When searching for a job, what’s your hardest task? Or what holds you back the most?

For me, the biggest struggle I have found in my process is finding a job that I can 100% get behind the mission of the company and also enjoy the work I’d be doing there. Being realistic is important here. Standards are good, but sometimes you have to realize that you have to – as my friend Johnny says – figure out how much crap you’re willing to scoop to get what you want.

Though that’s been my biggest struggle, not far behind is the dreaded interview.

In all honesty, I’ve always thought that I should be good at interviewing. I’ve done a fair amount of public speaking, I’m fairly conversational, I love meeting new people, etc. The odds seem to be in my favor. For some reason though, I’ve never felt like I’ve done very well in interviews.

I have a rather small sampling size of only 4 interviews to base this off of, but I’ve never felt like I went in and killed an interview. I’ve been learning a ton about interviewing and job searching this past month, so while it’s fresh on my mind, I want to do something.

In the next couple of weeks, I’m going to put out several blog posts with my answers to interview questions that I’ve heard before. You (usually) can’t know what you’re going to be asked when you go into an interview, but you can usually predict a few of them. I also think that many interview questions are good to ask ourselves frequently anyway so that we are continually asking ourselves how we’re growing.

Enough talk.

I’m going to start with just one questions in this post, but in the future, I’ll answer several at a time.

The first question or request that you will almost always be asked in an interview?

Tell me about yourself.

Even though we all know it’s coming, it seems like it always throws us off. Not for long. I’ve written out a simple 30-second response that I am going to memorize so that I am better able to answer this question.

For most questions, trying to memorize answers is just silly, but this one, you can almost guarantee that it, or something similar, will be asked. It’s important to be ready so that you don’t get yourself stuck in the “look up at ceiling and start each sentence with ‘uh.’”

Here’s what I’ve written.

  • My whole life has come from a missionary perspective. Even from a young age I took commitments and projects very seriously. If I set out to do something or I told somebody I’d do something, I would work on it until completion. No matter what.
  • That same missionary mindset has instilled in me a strong work ethic and a commitment to learning many things. Whether that be learning mechanics and construction, piano and cello, frisbee and basketball, sales and marketing, whatever it is, I treat it like a mission to be accomplished.
  • I’m looking for a place where I can get behind the mission of someone else, make it my own mission and work on it as hard as I can to get it to the highest level possible.

You’ll notice it’s broken up into three sections. As it was explained to me, tell them something about where you’ve been, where’ you’re at, and where you’re going.

Now that I have a script for this question, adlib is totally acceptable, but having the foundation and understanding of what word I want to say and in what order is huge.

I no longer have to fear the question because I am completely prepared. Also, since this question is almost always at the beginning of your interview, you can kick it off to a great start and ease before you have to answer some of the questions you’re not prepared for.