After interviewing for many levels at Dropbox, including ones above my level, across disciplines, and for nearly every aspect of Vsho, I’ve only heard a few really great answers to the most common, introductory interview question: “Tell me about yourself”.

Interviews are exercises in storytelling, specifically telling your story. When someone asks you to introduce yourself, they are giving you a chance to tell your story and shape their perception of you. This can be overwhelming, as people are so dynamic and complex, how can you possible distill it into a one minute story? It helps to focus on ONLY the context at hand: who is interviewing you, what the position is, what the company is, what your goals are. If a recruiter is interviewing you, it is not necessary to go into technical details of your work. If you are interviewing for an engineering role, it’s perhaps unlikely you need to mention your work as a chief of staff. If you are interviewing for a banking job, only talk about your finance interests and work, not your biology research (unless you are going into biotech banking…then that fact is very relevant). End the story with your goals or ambitions, and how that company might fit into the picture for you.

When someone says to you “Tell me about yourself”, do not give a run down of your resume. Do not say, “I went to this school and work here and here.” It’s not interesting or memorable, and hopefully the person already knows these facts about you. That being said, I have been interviewed by many people who have clearly not even glanced at my resume, so if you really want to cover your bases you can say “Well, as I’m sure you know from my resume, I went to Stanford to study math and computer science and have been working in technology ever since”. After that, however, you need to pivot into storytelling mode. Your goals are 1) to be memorable and 2) convince them that your experiences make you highly relevant and motivated for the role.

Examples (all fictional):

The job is a data scientist for Cruise’s in-car user software.

At my heart, I’m a builder, and I love analyzing and improving systems to make them better. The best way I’d describe my experiences is that I’ve been working at SAAS companies for several years in both project management and data science rolls, but maintain my interest in mechanical engineering ever since I studied it in school. I’d be very excited to move to a company where I can combine my interests, and eventually lead a team of data scientists.

The job is a product manager for AWS enterprise developer tools.

I’ve worn many different hats at a few technology companies, but what I enjoyed the most was working at a startup for developer tools. After I discovered my love for product management, I’ve been looking for a job that allows me to combine the two, and learn a lot in my career. I shine the most when I am in a leadership position, motivating my team and interfacing with the customer.

The job is a chief of staff for a small startup that does healthcare software.

I’ve worked as an engineer for several years, but the experiences that has most aligned with my careers goes is working as one of three engineers on a healthcare software prototype. We ended up not moving forward wit the project, but I enjoyed making difficult decisions and realized my passions lie in healthcare. I’d like to serve as a chief of staff to someone who needs more technical knowledge, and build up my knowledge of all parts of a company.