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The simplicity of 'tell me about yourself' is brilliant. It's all too easy to say 'what do you do?' Which presumes that the other person actually wants to talk about their work.

I've been trying to switch to 'tell me about yourself', but it's somehow harder than I thought.

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Interesting. I can't imagine that working at a dinner conversation. Starting with neutral guaranteed points of commonality are likely to be more successful in my experience (in observation and in practice).

The neutral small-talk intros (travel-to-venue, number-of-people, weather) segueing rapidly to how-you-know-host, and then on to learning about the person without asking them to come up with a narrative usually does well in that setting.

The key is to induce load on your conversational partner at the level that they are willing to accept and not to put a disproportionate load on them. "Tell me about yourself" is high load IMHO. They need to figure out what aspect of themselves they wish to represent.

Then again, perhaps I inhabit different social circles from that of a top-flight radio host and things are different there.

In an interview, I like "tell me about yourself" as a starter but not with passive listening for the most part.

I've been trying the Terry Gross approach at dinner parties, and I can tell you it's usually pretty awkward.

In fairness, I probably shouldn't start every interaction with "So what was it like collaborating with Philip Glass?"

> The key is to induce load on your conversational partner at the level that they are willing to accept and not to put a disproportionate load on them. "Tell me about yourself" is high load IMHO. They need to figure out what aspect of themselves they wish to represent.

This tracks with my experience as well.

Many nerds and introverts (myself included) detest small talk and want to jump into deep conversation straight away.

But life experience has taught me that guiding the conversation from shallow to deep produces a much better effect in most cases, even with other nerds and introverts. (except at conferences, where there is already a shared assumption of interest/knowledge)

I’m sorry, but being asked this question would make me feel incredibly awkward. It’s a bit too personal of a question to ask a complete stranger IMO. I would rather be asked something a little lighter/superficial that we can find common ground on and go from there.

> It's all too easy to say 'what do you do?'

Interestingly, not everyone answers "tell me about yourself" with "what do you do." How someone parses the former can actually be more interesting than the answer itself. For example, some people answer with their family, their country of origin, their company (versus profession), their title (versus company), a description of their role, or–quite plainly–discomfort. (Crudely, I've noticed peoples' enjoyment with this question roughly correlates with their social competence, perceive social status and general curiosity about people. New Yorkers answer with a profession. Europeans, more frequently, with a town of origin. The oddest pattern I picked up on was in Montreal, where I kept getting a detailed description of what the person did or ate that day.)

It's also fun watching yourself answer the question, particularly when your parsing varies given the company you're with or context you're in.

I'm a recent anglophone immigrant to Québec, currently midway through my francisation program. We spend a huge amount of time learning to converse with others about our daily routine, meals, etc. I wondered if the emphasis on these subjects was simply because everyone eats, or if there was a deeper cultural reason.

I usually use "What projects have you been working on?" If there's nothing, then I ask "What have you been excited about recently?"

I'm surprised by the pushback on HN. "Tell me about yourself" is a guiding principle, not a literal tactical prescription. "Those that are interested are interesting", as the saying goes.

"What have you been excited about recently?" is really great!

Asking people to share what they enjoy / experience they really liked is another opportunity for them to re-experience what they like. A absolutely love questions that allow me to re-live a moment from my vacation, or to share an idea that gets me excited!

Personally I think it is awful, it really puts the person on the spot and under pressure to come up with something interesting. It will basically lead to dead air while they think. Open ended questions are great but the answer should be in a second. That question is designed to for the person to subconsciously think the person asking is expecting something.

What about chaining a few "or" questions after?

If you ask, as you see the person's response - if their face isn't overcome with an expression of excitement, you could continue ... "or something interesting you've seen this year ... or any new place you've been ..." etc.

It's hard to come up with a good one-question strategy that would fit all. As you know more about the person it gets easier to ask fitting questions. For example if they have a child, that's a whole basket of good things to ask - let them be proud about the kid's first steps / first year in school / etc.

Or questions are equally bad because it boxes someone into a binary choice. And that form you gave is far too long and still fairly specific. It is kind of open ended. But open ended questions should be incredibly targeted yet give a lot of leeway. "Oh you lived in Chicago? How did you like it?". "have you been on any trips lately".

You are dead on about dialing questions in after you get some responses though. But being incredibly vague and simple helps to open the conversation up. They have the ability to run any direction with the response. It works for personal relationships and professional interviews. Let the person talk and follow up from there.

Yes, I agree. Opening questions should be simple, not too clever and not require one to reach too much. Small talk is supposed to be a social lubricant that leads to deeper talk, and it is important not to skip too far ahead.

If someone were to ask me what I'm excited about, my two options are "Nothing much" or "I'm trying to use Kubernetes for HPC....". Both are conversation stoppers unless the other party is a nerd.

For me, "what's keeping you busy?" works 80-90% of the time. It reaches into raw memory rather than the analytic side of a person. One can get to the latter eventually, but it needs to be a guided process.

I agree with some of the other comments that “tell me about yourself” feels a little too direct and personal.

I prefer something like “so what are you spending your time on these days?” It’s a question that can be answered with something work-related while not making the person feel that they’re defining themselves by their work. It also allows them to talk about their hobbies (or things like video games or Netflix) if they so choose.

I would feel "put on the spot" if asked to tell you about myself. It's a good opening line for an interview but for general conversation...

Something I've found works well over the years has been, "so, what do you like to do when your not working".

I'm fairly introverted and it gets the conversation going well in every case so far.

'Tell me about yourself' is horrible advice for a real adult conversation. 'What do you do' is also bad. People prefer reflecting on what they like, how they feel, and what they want to do. No one wants to start defining, describing, or even alluding to their personal attributes, and no one really wants to hear about them.

Aren't "reflecting on what they like, how they feel, and what they want to do" examples of "defining, describing, or even alluding to their personal attributes"?

Seriously. And how else are you supposed to navigate the conversation to those things with a complete stranger you just met? Be a mind reader and know those things about them and ask them explicitly? I don't understand why these questions are getting so much hate, for me they're just a starting point when I have no obvious one, and it's a great and easy way to get a general sense of what someone's all about. A getting the ball rolling kinda thing. And having used "so what do you do" as my default ice breaker for years now, I have always felt it put people at ease more than anything, especially people who seem kinda shy. It's open ended and they can go where they want with it. They gotta cool project they're working on they'd love to talk about? They can jump right to it for all I care, sounds good to me!

Or maybe my southerner is just showing super hard in this thread, ha.

I seriously don't understand the majority reaction here, either. It's just a simple, friendly, open-ended question. If you don't want to answer it, who cares. It's amazing what some people feel offended by nowadays. I guess these people would rather others just ignore them, as if on a subway.

> It's all too easy to say 'what do you do?' Which presumes that the other person actually wants to talk about their work.

Does it really? One can do other things than work.

'Tell me about yourself' is trying way too hard and comes of as calculated.

It seems very strange to me that inviting a respondent to essentially fill in a blank as desired would be considered "calculated" or "trying way too hard." It's essentially saying, "If you would like to share something about yourself, go ahead." If one were going to describe it negatively, it seems more like lazily not even trying to ask a thoughtful, relevant question. Bizarre.

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