Talking about your current or past work experience can be tricky sometimes. What happens if you don’t know where to start ? What happens if your recruiter opens up with something along the lines of “Tell me about yourself” ?

Fear not, for if you go with a well prepared answer everything will go according to plan. But first, you have to know how to talk about a work experience.

Starting with the basics : when explaining about a past or current work experience, start with context. Big picture first, then main areas of expertise, then tasks.
It could go something like this : “In a tense market for finance internships, I am in charge of designing a program aimed at increasing our reputation among future finance professionals. The goal is to ensure we are #1 in the hearts for students when it comes to choosing an internship. Last August I implemented a new version of the programme in which I am also in charge of training on the topic of public speaking. I enjoyed sharing my methods of project management with the team and we’ve achieved our goal of X and Y.” And there you go, I’ve just successfully summarized a good third of my job.

Think of questions as opportunities – and prepare accordingly. If you don’t know where to start and are a bit confused about the whole thing, I suggest using a good old Excel spreadsheet with the following categories :

For each work experience, break it down in Context / Issue at hand > Skill > Results. This should allow you to get to the point without forgetting anything, and highlight your work experience without blabbing about your whole life story (unless it fits in the interview timeframe…). Going into details is a good thing, especially if you have provided the recruiter with a global vision of the situation beforehand. Skipping the issue at hand is a common mistake, as we tend to jump into results first.

Pretty simple, usually what works best !