Marketing Yourself: Self-Disclosure

For some people in an interview situation, the hardest thing to do is to talk about themselves. Still, others may not know when to stop talking about themselves. Most people give way too little or way too much information. You've got to find a middle ground when speaking to a potential employer.

Self-disclosure is not bragging - you are not trying to set yourself up bigger than life. You are making truthful statements that are facts about you. Hopefully, you're focusing on and talking about your transferrable skills and abilities - things you've learned in other work, voluntary, or life situtations that you can bring to your new employer. Self-disclosure is revealed in the context of the interview. This is where you share your strengths, skills, abilities to perform certain functions, work values, career ambitions, and experiences related to your unique work experiences.

If you don't tell the employer about what you can do for them, how is s/he to know? When revealing facts about yourself:

• Describe your skills in concise terms: “I would be good at the administrative function of this job because I’ve coordinated many projects with up to 6 staff members who came to me for questions and guidance.”
• Back up your claim with actual experience:"I’ve worked in customer service for over a year now and dealt with all levels of questions from simple to complex. People seem to like the way I respond to them and handle their issues.”
• Make a clear connection between your skills of the past and the needs of this present employer: "I’m comfortable working with computers and have taken several courses in MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. I’m very familiar with them and feel confident that I can learn your computer system quickly and easily.”

A good idea is to prepare your answers before you go into an interview. Our "Interview Script" (link) is set up to ask some of the most common, "Core Questions" (link) such as "Tell me about yourself (use our "One Minute Commercial" form [link])" and "Why do you want to work here" and "What skills do you have for this job?" and "Why did you leave your last job?" and "Do you have any questions?" (Link).

Remember that in an interview situtation, you are also trying to gather information about the job and the organization. Self disclosure is important not only for you, but for them, too. If you're in an interview and they don't want you to know about the position or their organization (giving you vague answers or not answering your questions at all), a red flag should go up in your head. Then you need to ask yourself, "Do I really want to work here? Is the environment here going to be open and honest or closed and negative? Are they really being truthful about why they want to hire me?"

If you can answer those questions in the positive, let them know the biggest self-disclosure item of all: "I'm very interested in this position and would like to work for you." This statement leaves no doubt in anyone's mind about what you're disclosing.