Transcription: [Please excuse any typing errors as this is a direct transcription.]
Hello. I’m Matthew Finch from BTG recruitment. We’re accounting and finance recruitment experts. I’m known as the go-to guy for accounting and finance recruitment in the East Midlands. Today we’re going to be talking about one of the most common interview questions, what that question is and how sometimes people miss an opportunity when they answer that question, and how we can prepare for it and make sure we answer that question really well. So, that question is either, tell me about yourself or talk me through your CV. This is a great question to get asked at interviews, it allows you to highlight your skills and experience as it relates to the role that you’re going for.
Sometimes, people misinterpret this question or they just don’t take the opportunity that they’ve got in front of them. They’ll either start talking about, a bit of a monologue about their life experience, “I relocated from wherever, I met my fourth wife.” Or they’ll start talking about how they do their job, day to day. Rather than, thinking about what is it I do at the moment that related to the role I’m going for, and highlighting those skills and experience.
So, we’ve got an idea of maybe the mistakes that sometimes people make but how do we make sure that we go in there and we answer that question really well? Firstly, the recruiter you’re working with, they should be able to give you a good idea of your skills and experience and what’s relevant to this particular role, what the client would love to hear about. The achievements that you’ve got that are really going to be of interest to this particular employer, that’s the first thing that we can do.
The other thing that we can do is if we have a look at the job spec, for the opportunity, we can go through the job spec and we can think about preparing examples of when we’ve done the different steps on the job spec and what achievements we’ve got that relate to this particular role. Then what we’ll do is, we’ll practise putting together a bit of a monologue, pulling together all those examples, making sure you’re just pointing out the relevant skills and experience you’ve got for this role.
If you do that, you’re going to send yourself in a really good place that your potential new employer will think, “Right, this guy, this girl has got the right experience that we’re looking for.” This interview has got off to a great start. I hope you found that useful, we’ve spoken about one of the most common interview questions, how people sometimes go wrong and what we need to do to make sure we answer it successfully. If you found this useful, please share it. I’m Matthew Finch from BTG recruitment and I’ll look forward to speaking to you in the future. Take care.
