Tell me about yourself (repeated, endlessly)
The candidate says:
The question was the classic 'Tell me something about yourself', however, what made it killer was that the partner would not give in. Everytime I would speak for a minute or two, the partner would add - 'Tell me something more'. This loop went on for a whole 25 minutes. From the looks of it, it sounds easy, but believe me, when there's a partner from one of the best consulting firms interviewing you, you would not want to blabber. Not only was there a feeling of uneasiness after five minutes that creeped in, but also the thought that have I missed something so critical that the partner wants to hear.
The entire thing became more tough because the partner would not get into a conversation mode. He just kept on adding - "tell me something more".
This was one of the most revealing interviews that I have ever given. It has now become my favourite interview question as an interviewer.
And the answer was:
The candidate adds: "There is usually that standard, structured 1-1.5 minute introduction that one prepares to tackle such questions. But this one went to an altogether different level. I realised that after speaking for the fourth 1 minute period, I really had to struggle to talk about myself! It was not easy to stay calm and still talk sensible things that would somehow make me appealing.
I tried the classic - 'Is there something specific you want to know' - but that did not work.
Sanity prevailed when I realised after 5 minutes that this was going to go on for a while, and that this was more of a composure check in an uncomfortable environment rather than anything else.
I asked the interviewer to give me 2 minutes to recollect and gather thoughts that would make that interaction much more fruitful. Without this, I could see that it would very soon turn into random musings.
In those two minutes, I drew a classic issue tree with two nodes - personal and professional, and then further broke them down into relevant sub nodes. And then checked out the ones I had already spoken about.
Additional information:
This was asked at McKinsey. The candidate got the job.
