Walk me through your resume

This is the first question in most interviews, and the one candidates most often waste. Two minutes in, the interviewer has usually formed a view — not of your experience, which they can read for themselves, but of whether you communicate clearly and whether your choices look deliberate.

That's the real task. Your resume is a list of things that happened. The walkthrough is the story that explains why they happened in that order, and why the next thing should be this job.

Aim for two minutes. Not five. If they want more, they'll ask, and they will.

Go chronologically, and start where the story starts — usually university, occasionally a first job if you're more experienced. Never school.

Give each stop the same four beats, compressed:

• What you did
• Why you chose it
• What you took from it
• Why it led to the next thing

That last beat is what turns a list into a narrative. "I took the internship because I wanted to see whether I liked working with financial statements or just liked the idea of it" tells the interviewer more than any bullet point on the page.

Weight toward the present. Your most recent role should get roughly half the time. First-year university societies get a clause, not a sentence.

Signpost the transitions out loud. "The reason I moved from audit to corporate finance was..." — transitions are where the interviewer is forming their judgment about intentionality, so don't let them pass silently.

Plant one or two hooks. Mention something you'd like to be asked about — a live deal, an unusual project, a decision that didn't work out. Most interviewers will take at least one, and you'll have steered the conversation onto ground you've prepared.

Land on why you're here. The final sentence should connect the story to this specific role and this specific firm. Ending on "...and that's my resume" throws away the only part of the answer with real leverage.

One note on the difference from "tell me about yourself." That question gives you licence to be thematic and to start wherever you like. The resume walkthrough is anchored to the document the interviewer is holding — they're reading along, and every line should be accounted for.

Communication under mild pressure. In consulting and banking you'll be asked to summarise complex situations concisely and constantly. This question is the first sample.

Whether your choices look intentional. Nobody's path is actually as clean as it sounds in a good walkthrough — that's fine. What's being assessed is whether you can articulate a rationale for each move. A candidate who can explain why they left is far more convincing than one who simply reports leaving.

Consistency with the document. They have your resume in front of them. Anything you say that doesn't match, or that's conspicuously absent, gets noticed.

Whether the story points here. A walkthrough that could have been given to any firm in any industry suggests you're running a process rather than making a choice.

Self-awareness. Gaps, low grades, a short stint — how you handle these matters more than the facts themselves. Own it in one sentence and move on. Defensiveness reads as something to hide; over-explaining reads the same way.