An Interview Experience

It’s true the “Tell me about yourself” is a million dollar question. The question is meant to set the stage for the interview process. It’s from this question the interviewers get an idea about you and would set the stage on fire.

I made the mistake the first time. It was in Bangalore and I went to give an interview for a BPO job with IBM. The first question asked was “tell me about yourself” and I have a good reason to believe that I bored the interviewer with all the schools and institutions I attended and my academic performances. I should have known better than that but that was a hard learned lesson. Since then I promised myself to do better than that in future.

So before the RCSC VIVA I prepared for the said question and went. There everybody said that same thing. It’s important how you introduce yourself. The questions are all based on what you said in your introduction, said everyone who’s already given the interview.

Finally it was my turn to go in. I was bit nervous at first but the interviewers were all very friendly. They said to treat them as family members, which of course wasn’t possible but still it was kind of them to be so considerate I believe.

Well the first question I was asked upon being seated was of course, ‘introduce yourself in 1 minute’ and I began as follows:

My name is ______ and I am from ______. When I was a little girl I thought I’d grow up to be a teacher not because I was interested in teaching but because teaching was the only profession I was aware of then.

Well as I grew up, I used to read lots of books and novels so I was like ‘that’s it. I want to become a reporter, a journalist.

But when I didn’t qualify for Sherubtse College after the completion of my 12th standard way back in 2003, I had to opt for what seemed like a second best for me then, a diploma (DIMS), in RIM, Semtokha.

That was the first time I was introduced to the real IT world. Though I had taken computers as a subject in my 9th and 10th standard, the real interest came to me only during my diploma days.
I was intrigued by VB, web designing, CCNA (computer networking) etc. the technology was simply too much for me to resist and I loved my subject.

By then reading and writing was pushed to the back of my mind. It became something like a hobby or passion for me.

Well after the completion of my 2 years diploma I worked for 3 months in BNB but I wasn’t satisfied. I felt the need to upgrade my knowledge and fortunately for me I got a scholarship too so I went down to Bangalore to pursue BCA. It was a 3 years’ course and I completed last June. Since then I was preparing for RCSC and here I am.
I don’t know how good it sounded to the interviewers but that was the best I could do since I didn’t have much achievement to boost my ego. Well that really set the stage on fire because the questions following that were as follows:

1) Well you said you wanted to be a journalist. Who inspired you?
2) You said you read many novels. What types of books are you into? Do you read M&B, thriller, romance etc?
3) Name some books of Dan Brown
4) Since you have had Diploma and the subjects you learn in Diploma and degree are similar, did you find BCA easy? How did your diploma help you?
5) You said you worked in BNB and liked it there. Why did you leave it?
6) When you were working in BNB, how were you treated by the other employees? Did you have any difficulties interacting with people from the management background?

Etc etc and etc. I could answer some and couldn’t answer some. That was a very good experience and though I wish I could do better but I am glad that I did my best.

So it’s my advice to all the people out there, if you happen to attend any interview, just take few minutes and a give mental preparation as to how you want to go about answering the very first question. Make sure you don’t bore the interviewers with every little cheesy detail. Also don’t keep it just to your name, place and qualification because it’s important that you include your hobbies and interest but be brief.