Q. How would your friends describe you?

For this question, we asked our friendly careers guru and acclaimed career advisor Claire Leslie for her insights, based on her experiences helping thousands of students prepare for competency and strengths-based interviews. Over to you Claire...

You might be tempted to relax when facing this question. Perhaps the question conjures up the pleasing image of fun evenings with friends? Don’t lose your focus. This isn’t the time for the phrase “party animal” to pop out. Thinking about the question in advance of an interview will ensure you are more able to give an impressive reply.

Why is the interviewer asking you the question?

The recruiter is trying to find out as much as possible about you. It’s as important to know if you will fit into the existing teams, as it is to know if you can do the job. It’s no good recruiting the excellent operator, who upsets everyone else in the workplace and causes all sorts of disruption. 

It’s relevant to know what your friends think about you and indeed to know if you have friends! The way in which you answer this question will give an insight into your self-awareness. How does what you say relate to the impression that the interviewer has formed about you in the interview? If you have come across as quiet and reserved and your answer is “fun and zany” then there is a mismatch. Why might that be? You may just have made the recruiter anxious.

What shouldn’t you say? 

This isn’t the time to come out with a list of attributes you hope the interviewer wants to hear. You might be tempted to go with: “Oh, they think I am very bright and they know that I work really hard and that I am a complete perfectionist”. It’s not the best answer. This just doesn’t sound as if it is the way friends talk about one another. You risk the interviewer deciding that you are being less than completely honest, which could be fatal. Think about what picture your answer is going to give the interviewer. 

“Fun” gives the impression that you can make others laugh and make a social event go with a swing. The kind of person you might want in a workplace. “Party animal” might be another way of describing the same individual, but the picture it creates is different. I see the late night party, and then worry about the bleary eyed employee the following day. 

What sort of words do friends use about one another?

Here are some of the words I would use about my friends: loyal, kind, always there for me, unselfish, funny, honest, practical (or sometimes impractical). The words I use refer to our emotional connection. Of course, many of my friends are also very clever, hard-working and good looking, but these are not the attributes which principally drive and maintain our friendship. You may be thinking: surely the interviewer doesn’t want to hear words like this? Well why not? Someone who can be described with some of the words I have used above is probably going to be a good team player, able to fit into the workplace. 

These are appropriate words which identify key reasons why people choose to be friends, so your answer is more likely to sound genuine and honest. Why not do your research? Ask your friends how they would describe you. See if they are all saying the same thing (sometimes we can behave differently with different people). If the answers are different, think about the real you. Come up with three words so that you are ready for this question.
How to deliver the answer?
 Smile, you’re talking about your friends – it makes me happy when I think about mine!