Describing Your Background and Experience
How to talk about your studies, work history, and skills clearly — with the right tenses.
Whether in an interview, a networking conversation, or a first meeting, describing your background is a set piece. The main difficulty isn't vocabulary — it's tense control.
The tense rules that matter
Past simple — finished jobs and studies:
- I worked at Siemens for three years. (I don't now)
- I studied economics in Warsaw.
Present perfect — experience up to now, or a job you still have:
- I've worked in logistics for five years. (still true)
- I've managed teams of up to ten people. (experience, no specific time)
Present simple — your current role:
- I work as a project manager.
- I'm responsible for the reporting side.
The classic error is using past simple for a current job: ❌ I worked here since 2022. → ✅ I've worked here since 2022.
For and since
- for + a length of time: for three years, for six months
- since + a starting point: since 2022, since March
Useful phrases
Current role:
- I work as a... / I'm a...
- I'm responsible for...
- My main role is to...
- I report to...
Experience:
- I have five years' experience in...
- I've worked on several projects involving...
- Before that, I was at...
Skills:
- I'm confident with... / I'm familiar with...
- One of my strengths is...
- I'm currently learning...
Describing what you actually achieved
The commonest weakness isn't grammar — it's describing duties instead of results. Compare:
| Duty (weak) | Achievement (strong) |
|---|---|
| I was responsible for reporting. | I cut the reporting cycle from five days to two. |
| I worked on the migration. | I led the migration of 200 accounts, with no downtime. |
| I helped customers. | I handled around 40 queries a day and kept satisfaction above 90%. |
The pattern is: a strong verb + what you did + a number. Even an approximate number changes how the sentence lands.
Useful verbs: led, built, cut, improved, launched, introduced, handled, coordinated, trained, resolved.
Talking about a short answer at length
Interviewers usually want a four-part answer, not a one-line one:
- Situation — We had a backlog of about 300 tickets.
- Task — I was asked to get it under control.
- Action — I introduced a triage system and trained two colleagues on it.
- Result — We cleared it in six weeks and it hasn't built up since.
Even at B1 this structure works, because each part is a short sentence.
Being honest about level
Over-claiming is caught quickly, and under-claiming costs you the job. English has a usable middle:
- I'm confident with Excel. (I use it well)
- I'm familiar with SQL. (I can read it, not an expert)
- I've had some exposure to Python. (a little)
- I'm learning German — I'd say upper-intermediate.
- That's not something I've done, but I've done something similar with…
That last one is the most useful sentence in any interview: it admits the gap and immediately offers the nearest real thing.
Gaps and changes
Explain briefly, without apologising:
- I took a year out to travel.
- I was made redundant when the team was restructured. (no fault implied)
- I stepped back for family reasons, and I've been freelancing since.
- I wanted to move into something more technical.
One sentence is enough. A long explanation makes a normal gap sound like a problem.
Structuring your answer
Most interviewers expect: now → then → why here.
At the moment I work as a data analyst at a logistics company, where I'm responsible for weekly reporting. Before that, I spent two years in customer support, which is where I first got interested in data. I've been looking for a role with more technical depth, which is why this position appealed to me.
Notice the mix: present simple for now, past simple for finished periods, present perfect for the continuing thread.
"Tell me about yourself" is not an open question. It means: give me two minutes on your professional background, ending with why you're sitting here. Starting at university, or with where you grew up, is the most common way to lose the first two minutes of an interview — work backwards from now instead.
The same story, twice
Weak: I worked in customer support. I was responsible for answering emails. Then I moved to data. Now I make reports.
Strong: I'm a data analyst now — I own the weekly reporting for the logistics team. I came to it from customer support, where I was handling about 40 queries a day and started automating the reports nobody had time for. That's what got me into data, and it's why a role with more technical depth appealed to me.
Same career, same level of English. The second one has a strong verb, a number and a thread running through it.
Try it yourself
The quiz below tests exactly the tense choices that matter here.