Almost every panel opens with this question, and almost every candidate wastes it. The panel is not asking for your life story. It is asking for a short, clear picture of who you are at work and why you are sitting in front of them. It is usually scored under “communication”, and it sets the tone: a tidy one-minute answer tells the panel that the next forty minutes will be easy to score.
- 1Present: your name, your current role or studies, and one strength or responsibility in numbers. “I'm a finance assistant at a WASH NGO in Burao, where I handle payments for a 300,000-dollar project.”
- 2Past: one or two earlier experiences that prepared you for this job, each in one sentence. Pick the ones that match the advert, not the oldest ones.
- 3Future: why this role is your next step. One sentence that names something from the advert. This invites the panel's next question.
- Starting with your birthplace, your parents or your brothers and sisters. The panel cannot score any of it.
- Reading your CV from top to bottom. They have it in front of them; they want the story, not the list.
- Going on for three or four minutes. After ninety seconds the panel stops listening and starts waiting.
- Going too short: “I'm Maxamed, I have a degree in accounting, that's it.” The panel now has to dig, and a panel that digs scores you lower.
Answer in the language of the question. If the panel asks in English, answer in English, even if the rest of the interview turns out to be in Somali. Write your answer down, then say it out loud with a timer until it takes 45 to 60 seconds and no longer sounds memorised. Keep the same facts as your CV; the panel will compare.