Introduction

While HireVue video interviews are an interesting innovation in the recruitment landscape, the questions asked are decidedly traditional.  

Getting asked to “introduce yourself” (or similarly, “tell me about yourself”) is one of many questions from traditional interviews that has made its way into on-demand interview platforms like HireVue, VidCruiter, and Spark Hire.  

This question is used as an icebreaker on interviews for all sorts of jobs and job levels.

After reading this article, make sure to check out Voomer – where you can practice for your HireVue interview and get AI-powered feedback on your answers.

How to answer the question

The first thing you should do is to resist the temptation to read off your resume or CV.  This is a classic mistake that even seasoned job applicants do.

If your video gets reviewed by a person, they will most likely have your CV in front of them, so listing off all the information already on your CV is pointless.

There are two objectives you want to accomplish when answering this question:

Objective one: Help the interviewer place you

Give the interviewer a “sound bite” of yourself and your career that helps them place you.

Understand that the interviewer might have tens – if not hundreds – of videos to process, so helping your interviewer do their job is an excellent way to get ahead of the competition.  The best way to do that is to summarize your career in a one liner.  

For example:

I’m a sell side M&A analyst that specializes in consumer durable goods. Right now I’m working on improving my programming skills to automate some of my work.  

With that statement, the interviewer has a near-instant and clear understanding of what the applicant is about, and can quickly decide if they are relevant or not to the vacancy at hand.

Objective two: Be memorable

Add something memorable about yourself – especially if your field is highly commoditized.  

For example:

I’m also using those programming skills to hack together an automated fish food dispenser for my aquarium!

As someone who’s worked with recruitment, believe me when I say it helps a lot to be memorable in your interviews.  At a consensus meeting, that second example above will help all involved to rapidly identify you (maybe even as “the fish guy!”). If everyone can remember who you are, you are more than halfway towards landing that job.

Make sure you practice your answers in an environment that is as similar to HireVue’s as possible.  Use a platform like Voomer to hone your answers and get AI-powered feedback on your answers.

The (sort of) exception

Sometimes, this question will be phrased in a slightly deceiving way: “Walk me through your resume”.

This question asks you directly for what is on your resume and therefore, you have to answer the question or else you’ll risk being dropped for not following instructions.

However, before you dive into your resume, opening with an executive summary along the lines of what I described in the previous section will help your application tremendously.  So make sure you have that introductory soundbite ready!

Conclusion

This question can be deceiving in its simplicity.  Keep in mind that you want to tick off the two objectives I mentioned above to ensure that you are quickly placed by the interviewer among all the applicants and that you are a memorable candidate.

After coming up with some ideas of your own on how to answer this question, make sure you practice answering.  A HireVue interview can surprise you with the amount of stress they cause and you might miss the chance of landing that dream job.

Use a tool like Voomer to practice your HireVue in an environment that is as close as possible to the real thing.  You can also practice on our extensive company-specific question database and get AI feedback on your answers, so you land that dream job!