Ways to describe a person in one word

Each of us is a complex human being. We have our strengths and weaknesses, our past, dream,s our friends and role models. Each of us is unique, and it may take more than 1,000 words to give at least a somehow accurate description of any person in the world. Still, it would be only somehow accurate. 

What to do, however, when hiring managers ask you to describe yourself with the help of one word only? That’s really a tricky situation. They typically expect to hear your greatest strength, or something that is really characteristic for you, something that makes you stand out from the other job applicants in the hiring process. But it’s a silly question indeed, because one word does never tell the entire story…

Silly or not, you may get this question in your interview. And you should not remain silent, or think for five minutes before you pick the one word that describes you better than anything else. I put together a list of 100 words, each of them telling something about a person, and divided it to ten groups. Let’s see if you can find your winner in my selection.

100 sample answers to “Describe yourself in one word” interview question

• Ambitious, bold, creative, positive, passionate, empathic, transparent, honest, resilient, humble.
• Leader, follower, manager, coach, technician, engineer, teacher, winner, entertainer, entrepreneur.
• Indescribable, unique, me, nobody, complicated, complex, human, mother, father, loner.
• Athlete, artist, musician, painter, player, gamer, builder, destroyer, gunner, victim.
• Dreamer, idealist, philosopher, realist, optimist, pessimist, poet, soul, brain, heart.
• Tall, young, old, experienced, inexperienced, learner, pupil, short, healthy, fit.
• Crazy, unpredictable, superhero, lunatic, demon, God, devil, archangel, joker, ace.
• Responsible, detail-oriented, skilled, flexible, elaborate, adaptable, sociable, listener, talker, alive.
• Nervous, confident, brilliant, forgiving, unprepared, prepared, strong, excited, happy, undecided.
• Lost, unemployed, thriving, struggling, hoping, praying, trying, dreaming, screaming, nothing.

What you pick means a lot to you–either in good or bad way

Be careful about your choice. It indicates (at least in the eyes of the interviewers) what matters the most to you. Let me give you a few examples. If you pick a role, or a name of a profession you have or field you studies (manager, engineer, teacher, programmer, etc), it shows that work is really important to you, that it is what you think about the most, and perhaps even live for. Not a bad choice for most hiring managers.

If you pick a character ability–some strength (empathic, responsible, honest, etc), it suggest that you built your identity around this ability, and consider it the greatest asset you can offer to your next employer. This can work work, especially if you pick something fitting to the job description, or for the the company culture.

Is it okay to pick a weakness?

Maybe you feel like a victim, or really unlucky in your life. Or you are just a dreamer, still waiting for your opportunity to realize your ambitions. Or you feel lonely, deserted, or almost a nobody.

I have complete understanding for your feelings. Who says that he never experienced something similar is lying. All of us have some bad days. However, you should focus on something positive in a job interview. Nobody wants to hire an employee who will walk around the office with their head bent, pitting themselves, or even seeding negativity in their colleagues.

Referring to your emotion or condition when it comes to interviewing is another interesting idea

Why not saying that you are excited, or enthusiastic? It is always good if the hiring managers get an impression that the interview is important to you, that you are happy to be where you are. You can describe these feelings when they ask you to describe yourself in one word.

After all, our emotions change, so do our roles in life. Hence it is fine to pick something fleeting, something that describes who you are, or how you feel, in the exact moment when they ask the question. If the interview isn’t going well, or you flopped some questions, you can even pick unprepared, or nervous for your answer.

Experiment with unconventional answers when you have nothing to lose

Interview is a sales talk, and you should try to tell them something that makes a good impression, that show you in the best possible light. However, if the “sales talk” hasn’t been going well up to this point, if you feel that your chances are getting slimmer with each next question, you can try your luck with something unconventional, or even bizarre.

When you find yourself in a situation when you have nothing to lose, why not characterize yourself as crazy, alive, or as an ace, an idealist, or even as a soul? Such a choice allows for a lot of options when they ask you to elaborate on your answer.

And even if they do not ask you to elaborate on your strange choice, it is definitely something they will remember long time after the end of your interview. It’s better when they remember you in any association, than when they forget you five minutes after the end of your interview, perhaps because you told them the same things everyone else did…

If they give you a chance, you should elaborate on your answer

One word is not really enough, but initially that’s what you should say. Because it’s also a test of your ability to follow instructions and orders, so one word is one word, and if you say three or opt for an entire sentence, you are losing points in this interview.

However, if there’s a moment of silence once you tell your word, you may ask whether they do not want you to elaborate on your characteristic, on the one word you picked. And that’s the opportunity you’ve been waiting for, a chance to explain how the characteristic will help you in your new job, or why the one is so important, so special to you, that you picked it from the huge selection of words that characterize your character, life, and attitude…

Ready to answer this one? I hope so! Check also sample answers to other tricky interview questions:

• Does your academic record accurately reflect your capabilities?
• What would you do if you saw a co-worker stealing a small item or giving food to someone without paying?
• If you were an animal, what would you be?

To speak better English you need to improve your English vocabulary to speak English fluently. In this advanced English vocabulary lesson with Meera, you will learn how to replace lengthy sentences with one word substitution to describe someone’s personality and behaviour. Use these words in your daily English conversations to sound fluent and confident in English.

Complete Lesson Transcript : –

Hey guys welcome back to Let’s Talk, this is me Meera and today is one of my favorite lessons to be frank with you, we usually face this problem these days, whenever we want to describe any friends or family or any one such person, we always use two to three lines for describing them, and it gets very confusing for the person who’s listening to us. What if, I tell you that I have really interesting words to describe that person in just one word, so like you can see I have few sentences over here, which basically describe that personality, and I’m going to tell you one word replacement for all of those. Today we just have ten, but I’m sure we could have more in the coming videos. We are going to take a look at these, but the last one is my personal favorite, so wait and watch what’s going to happen. Once I tell you word by word and sentence by sentence, try to tag your friends, right, on whatever social media you are on, and let’s see what happens to your friends when they get to know that word for them. Right, so let’s get going, the first person, someone who is too strong to be defeated, so now when we’re talking about this person, he’s someone or she’s someone who cannot get defeated mentally or physically and who’s so strong, can you guess? Just try and guess what could be just one word description for that person? No, not Superman, come on that’s not what I’m talking about, but that’s a great word, right? He’s someone who cannot be defeated and that person is, “invincible”. So whenever you want to talk about that person you can say, you know what, he will not give up, he is not giving up, he is invincible. Or if you want to say, my mother is so strong she is invincible. Isn’t that a great word? And plus, nowadays Twitter, Instagram all these places have really limited use of words, so there you go you have one word to describe them, the next time you want to post something about them. Next, this person is someone who can adopt the situations really quickly. Maybe, you just put him in a desert, he or she will just do fine. You take him, take him to a business class, he will do fine. You put that person in great humid weather, that person will be fine. Now this person, that, this is I’m just talking about situations, he or she’s someone who adopts to it very quickly, who easily gets comfortable in such situations, what would you name him, what would you call him? This person is a “versatile” person. We’re talking about situations, we’re talking about anything he wants to do in life, he’s basically has a great versatile personality. Can you think of your friends or family members already to describe these people? Try… We are moving on, we have one who pretends to be someone else. Well guys we have a lot of people who claim that, hey you are copying my style or you’re actually completely doing exactly what I’m doing and pretending to be someone else, informal language, in informal language we call this person, “a con man”. Okay so I’m going to write it, but that’s not the word we’re looking at, yeah? This person can fool you very easily. Now obviously it takes a great amount of efforts to actually be someone else, but this person is an “impostor”, okay? I hope you don’t know people who are imposters, okay? Now so don’t tag someone with, hey you’re an impostor because that’s a little rude, but I thought you should know since we have so many topics going on these days on social media who pretend to be someone else, I wanted you to know that word to describe them, right? Moving on guys the one who can handle pain and hardships. Now I know that the first one and the second one may sound a little similar, but here this person is in general too strong to be defeated for anything, that person will not break down. But this is someone who has been through hardships and been through pains and can still handle it, has taken care of it, has not been defeated, but can handle it at the same time, right? Has not always won, has been defeated and has been able to sail through that difficult time period in his life, now that person is “stoic”, very short word, right? Stoic, let me make sure that you do not get confused, right a little color over there. I’m sure you must have got this, someone who can handle pain and hardships as a stoic personality, right? Maybe this could be your mother and this could be your father, right? Yes, moving on, one who doubts everything in life, do we have that friend of yours or that person may be in your office, who’s like, oh no, no-no, maybe we should not do this… So you come up with this idea and you say, hey you know what we should post this today on social media or Instagram and this person goes like, oh no, no, no maybe we will get a lot of dislikes, oh maybe we will get a lot of hates… Do you have that person in your life? Now that person is called, a “cynic”, who says, he or she doubts everything. Do you think we should go to the beach this holiday? Oh no, no, no I think it’s gonna be really hot and people are going to steal our money. Well that’s doubting. If you have a person if you say, you know what I think she’s a great girl, you should be with her and this guy goes, oh no, what if she’s not, oh no, what if she’s just being an impostor, that person is a cynic you guys. You can always say, come on now, don’t be a cynic just go on one date at least and you will get to know if she is an impostor or not, right? Well go ahead and try to use it whenever you can. An unskilled, next up, unskilled style of work. Now this is not always negative, okay? We, whenever we talk about an experienced person or a professional person, this person has to learn at each stage, right? Now someone who has not reached that stage, will obviously have a little unskilled style of work, a little unpolished things, he leaves or she leaves things undone, right? Now that person is known as or called as an “amateur”, okay? It could be a dancer, it could be a digital marketing person, his style of work is unfinished, unskilled and I think that’s completely fine because to reached, to reach that professional stage or experience stage, you must go through the amateur phase as well, right? So that’s completely fine. I just wanted you to know, how you can describe the style of work or that person in one word. This person can write easily with both hands. To be frank this used to be my dream when I was a child, so I had this friend who could, you know who would start writing in the class with his right hand and take his pencil in in his left hand and continue writing in equally easily manner, and I never understood it, although I always wanted to be that person and that person my friends is called, “ambidextrous”. Do you think this would be something really interesting on your CV or resume, if at all you are just a graduate, I think it could it could really be a funny thing to talk about in an interview, just to make the atmosphere a little informal and a little more fun, so if someone asks you, what skills do you have? You can definitely say, I am an ambidextrous. Isn’t that fun? Well, the next one is equally fun, I am sure, most of us have this person in our lives, that person who is active like an owl at night, who’s that person? That person is “nocturnal”. I want you guys to tag this friend of yours, I’m sure it’s not one person, I’m sure they’re gonna be ten thousand or hundreds of them, who are going to be nocturnal. I too have such friends, you know who are up all night or who can stay up all night, I am not that person, I sleep very early, because I wake up early, right? I’m a morning person. Now, the next one is, one who has a negative thinking, hold on before you think, isn’t that similar to cynic? Well it’s not because this person just doubts everything, he just, just doubts, okay? And you can clear that person’s doubts. But now this person thinks negative about everything, oh no, I don’t think that’s going to be, that going to be, that’s going to be right, I don’t believe in this, I don’t think what you’re doing is right, I don’t think what you’re saying is right… Always the negative person, who comments negative, who dislikes everything, that thought process and that person who thinks that way is, a “pessimist”, you guys, what is he or she? A pessimist. I really hope you don’t have a pessimist in your life, if you do, make sure you tell that person that you need to change darling, you need to become an optimist, right? It’s the opposite of pessimist, who thinks positive and is hopeful in life but we’re not talking about that person we’re talking about my favorite person which is someone who is who has an unconventional style, who wares uncommon things or who does uncommon things and really is able to stand out in the crowd. In fact this kind of, it’s actually a style of living and that’s how it becomes a personality and a different personality and that personality is called as, “bohemian”. Isn’t that word itself so funky and so uncommon? Do you know any such person? I’m sure, there are going to be so many people who might be following a lot of bohemian people or people who live very differently. Maybe they have nice, different types of colors that they wear or maybe their house is filled with plants and yet very creative and just think, they think out of the box. I think every one of us should have someone like this in our lives, because they really bring color to our life, right? So that personality is a bohemian personality and these are your ten new hashtags to tag your friends right away, so go ahead… okay, before that please I hope you don’t find any imposter or conman because that’s a little tricky you know. So go ahead, tag these people, follow us on Instagram, the link is right there in the description and well, that’s all for the day guys, I will be back very, very soon with another such interesting topic, you keep practicing, you keep smiling, spread a lot of love guys this is me Meera signing off for the day, ciao.