It`s one of the most frequently asked questions in an interview: Tell me about yourself. Your response to this request will set the tone for the rest of the interview. For some, this is the most challenging question to answer, as they wonder what the interviewer really wants to know and what information they should include.

Eleanor dreaded this question. When it was the first one asked at her interview, she fumbled her way through a vague answer, not focusing on what she could bring to the job.

“I`m happily married and originally from Nakuru,” she began. “My husband was transferred here three months ago, and I`ve been getting us settled in our new home. I`m now ready to go back to work. I`ve worked in a variety of jobs, usually customer service-related. I`m looking for a company that offers growth opportunities.”

The interview went downhill after that. She had started with personal information and gave the interviewer reason to doubt whether she was an employee who would stay for very long.

* She`s married, and when her husband gets transferred that means she has to leave; she did it once and can do it again.

* She has some work experience with customers but didn`t emphasize what she did.

* She is looking to grow. What about the job she is applying for? Will she stay content for long?

The secret to successfully responding to this free-form request is to focus, script and practice. You cannot afford to wing this answer, as it will affect the rest of the interview. Begin to think about what you want the interviewer to know about you.

Focus

List five strengths you have that are pertinent to this job (experiences, traits, skills, etc.). What do you want the interviewer to know about you when you leave?

Eleanor is strong in communications and connecting with people. She has a strong background and proven success with customer relationships. Her real strength is her follow-through. She prides herself on her reputation for meeting deadlines.

Scripting

Prepare a script that includes the information you want to convey. Begin by talking about past experiences and proven success:

“I have been in the customer service industry for the past five years. My most recent experience has been handling incoming calls in the call centre industry. One reason I particularly enjoy this business, and the challenges that go along with it, is the opportunity to connect with people. In my last job, I formed some significant customer relationships resulting in a 30 percent increase in sales in a matter of months.”

Next, mention your strengths and abilities:

“My real strength is my attention to detail. I pride myself on my reputation for following through and meeting deadlines. When I commit to doing something, I make sure it gets done, and on time.”

Conclude with a statement about your current situation:

“What I am looking for now is a company that values customer relations, where I can join a strong team and have a positive impact on customer retention and sales.”

Practice

Practice with your script until you feel confident about what you want to emphasize in your statement. Your script should help you stay on track, but you shouldn`t memorize it — you don`t want to sound stiff and rehearsed. It should sound natural and conversational.

Even if you are not asked this type of question to begin the interview, this preparation will help you focus on what you have to offer. You will also find that you can use the information in this exercise to assist you in answering other questions. The more you can talk about your product — you — the better chance you will have at selling it.

We at Career Point wishes you success with the interviews this week.

No related posts.

To Receive daily jobs In Kenya in your inbox,please subscribe here below.

Do you have job security? How can you be sure? What exactly is job security?

You’ve probably heard that the most secure job in any company is that of the HR Manager because they have to be around at least long enough to fire everyone else. Well, whether that is true or not, I do know that a lot of people spend a lot of time worrying about job security.

Yet, even with a lot of worry and effort to find just the right job, rarely do we have control over our jobs to the point that we can really feel secure that we will be able to do tomorrow what we are doing today.

So what is job security?

A simple search on the Internet and you’ll find many definitions of job security. One site says it is the assurance that we have about the continuity of gainful employment.

Another gives a list of dependencies for job security. Some of those are: the economy, prevailing business conditions and a person’s skills. Some also state that government jobs are more secure than others.

It’s almost laughable really because if you look deep enough, you will find that basically every business, economic, social and personal factor that could ever come into play, can have an affect on your job security. Well, if you ask me, that doesn’t sound very secure. So what do you do? How can you find real job security? Or can you?

Well I believe we can and it really doesn’t matter where you work or who you work for. IT doesn’t matter if the economy is good or bad or where you’re located or even your skill level. To find real job security, you just have to be able to answer one question: What would you do tomorrow, if you lost your job today?

If you are like most people, the thought of losing your job freaks you out just a little bit (or a lot). You aren’t sure what you would do. All you know for sure is that you have bills to pay, food to buy and a people to take care of it. In other words you don’t have a plan.

Real job security comes from having a plan in place and ready for when that day comes that your job goes away. To begin building your plan, answer the following questions:

How long can I live without a job? - To live without a job, you need to have some money set back, an emergency fund if you will. Do you have one?

What are my strengths and Weaknesses? – Do you know what you are good at? Maybe you are an accountant right now but do you have any other transferable skills that you could take to a different job?

Have you registered for jobs updates through SMS? You could be missing on a lot of jobs. Get unique jobs through sms. Click here for details.

To Receive daily jobs In Kenya in your inbox,please subscribe here below.

Jobs in Kenya come to you in different ways. You’re good and trusted friend can decide to forward you a job vacancy at their firm. You might be a member of a professional body who regularly send job vacancies to their member’s i.e. ICPAK for accountants or IHRM for us in Human Resource.

However, for most of you out there the only way to know a job exists is through the Daily Nation Newspaper or through Career Point, Brighter Monday, Kenyan Jobs and other wonderful Kenyan websites all offering the latest Kenyan jobs and vacancies ( Some copy from Career Point, but thats a topic for another day)

As a job seeker have you ever asked yourself how vacancies come to be? If you do understand then it will completely change the way you make  job applications and hopefully raise the chances for you to get called for an interview.

Let’s take a scenario of your average Kenyan company who have a vacancy for an accounts assistant.

Regardless of the way you got to know of the job vacancy many candidates assume the company just decided to contact Nation Media yesterday for the advert. Shock on you my dear sister/brother. The job advert has gone through alot of stages.

I will take you through the various stages of the recruitment process.

Most Kenyan companies have independent departments. The Chief Accountant is in charge of finance, the HR manager handles HR, and then you have the MD or General Manager depending on the complexities of the company.

Now, when a vacancy arises in finance it’s the work of the Chief Accountant to inform the HR of his requirement and the candidate he has in mind. Maybe the accountant wants a CPA Part one or even section six, aged 25 and below, tall, skinny, fat…whatever are his or her requirements he or she furnishes the HR with the details.

This is where it gets interesting. If you had sent your CV to the company earlier on even when no position was advertised the HR manager might decide to call you for an interview and save the company time and money if you have the relevant skills and level of expertise. At this point it upto the HR to make the decision. On the other hand if you had sent your CV to the finance manager or chief accountant and he likes your CV it would be advantageous for you since you might be the only candidates he recommends for an interview. And as you and I know it’s very easy to convince someone when the competition is drastically reduced.

Lesson number one. When sending blind applications don’t send to the HR rather the department you have an interest. But for Gods sake, dont apply to the MD. These top dogs have alot on thier plate and the last thing they want is distration.

Assume the company has no CVs in their database. The HR Manager can ask staff members to forward CV’s from their friends and the interviews follow. Lesson number two. 50% of Kenyan jobs are filled this way. You won’t see these jobs adverts at Fridays Daily Nation  or even here at Career Point etc. Learn to network and keep your ears on the ground. Loosely translated, networking is what Kenyans refer to as kujuana and it works like magic.

If the first two options don’t work then the company decides to advertise for the post either through the websites or Daily Nation.

For a job Candidate this is not the best option. From a HR position I can tell you a simple job advert will attract all manner of applicants. One accounts assistant job will attract applications not less than 2,000 (more so when the aplications are through email). Some are qualified, some have the right qualifications but few have the right combination.

Faced with such many applicants the HR manager gets creative. He might just decide to read the first fifty applications and everything else gets tossed to the dust bin or deleted for email applications. Lesson number three, Make your applications soonest possible. By the time the recruiter or manager goes through the 75th application he or she is already bored and more so if he gets qualified candidates with the right skills along the way. So you who wait for the last cut off date to make applications despite your impressive CV may not have your application even opened thus losing out on the job. My advice, make application the soonest you get to know of the advert. (Some lazy HR managers do the reverse, they wait untill the closing date and start shortlisting from the last to the first)

The reason why I said newspaper jobs or vacancies known to all are not the best is because of the level of competition. The whole of Kenya has seen the advert. And this is where you’re CV and cover letter counts. At the end of the day these are the only two documents representing you. It’s important then to make sure the two are selling you proper.

Don’t be like many candidates who just remove their usual cover letter, edit the companies contact details and add the REF PART. You need to pay attention to your key skills making sure it’s a match with whatever the employer is asking.

What are you’re thoughts? Comments Below.

Have you registered for jobs updates through SMS? You could be missing on a lot of jobs. Get unique jobs through sms. Click here for details.

To Receive daily jobs In Kenya in your inbox,please subscribe here below. This entry was posted on Monday, January 24th, 2011 at 12:38 AM and is filed under CAREER ADVICE. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.