’s a real treat. You’re trying to figure out if they can handle a spreadsheet, and they’re giving you a play-by-play of their recent colonoscopy.
A guy interviewing for a data analyst position once spent a shocking amount of his “tell me about yourself” time detailing the removal of a rather large kidney stone. He described the pain in vivid, poetic detail. He talked about the medication, the recovery process, and even—God help me—the moment the doctor presented him with the stone in a little plastic jar.
“And you know,” he said, leaning forward conspiratorially, “they told me it was the size of a golf ball. A golf ball. Can you believe the human body is capable of that? It really gave me a new perspective on… data.”
I have no idea how he made that connection. None. It was a leap of logic so vast it could have cleared the Grand Canyon. What I do know is that I now have an unshakeable mental image that I will carry with me to my grave. Thanks for that, I guess.
The Brutally Honest… and Unemployed
You’ve got to admire the gall of these ones, you really do. In a world of corporate doublespeak and carefully manicured LinkedIn profiles, they are a hurricane of unfiltered truth. They hear “tell me about yourself” and decide that, for once in their lives, they’re just going to let it all hang out.
“Well, to be honest, I just need a job,” a candidate for a sales role once told me, shrugging. “My last boss was a world-class moron, the company was a sinking ship, and my rent is due. You guys pay on time, right?”
There’s a certain purity to it, isn’t there? No fluff. No nonsense. Just raw, unadulterated desperation. It’s almost refreshing. Almost.
Another favorite was a young woman who, when asked about her proudest accomplishment, thought for a moment and said, “Probably the time I binge-watched an entire season of The Great British Bake Off in one weekend without moving from my couch. The logistics were surprisingly complex.”
I mean, that is impressive in its own way. But maybe not the key selling point for a project manager position. Maybe.
The problem with brutal honesty is that it’s, well, brutal. Companies aren’t really looking for someone to tell them their baby is ugly, even if it is. They’re looking for someone who will at least pretend the baby is cute and has a lot of potential.
The Conspiracy Theorist Corner
Every now and then, you get a curveball. A real, honest-to-goodness, out-of-left-field, what-planet-are-you-from kind of answer. These are rare, but they are precious gems of absurdity.
This one time, a man interviewing for an IT helpdesk role—a job that requires a firm grasp on reality, one would think—took the question in a very… unique direction.
He started normally enough. Talked about his A+ certification. Mentioned his experience with network troubleshooting. Then he leaned in, lowered his voice, and the crazy train left the station.
“But what you really need to know about me,” he whispered, “is that I’m awake. I see how things really work. I know that the squirrels in the park aren’t real.”
I must have looked confused, because he elaborated.
“They’re drones,” he said, dead serious. “Government surveillance drones. You ever see one just stop and stare at you? It’s transmitting data. All of it. The lizard people who run the global banking system, they’re watching us through the squirrels.”
He went on to explain his theories about chemtrails, the flat earth (of course), and how the moon landing was faked in a studio in New Jersey. His “about me” was less of a professional summary and more of an application to be the next host of a late-night AM radio show.
There’s really no coming back from that. You can’t pivot from “surveillance squirrels” to “So, what are your salary expectations?” The social contract has been shredded. All you can do is smile, nod, and slowly slide their resume into the shredder pile the moment they leave the room.
So, What’s the Point of This Godforsaken Question Anyway?
After all this, you might be wondering why we even bother. If it’s just an invitation for disaster, a minefield of awkwardness, why does every interviewer on earth lead with it?
I think—and this is just my two cents—it’s not about the content of the answer. Not really. Nobody actually cares about your “five-year plan” or the time you “showed initiative” on a project that nobody remembers. It’s a vibe check. Plain and simple.
It’s a test to see if you can be a normal human being in a slightly stressful situation. Can you read the room? Can you communicate clearly and concisely? Can you present a version of yourself that is both professional and personable without veering into insanity or oversharing? Can you follow the unspoken rules of this weird corporate waltz?
The question isn’t “Tell me about yourself.” It’s “Show me you’re not a complete weirdo.”
That’s the real question. It’s a low bar, you’d think. And yet, some people show up with a shovel and just start digging. And for that, for the sheer entertainment value, for the stories that I get to tell my friends over a beer—for that, I am eternally grateful.
So, to all the Kevins, the Horatio-lovers, the kidney-stone-sufferers, and the squirrel-truthers out there: thank you. You may not have gotten the job, but you’ve made my life a whole lot more interesting. Don’t ever change. Just… maybe get a friend to proofread your interview answers next time. For your own good.
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