When it comes to common residency interview questions, “tell me about yourself” tops the list. You're almost guaranteed to be asked this question during your interview, and it's not a question that you can answer well on the spot without prior preparation.
“Tell me about yourself” is an open-ended prompt that can be taken in a number of different directions. The interviewer wants to see what direction you'll move in when you're prompted this way. While everyone’s answer to this question will be different, the interviewer's main goal is to determine if your personal characteristics match what they're looking for and what the program is looking for. Interviewers want to see your ability to self-reflect while answering unasked questions such as why are you here? What sparked your journey? Why are you sure medicine is suited for you?
Instead, you need to think about what residency directors actually want to know. Behind every question that they ask, they are looking to find the answer to the same question: Will you be a good fit for this program? In order to gain the answer, they need to learn more about you, personally and professionally. While they don't want to know your life story, they do want to know your relevant story. There is no fighting the fact that people love stories, so offering an answer that allows your interviewer to see you as a leader, communicator, collaborator, etc., will do much more for the impact of your answer than a loose string of events, benchmarks, or scores. For this reason, do not recite your residency CV when giving your response. This information is already available to the interviewers, and if they want to know about a specific detail, they will ask. Answering “tell me about yourself” requires much more depth and should give the interviewers insight into who you are as a person while highlighting your drive and dedication for a career in medicine.
In this video, we’ll give you three steps to follow to answer the residency interview question “tell me about yourself” the correct way. You’ll be able to follow each step easily, and work towards creating your own memorable and engaging response to impress your interviewers. Lastly, this video will go over a sample answer to the “tell me about yourself” question, and discuss what aspects of this sample answer make it excellent.
Here are the timestamps and what we'll cover:
00:00 - Intro
03:07 - Step 1
06:12 - Step 2
08:00 - Step 3
09:12 - Sample answer
12:00 - Conclusion
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// Resources //
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