It is almost always the first question, and it is the one most candidates answer worst. People start from primary school, or they recite their CV, or they say “I am a hardworking and dedicated person” and stop.
What they are actually asking
- Can you summarise yourself in a minute without rambling?
- Do you understand what this job is?
- Have you done anything that resembles it?
- Are you going to be easy to work with?
Nothing about that requires your life story. It requires ninety seconds, structured.
The four-part answer
- 1Present — who you are and what you do now, in one sentence.
- 2Proof — one specific thing you did that is relevant to this role, with a number in it.
- 3Future — why this job, at this company, is the logical next step.
- 4Close — one line handing the conversation back: “That's why this role interested me.”
A worked example
For a customer service role at a Lagos fintech:
“I'm a customer support officer with three years' experience, most recently at a retail bank in Ikeja.
In my current role I handle about 70 customer conversations a day across phone and WhatsApp. When complaint backlog hit four days last year, I built a simple tagging system in Excel so the team could see recurring issues, and we brought it down to under 24 hours in six weeks.
I want to move into fintech because the pace and the product complexity are where I do my best work — and this role is squarely about exactly what I've been doing, at a company whose app I actually use.
That's why the role interested me.”
Notice what it does not contain: no childhood, no list of every job, no “I'm a hardworking person”. It contains one number, one action and one reason.
The four ways it goes wrong
- Starting at secondary school. Everything before your first real job is context, not content.
- Reciting the CV line by line. They have it in front of them. Add something the page cannot show.
- Badmouthing the last employer. It is the single fastest way to lose a Nigerian panel. Frame every exit as a pull towards something, not a push away.
- Naming salary in the first minute. That conversation has its own slot, and it is not this one.
Prepare three versions
Write one for the role you want most, one for a role in an adjacent industry, and a sixty-second version for phone screens. Then say each one out loud three times. Not in your head — out loud, on your feet. The first time you hear it should not be in the room.
Two shorter versions you also need
The ninety-second answer is for the interview room. You will also need a thirty-second version for a phone screen and a two-line version for a WhatsApp or LinkedIn introduction.
“I'm a customer support officer with three years in retail banking,
currently handling about 70 conversations a day. I'm looking to move
into fintech, which is why I applied for this role.”
“Good morning — I'm Chioma, a customer support officer with three years
in retail banking, currently at [Bank] in Ikeja. I'd like to ask about the
Customer Service Officer role you posted on Monday.”
The message version is what you send to a referral, and it works far better than “please help me with a job”. It tells the person who you are, what you do and exactly what you want, in the time it takes to read a text.
If they interrupt
They will. An interviewer who hears something interesting stops you to ask about it — that is a good sign, not a failure. Answer the question they asked, then bring yourself back with one line: “Shall I carry on with the rest?”
What you must not do is lose the thread and start again from the beginning. Your structure is a spine, not a script.