Here’s how to answer the world’s most common interview question

I’ve listened to 12 interviews my clients have done in the past few weeks. And without fail, every single one included this question:

“Tell me about your career.”

Now, on the surface, it feels like a nice easy one to start with. It sounds harmless - like the interviewer is easing you in gently. But actually…

It’s a nothing question. A lazy one. And most people struggle to answer it. 

Why this question is so hard to answer well

When someone says, “Tell me about your career,” what do most people do?

They go chronological. They start at the very beginning of their working life and walk us through a timeline.

Which is not ideal, even early in your career… But gets way worse the more experienced you are.

Your career is now long. You’ve done a lot. Trying to cover it all — without structure — usually turns into a ramble. And there is no worse way to start an interview than with a long, winding answer.

So, how should you answer it instead?

Now, this isn’t a competency-based question. So we can’t use the STAR method (although if you haven’t heard of STAR, look it up — it’s a great way to structure answers to those “Tell me about a time when…” questions common in Marketing and Creative interviews).

But even though this question isn’t STAR-friendly…It still needs structure.

Here’s the structure I recommend

My favourite way to answer this question is to break your career into 3 clear parts.

For example, I might say:

“I can break my career into three parts — my time at Nike, my time at Apple, and my most recent work as a Career Coach.”

Then I’d walk them through each part, giving it a short theme and calling out 3 things I bring from that role that are relevant to the job I’m interviewing for.

So for Nike:

“That time was all about retail marketing and commercial.
I became an expert in working with sales teams, managing retail partners, and e-commerce.”

Then I’d move on to Apple and Coaching, following the same format.

Use signposting — and keep it short

At the start, say:

“There are 3 parts to my career - Nike, Apple, Coaching - and I’ll take you through each one.”

As you talk:

“The first part was Nike…
The second was Apple…
The third is Coaching…”

At the end:

“So that’s my career — Nike, Apple, and Coaching.
Let me know if you’d like to dive deeper into any of those areas.”

This answer should take no more than 2 minutes. You’re giving them a teaser, not your entire career story. You’ll have plenty of time to go deeper later in the interview.

It might take a little bit of prep to get this right, but it is absolutely worth it. If you can nail the first question of the interview, you set yourself up so nicely for the rest of the interview.