Talking about yourself should be the easiest thing in the world to do, right? After all, who knows you better than you know yourself? You? LOL.

I've been there - where I'm asked - Tell me about yourself - And my mind goes blank! And I hire and recruit people in my field so I should have this question down pat. Well I didn't before, not without practice because I will tell you, this is one of the toughest and most stressful questions!!

Hiring managers ask this question to see how you react to a question asked casually and without structure. They want to get a feel of what you deem to be important.

Without structure? What do I mean by that? Well I'll explain it to you. Say you studied the company, and prepared your answers, and you're confident and ready to nail the interview. Except during the interview, you get asked that one "casual" or unstructured question" that throws you off your game and break you free from any memorized answers. This is a polite way of asking you to speak freely and off the cuff. I want to know if you can think quickly on your feet. Can think and adapt on the fly?

So I've established why thinking on the fly is important

Hiring managers also want to see which information you think is important to offer up relative to the position. Tricky right? From my point of view, I am trying to get a sense of whether or not a candidate truly understands which experiences, skills and abilities are relevant for the position they're interviewing for. Fair right?

How you answer this question can reveal more about who you really are than you can ever imagine. Which mean it's a potential land mine or a potential springboard to success. :)

Until then in my next post - I'll explain the common mistakes people make answering one of the hardest question in the world, next to " what's your weakest or strongest strengths". LOL