Tips for Describing Yourself in an Interview

Words to Describe Yourself

When you go into a job interview, there are a number of things that the interviewer may ask. However, one of the most unique questions is, “How would you describe yourself?” A potential interviewer wants to know a number of different things from this question, and when a hiring manager asks it, your answer may either qualify you for a job or completely disqualify you from one. Here’s how to answer this job interview question and generally understand the right words to describe yourself.

Why Does an Interviewer Want to Know How You Would Describe Yourself?

First of all, why would an interviewer want to know this? There are two big reasons that a recruiter will ask you for the best words to describe you.

The first reason is simply that they want to get to know you a little bit better. There’s a huge list of words that could potentially describe a person in a positive way, and the exact words that you choose will say a lot about the type of person you are. Someone who chooses “empathetic” over “punctual” might work best in a customer-facing job, while someone who chooses “punctual” over “empathetic’ might work best in an administrative job. Interviewers know that you don’t completely lack the qualities that you don’t choose to highlight, but the words you consider the best words to describe you indicate your personality traits.

The second reason is that interviewers are looking for someone who is self-aware. The interviewer will combine your answer to this question and other common interview questions like “What are your greatest strengths?” and “What are your greatest weaknesses?” to get a general understanding of who you are and how you see yourself. If you just say, “I don’t know,” then it means you don’t have a great grasp of your own personality traits.