Abstract

The personal justification questions like ‘tell me about you’, ‘what motivates you?’, ‘what have you done recently to develop yourself?’, ‘what kind of salary are you after?’ are some of the questions asked in interview to confirm the candidate’s suitability for the particular post. This question may be asked in the beginning of the interview in which the few minutes become the career deciding minutes. This question was asked to the pre- final year engineering students in an engineering college situated in Krishnagiri District. It was found that students found it hard to provide a possible and satisfying answer. An analysis was done to find the reasons behind the students’ struggle. At the same time, a search was also done on the expectations of the interviewer as well as on the strategies of ‘Autobiography’ through available sources. Finally, it was found out that the strategies applied in the ‘Autobiographies’ could also be used to answer the self based interview question ‘tell me about you?’, as the main focus of the autobiography is to reveal the answers to man’s inquiries about life, behaviors, characters etc., according to Michel De Montaigne, the father of essays. Thus, this paper discusses how the strategies of ‘Autobiography’ will help the candidates who are preparing for interview to answer the interview question, ‘Tell me about you?’ behind providing the expectations and strategies of interview.

Key words: Interview, autobiography, problems of the students, autobiographical strategies.