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Things Not to Say When an Interviewer Asks, “Tell Me About Yourself”
A comprehensive list
3 min readMar 21, 2025
- “I am a raccoon enthusiast.” As much as you believe raccoons are the way of the future and your dream is to start that trash panda cult, a prospective employer will not appreciate this sentiment. At least feel out the situation before you start spouting off about raccoons.
- “Well, it began when my parents decided to bone 39 years ago…” When an employer asks you to tell them about yourself, they invariably mean tell me one small fact about your personal life, and you better be able to somehow connect the dots of that fact to why you’d fit in with the company.
- “I only have one kidney, and that kidney is filled with kidney stones that could clog my kidney tubes up at any moment. I’m like a ticking time bomb!” First of all, you used the word “kidney” way too many times for one sentence. Also, I learned the hard way that employers do not want to hire ticking time bombs.
- “Well, I can tell you what I’m not: someone who enjoys working their way up in a company. I literally wrote the book on this. It’s called I’m Not the Manager Here and is currently on sale for $12.99. Do you want the link?”
- “I’m, like, totally obsessed with my dog. So that’s actually a pretty big thing about me?” As you’re saying this…
