It’s the single most common interview question there is—and yet it really isn’t a question. And it can come at you at unexpected times, most often when you are thinking about something else. Perhaps you’ve just shared a cab ride with another conference attendee who happens to be a company CEO—or you’ve given the best seminar of your life when one of the attendees tells you about a position opening on her team. Both have happened to me.

And suddenly, the “question” hits you: “Tell me a little about yourself.”

Why this is a critical point in an interview

Hiring managers don’t always plan interviews well—they often prefer to let their questioning roll off the cuff. And for that manager this request is an icebreaker. It is an opportunity to take a few minutes off—to sit back, listen, and silently determine where to take the interview questioning next. In short, asking you to open up about yourself is an easy out for him or her. But it can be subtly dangerous for you.

There are emotional decisions being made in the early part of the interviewing process that are hard to overcome later. Human Resources professionals hate this, but interviewers make up their minds in as little as 5-10 minutes. This being the case, any opportunity you have in the first few minutes to expound on your strengths or state your case is a good thing. But it can also be a trap if you aren’t ready. Shooting yourself in the foot within moments of the interview start won’t lead to a successful outcome for your day.

It has always shocked me how many people are taken by surprise instead of considering this request a certainty in an interview, and preparing for it. Although I personally don’t believe it is a great way to start an interview, I’ve often requested this of my job candidates because it offers a glimpse into how prepared they really are. Some people will misinterpret my question to mean, “Tell me about your college degree,” or even, “Tell me a considerable amount about yourself.”

What the interviewer is really looking for

When an interviewer asks you to tell her a little about yourself, you are being asked to provide a general framework for the later discussion. It’s an opportunity to “set the stage” for questions that will address various aspects of your work. If you plan properly, this gives you a chance to steer the critical, opening portion of the interview into an area in which you will do well.

How do you plan for this? I’m not normally a big fan of over-preparation before an interview. In other words, the library is full of lots of books packed with titles like, “Snappy Answers to Tough Interview Questions.” While you do need to be aware of what will likely happen during interview day, you’ll never guess all their questions, which makes memorizing a bunch of prepared answers a silly waste of time. Instead, it is self-knowledge and confidence that you require, not rehearsed and memorized answers to interview questions.

Except in one area—this one.

Your preparation

You need to work up a 2-minute, 5-minute, and 8-minute response to the request, “Tell me about yourself.” Each of those versions needs to be ingrained into your presentation skills, not so much that they sound rehearsed, just integrated naturally into how your conversation might develop.

This “Tell Me About Yourself” request will come up often if you are engaged in a networking effort. It certainly isn’t relegated just to the interview process. That’s why multiple versions are important. In an interview, the hiring manager or H/R person may have a full ten minutes for you to start the ball rolling. But if you are in the cab with the aforementioned CEO, two minutes is tops. I have found over my career that there are many situations where coincidence will give you a chance to think on your feet—and having already done this thinking in advance comes in very handy.

A good framework for a response:

• A brief statement of what you consider yourself to have become at this stage of your life. This is much like the “Qualifications” statement that many people use at the top of a resume.

• Detail about your progression to this point with the focus on three elements: A statement of a problem you were given, the approach you took to solving the problem, and then the results you achieved. Hit the highpoints only, and you can go back into more details later in your conversation. In a 2-minute response, you’ll have a chance to touch briefly on only one of these accomplishments. Choose the most appropriate one for the circumstances, not the one which you are most enamored with.

• Add a closure, unique to each situation, where you state one solid reason that you’d be a good fit for the company you are meeting with. What is there about the background you’ve described which makes you uniquely qualified to solve problems for this company?

Brevity is a given in an article about presentations that last precisely two, five, or eight minutes. I didn’t think I needed to address this at all in my article until I heard one person’s response go on for nearly twenty minutes. He had asked me how much time to take, which is great. But I had asked him to keep it under ten or twelve minutes.

Writing and speaking succinctly is more difficult than many people think. That’s why I fully expect the 2-minute version to be your most difficult. Abe Lincoln, a master orator, once told an interviewer that he could “write a twenty-minute speech in about two weeks” but that he would only need one week to write a good forty-minute speech. In fact, he said, “I can give a two hour talk on almost any subject right now.”

A few additional points to remember:

• Always ask the interviewer how much detail (time) should be provided in your answer.

• This is the one opportunity you will have to dominate the interview conversation. Use it wisely. Step right up and clearly identify what you consider to be your personal strengths. Don’t let a fear of self-promotion zap your chances in these important few minutes!

• When relating an accomplishment, dissect it into its three pieces, the “Challenge” (the problem you faced), “Approach” (your critical thinking skills), and the “Results.” Perhaps it will help you to remember the acronym CAR.

In conclusion

I think the best approach is to write down a script and read it (out loud) several times. You’ll get comfortable with it that way and change the wording when you’ve found the rough edges. What looks good on paper often sounds unnatural when it is spoken, so rewrite as necessary. The average spoken sentence contains only 9-10 words—but the written one contains more than twenty.

Your personal answer to the request of “Tell me about yourself” is something that you’ll take with you wherever you go. Having a 2-minute, 5-minute, and 8-minute version of this information already prepared can be one of the handiest tools in your interview toolkit.