Coaching a student through "tell me about yourself"
This is for you if a student goes blank, or recites their whole resume, the moment you ask them to introduce themselves. They have the material. They just have nothing to lead with.
The ramble is not a nerves problem you fix with more reps. It is a missing anchor. Give the student one true thing to lead with, and the opener gets a spine to hang the rest on.
The anchor comes from their own report, so start there. Open their Discovering Your Strengths. This takes about ten minutes, and you build it together.
You are building the opener here, the spine of the answer, not the whole thing. Once they have a line they can say, the rest hangs off it. One short story that proves the strength, then a word on where they want to go.
- Start from a strength the report surfaced. Point them at the one that surprised them, not one they walked in with. If the report marks it rare, better still. Read its definition and the you likely excel at line aloud, and build the opener from those words.
The report marks a student's rarest strengths with a ✦. If they've taken the Superpower profile, it goes deeper on exactly these: it ranks every strength by how rare it is, shows the exact percentile they land in, and names the rare combinations only they have.
- Build the line on that strength. Say it the way a person talks, one claim they can own. Something like: the one who finds the next step when a plan stalls. Then lead with it, because it lands first.
- Add one honest edge. Name the flip side of that same strength, said as a direction they are growing, not a flaw. Keep it to one short clause at the end. The strength stays the headline, and the edge makes the line sound like a real person.
- Stop building, and have them say it. Once out loud, to you, like the real interview. Then have them write the final line on one card and read it back. That card is what they walk out with.
The student owns the line. You gave them one true place to start, in words the report found for them.
Coaching questions
Remember, this isn't a worksheet to run in order. When the student stalls on a step, reach for the one question that fits.
Finding the one
- Which strength did the report name that you would never have put on yourself?
- Read the definition of the rare one aloud: where have you actually done that?
- Which line in its you likely excel at list sounds most like you at your best?
Naming the edge, and saying it
- What is the honest edge of that same strength, the part you are still growing into?
- Now put the two together in one breath, the way you actually talk.
- Say it to me like I am the interviewer, then tell me what felt true and what felt like a line.
