The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business Office of Career Management offers advice about how to answer such an open ended question as "tell me about yourself."

Executive recruiters also weigh in on how they want future employees to answer the question, and a sample interview is shown to demonstrate an answer.

Suggestions include:

Answer the question chronologically
Give results and only topics that relate to the job
Walk through your background and why you made the decisions you've made thus far in your career
What you are doing to meet you career goals
Avoid personal information
Demonstrate accomplishments
Keep answers to ~2 minutes in length