Tell me something about yourself ?

This is the most common and very first question usually asked in any interview. When you answer this question you usually have to tell about the following:

Educational Qualifications: When you talk about educational qualifications, don't talk about percentages unless they are very good. If you have made any achievements like topping college academics or secured a gold medal make sure you tell about it.

Family Background: Donot spend too much of time here. Let the interviewer know your father's and mother's profession and how many siblings you have.

Hobbies/Interests: This is very important section and be prepared for follow up questions. If you say my hobby is reading books. Interviewer might ask a followup question like, what type of books you usually read. If you say I read fiction books. The interviewer might ask you, Who is your favourite author.

So be very careful when you are making up hobbies. It is better if your hobbies add value for the type of job you are doing. For example if you are going for a software engineer interview, you can say browsing internet as one of the hobby. If a software engineer has good browsing skills he might find solutions online quickly and solve the problem at hand in less time. When you say browing as one of your hobby, be prepared for the follow up interview questions like, What do you usually browse on the internet? What is your favourite website? Who is your favourite technical article writer? 


Strengths: Tell interviewer about your strengths with example. Examples of strengths are listed below. Make sure you back up each strength with an example from your past experience.

Hard Working in nature.
Dedication.
Commitment.
Good Team player.
Communication Skills
Problem solving skills
Taking Initiatives
Beging Pro-active
Design Skills

Weakness: When ever you say you have a weakness, make sure you also have a plan and working on it to over come your weakness.

Too invloved: Some times when there is a technical issue or a problem I tend to work continuously until I fix it without having a break. But what I have noticed and, I am trying to practice is that, taking a break away from the problem and thinking outside the box or taking suggestions will assist you in identifying the root cause of the problem sooner.

Over confident: Very rarely I become over confident, especially when a simple task is given, I get to solving the issue without spending much time planning. So I am working on applying the 80/20 principle of planning and implementation. Spend 80% of my effort and time in planning and 20% on implementation.