Coaching a student through "tell me about yourself"
This is for you if a student goes blank, or recites their whole resume, when you ask them to introduce themselves. They have the material, but nothing to lead with.
That ramble almost never means the student is unprepared, or even that nervous. What is missing is an anchor, one true thing to lead with. Give them that, and the opener has a spine to hang from.
The anchor comes from their own report. Open their Discovering Your Strengths and build the opener together. The rest hangs off it later: a short story proving the strength, then where they want to go.
- Start from a strength the report surfaced. Point them at one that surprised them, not one they walked in with; rarer is better. Read its definition and its you likely excel at line aloud, and build from those words.
The report marks a student's rarest strengths with a ✦. The Superpower profile goes deeper: it ranks every strength by rarity and names the rare combinations only they have.
- Build the line on that strength, one claim they can own. Say it the way a person talks: the one who finds the next step when a plan stalls. Lead with it; it lands first.
- Add one honest edge. Name the flip side of that same strength as a direction they are growing, not a flaw. Keep it to one short clause at the end. The strength stays the headline; the edge makes the line sound human.
- Stop building, and have them say it. Once, out loud, 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, built in the report's own words.
Coaching questions
Not a worksheet to run in order. When the student stalls, reach for the question that fits.
Finding the one
- Which strength did the report name that you'd never have claimed?
- Read the rare one's definition aloud: where have you actually done that?
- Which line in its you likely excel at list sounds most like you?
Naming the edge, and saying it
- What's the honest edge of that same strength, the part you're still growing into?
- Now put the two together in one breath, the way you talk.
- Say it to me like I'm the interviewer, then tell me what felt true and what felt like a line.
