When you’re looking for the perfect candidate for a role, it’s important to discern both their professional experience and whether they’ll fit in at your company.
That’s why we’ve compiled a list of alternative ways to say “tell me about yourself” that you can employ when conducting job interviews.
We’ve also gathered some synonyms that you can use outside of work.
Other Ways to Say “Tell Me About Yourself”
- Can you tell me more about your experience?
- How would you describe yourself?
- Walk me through your resume
- What do you do for fun?
- What do you do in your spare time?
- I’d love to hear more about your journey
- I’d love to hear more about you
- Using only three words, how would you describe yourself?
- I’m interested in learning a little more about you
- Describe the events that led to your career today
- Tell me a little bit more about your background
- What should I know about you that isn’t on your resume?
- Tell me more about you
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- “Tell me about yourself” is a popular interview question used to discern the personality of a potential job candidate.
- As a more specific question in a formal interview, you can ask, “can you tell me more about your experience?”
- In informal settings, you can ask, “how would you describe yourself?”
Keep reading to see our choice of formal and informal synonyms for “tell me about yourself” in action.
Moreover, we’ll discuss whether “tell me about yourself” is a good interview question.
Can You Tell Me More About Your Experience? (Formal)
If you’re conducting a job interview and want to learn more about a potential candidate, “can you tell me more about your experience?” is a great professional alternative to “tell me about yourself.”
Firstly, this question is clear and precise, and will hopefully prompt a clear and precise answer about a candidate’s experience and how it relates to the role they have applied for.
The original phrase “tell me about yourself” is a tad vaguer, which could be useful if you are looking for a more rounded and personal answer. However, this alternative is great if you want more specific information.
Let’s see this phrase used in a couple of examples:
Your resume is impressive, but can you tell me more about your experience in customer service?
Can you tell me more about your experience and how it relates to this position?
How Would You Describe Yourself? (Informal)
A different way to say “tell me about yourself” is “how would you describe yourself?”
The benefit of this phrase is that you can use it both in the context of a job interview and when you’ve met someone new outside of work. That’s why we’ve selected it as our top informal synonym.
Like “tell me about yourself,” this alternative is fairly open-ended and can lead to a diverse range of responses. A great way to get to know the person you’re talking to!
It’s not a better phrase than “tell me about yourself,” but you can use it to mix up your language from time to time, as they essentially mean the same thing.
Finally, let’s see how this phrase might be used in a couple of examples:
Your list of skills is impressive, but how would you describe yourself overall?
How would you describe yourself? As a cat or dog person?
Is “Tell Me About Yourself” a Good Interview Question?
The phrase “tell me about yourself” is brought up at almost every job interview in one form or another. The fact that it is used so frequently to glean interesting responses from candidates shows that it is obviously a very good interview question.
Well, we use the term “question” loosely – since it’s more of an instruction! But, like any question, it requests information, so we think that counts!
Additionally, the nature of a candidate’s response is just as important as the content of their response, making this a great behavioral question.
Therefore, while our list of synonyms may help you find a more creative way or more clear-cut way to request this information, the original phrase is effective in its own right.
One of the alternative ways to request this information from a candidate is to say “walk me through your resume.” This alternative also requests information about the candidate as it relates to the role.
However, “tell me about yourself” is frequently used to discern more personal information about the candidate – such as their hobbies, interests, and positions of responsibility outside of the workplace.
“Walk me through your resume” asks the candidate to focus on the information in their resume more specifically.
In conclusion, “tell me about yourself” is a good interview question if you want to learn more about the personality of the candidate. However, you should be careful how to phrase your question if you are requesting more specific information, as this phrase is pretty broad!
If you think our list of alternatives is useful, why not bookmark this page to keep it nearby?