Business English: How to Introduce Yourself with Confidence
2026-03-15 23 min
Description & Show Notes
Struggle to introduce yourself in English without sounding awkward or forgetting what to say? In this episode, the 3 English Experts show you how to craft a clear, confident, and memorable self-introduction for interviews, meetings, and networking in business English. Learn a simple structure, useful phrases, common grammar mistakes to avoid, and practical tips to build English fluency and English confidence — without turning your introduction into a sales pitch.
- (0:04) Introduction to the podcast
- (0:24) The importance of preparing a self-introduction
- (1:03) Rebecca demonstrates an example introduction
- (2:42) Introducing a simple template
- (3:18) Starting an introduction: useful phrases and common mistakes
- (5:04) Mentioning your job and workplace
- (6:00) Grammar tips: Present tense and talking about experience
- (7:43) Additional information: company description and age
- (10:18) Explaining your work using the “Rule of Three”
- (11:07) Talking about responsibilities
- (13:12) Personal details, hobbies, and sounding natural
- (13:44) Self-introduction as self-presentation, not a sales pitch
- (16:03) How to finish, how to mention past experience, and when qualifications matter
- (18:52) Start with the present, then work backwards
- (20:30) Golden Nugget: Speed is not fluency
- (21:31) Preview of the next episode
- (22:17) Workshop promotion and final closing
Pick up the template: "Introduction Yourself" on the TEE Resources Padlet @ Three English Experts Resources
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Rebecca: https://rebeccadeacon.com
Birgit: https://birgitkasimirski.de
Dave: https://businessenglishacademy.de
Fällt es dir schwer, dich auf Englisch vorzustellen, ohne dabei unbeholfen zu wirken oder den Faden zu verlieren? In dieser Folge zeigen dir die 3 English Experts, wie du eine klare, selbstbewusste und einprägsame Selbstvorstellung für Vorstellungsgespräche, Meetings und Networking im Geschäftsenglisch formulierst. Lerne eine einfache Struktur, nützliche Formulierungen, häufige Grammatikfehler, die du vermeiden solltest, sowie praktische Tipps, um deine Englischkenntnisse und dein Selbstvertrauen zu stärken – ohne dass deine Vorstellung zu einem Verkaufsgespräch wird.
Fällt es dir schwer, dich auf Englisch vorzustellen, ohne dabei unbeholfen zu wirken oder den Faden zu verlieren? In dieser Folge zeigen dir die 3 English Experts, wie du eine klare, selbstbewusste und einprägsame Selbstvorstellung für Vorstellungsgespräche, Meetings und Networking im Geschäftsenglisch formulierst. Lerne eine einfache Struktur, nützliche Formulierungen, häufige Grammatikfehler, die du vermeiden solltest, sowie praktische Tipps, um deine Englischkenntnisse und dein Selbstvertrauen zu stärken – ohne dass deine Vorstellung zu einem Verkaufsgespräch wird.
- (0:04) Einführung in den Podcast
- (0:24) Die Bedeutung der Vorbereitung einer Selbstvorstellung
- (1:03) Rebecca demonstriert eine Beispielvorstellung
- (2:42) Vorstellung einer einfachen Vorlage
- (3:18) Den Einstieg in die Vorstellung: nützliche Formulierungen und häufige Fehler
- (5:04) Erwähnung Ihres Berufs und Ihres Arbeitsplatzes
- (6:00) Grammatik-Tipps: Präsens und das Sprechen über Erfahrungen
- (7:43) Zusätzliche Informationen: Unternehmensbeschreibung und Alter
- (10:18) Erläutern Sie Ihre Arbeit mithilfe der „Dreierregel“
- (11:07) Über Aufgabenbereiche sprechen
- (13:12) Persönliche Angaben, Hobbys und natürlich klingen
- (13:44) Die Selbstvorstellung als Selbstpräsentation, nicht als Verkaufsgespräch
- (16:03) Wie man zum Schluss kommt, wie man vergangene Erfahrungen erwähnt und wann Qualifikationen wichtig sind
- (18:52) Beginne mit der Gegenwart und arbeite dich dann rückwärts vor
- (20:30) Goldener Tipp: Geschwindigkeit ist nicht gleichbedeutend mit Sprachgewandtheit
- (21:31) Vorschau auf die nächste Folge
- (22:17) Werbung für den Workshop und abschließende Worte
Transcript
(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, welcome to the 3 English Experts.
I'm Dave, I'm Rebecca and I'm Birgit and welcome to this episode.
3 English Experts is your English podcast to help you speak better English and create a positive and happy mindset for your English learning journey.
Hi everybody and welcome to this episode.
Today, we're talking introducing yourselves.
Whether it's for an interview, whether it's introducing yourself in your work, whether it's a social event, introducing yourself is something that you can prepare for.
It's something that then gives you confidence, especially in an interview situation or a high stakes situation.
So it's wise to get it right from the get go.
And so here's what we're going to have a look at today and Rebecca is going to kick us off with an exam.
Rebecca.
Yes, thank you Dave.
So I think what you just said there about the preparation, that's important.
I think it is one of these things, you can prepare it, you can have it written down, you can memorise it and use it in so many situations.
And I think people miss the opportunity.
They just, they go in cold and go, ah, hello.
And then it all goes a bit wrong.
And it's such an important thing.
It needs to be interesting.
It needs to be short.
It needs to be accurate.
It needs to be memorable.
And I think that is often the problem, isn't it?
Preparation is key.
Saying that I actually haven't prepared mine, but I am going to do it anyway.
Hello.
Off the cuff.
Off the cuff.
I'm doing it off the cuff.
So I will do my best, but I've done it quite a few times.
Okay.
So let me say a few words about myself.
Hi, I'm Rebecca and I am a business English coach.
I coach professionals to gain more confidence in speaking English.
I also translate.
So I translate a lot of documents for my clients from websites to contracts.
And finally, I'm also a positive psychology practitioner.
So I support clients with motivation, authenticity, and confidence issues.
I'm self-employed and I've been doing this for more than 25 years.
And when I'm not working, I love hanging out with my husband and my dog, walking on the beach here in Ireland.
And baking is one of my hobbies and singing karaoke.
I think we all know that by now.
That's me.
Wonderful.
Hello, everybody.
Thank you.
And I counted the sentences that was short.
That was only eight sentences.
Oh, you counted.
Very good.
Yeah.
And I thought we could offer you an example introduction template sort of thing you can download from this episode.
As Rebecca correctly said, it's a very good idea to be prepared and eight sentences that's manageable and with some options.
And we're going to talk about what options you could use now.
Absolutely.
From the beginning, what's the most important thing, Dave, as you begin when you're starting your introduction?
Well, I think the name is the first and foremost, who you are.
But I think also this little introductory phrase, let me introduce myself, or if it's in a more formal situation, maybe allow me to introduce myself, is also quite a good way just to kick off.
It also gives you a helping hand in the confidence thing, because you've got it learned, as we've talked about before, the confidence.
You've got it learned.
You say it and then you're straight into your name.
Then we can go on to Birgit.
I just raised my hand, which you can't see, because I want to.
We are looking at a document at the moment.
I wanted to add something here, the learning for listeners, because I know even professionals, people find that difficult sometimes.
This word I can see here, because it says introduce myself and not me.
That's a typical mistake, maybe myself and briefly.
It's an optional thing here.
Let me introduce myself briefly.
Very short.
Keep it short and simple.
Briefly is a very good expression.
I think I actually said, let me say a few words about myself.
That's another one you can say.
Again, it's a little bit less formal.
Let me say a few words about myself.
Then Dave said, depending on the situation, maybe you don't always need that phrase.
You can just say, I am Rebecca.
It depends on the scenario and how formal it is.
Another mistake I've often heard when people do introduce themselves is this, to introduce or talk about my person.
It's taken out of the German translation, one for one.
To speak about myself or something like that, and not my person.
It doesn't sound right in English.
Yeah, absolutely.
I've forgotten about that one.
We were saying, name.
For me, the next most important thing is job title.
I'm Rebecca and I'm a business English coach, because that's the most important thing in a business scenario.
What do you do?
That's how will one point how I remember you.
I am a consultant.
I am an IT specialist.
Yeah, and you have to put the A or N.
It's not by accident you're putting that.
It's important.
I am a teacher.
I'm a piano player.
I'm a bus driver or whatever.
So you need the article.
Yeah, people forget about that.
There is the other way of actually saying a field as well.
For example, I'm in marketing.
I'm in sales.
I'm in teaching, coaching, whatever the situation will be.
And then actually to say maybe who you work for.
Yeah, that was going to be my next point.
I'm in marketing and I work for name of company.
And I notice that you use the present tense all the time.
For example, I work for and I do these things.
And a common mistake is Birgit, as you well know from a German speakers, is using the present continuous.
So I'm working for or I'm doing this, I'm doing that, which is incorrect in this context.
Yes, unless you are going to stop because continuous, it will come to an end.
That's the best explanation we can offer you.
And the other thing, a lot of people then immediately say for a long time or something.
For many years, I work for, I'm working for.
And again, that's the tricky bit.
I have been working in the present perfect form.
Rebecca, please.
I just want to add as well, you don't necessarily have to say how long you've worked there.
I think this is something I know Germans in my experience tend to do that.
And I don't know why.
If you work there for 25 years, like a really long time and you want to show in your introduction, yeah, I've worked for this company for 25 years, or you're really new.
Maybe I've only been here for six months or a year, but like this six years, I don't know.
I just don't find it so relevant.
So I would skip that.
But seems to be some cultural thing because we have a tendency of saying, I don't know why, get a feeling that it's a sign of consistency if you stay in a company for a long time or something.
I don't know.
I don't know yet.
Or it could just be the Germans.
They love to give their details.
Yeah, very detailed as possible.
Yeah, but then it's tricky because then I have been working for so many years or since 2022.
Yeah, exactly.
So again, optional, I would say it's optional.
So we had name, job title, maybe like Dave said, area I work in marketing and then name of company.
And I would also say if you work for a smaller company that people don't know, you should say what type of company that is.
So I work for ABC and they are a small software consultancy because not everybody knows who they are.
If they're a big name, of course, you don't need to do that.
But for smaller companies, it's helpful to say who you are or you just say, I work for an IT software consultancy without giving the name also possible.
I think also hear words like family run or a small medium enterprise SME are quite useful business terms for small companies or medium sized companies.
Very useful family run or small medium enterprise SME is a short form in English to get the message that it's not big corporation.
Or a startup, perhaps you work for a startup or something just so people have an impression what type of company.
Or you're self-employed or freelance, you do freelance work.
Okay.
Yeah.
Now the next point is a bit contentious.
I didn't say this in my introduction, but a lot of people say this and they tell you how old they are.
This is one of my biggest thing.
Every time I do this with my clients, I can guarantee that most of them will put this on the second place.
They'll say, my name is Bernhard and I am 49 years old.
And every time there's always at least one of them that does it.
And I always think I can see that Bernhard.
I know how old you are.
I don't need you to tell me that.
Again, I think this is a German thing, isn't it?
Telling the name.
Sorry, the age.
Sorry.
The age.
I'm not so convinced.
I'm not so sure.
Is this really a German thing?
Yeah.
But as you say, it's obviously something international or British that's not in the forefront.
It's not really necessary unless you, unless the age might be important or for the job.
Yeah, I agree.
It's not very important.
No, it's not relevant.
I normally, I can see if I can see you.
I have an idea of how old you are.
It doesn't need to be.
Rebecca is about 30 something.
I am 21.
21, Birgit.
Come on.
It's dangerous to be on the other side.
Wrong.
Yeah.
Okay.
I said my name, my job title, and then I moved straight on to what I do.
And I used three examples.
So we're going back to, we talked before about the rule of three is a memorable way for people to remember information group into three.
So I said, I coach, I think I translate and I help clients with confidence and motivation.
So I used kind of three examples.
So I think that's a good way to describe your job, but there are other ways, of course.
But I think that's a very useful, very interesting, very good tip to get that straight, right.
At some point we are going to have to introduce yourself in the near future from the thing out, which we can add and yeah, practise it.
Yeah, exactly.
Good idea.
I think also when it comes to responsibility as well, to add that in, if you want to, so there, there's a few situations where you can go wrong, potential minefields, as we say, things can go wrong.
So firstly with this, I'm responsible for, and then after that in English, we should use the gerund.
So the verb with the ING on the end.
So I'm responsible for looking after my team or leading my team, whatever it might be.
And also when you use the phrase in charge of, maybe that's a little bit outdated.
Now we maybe use more the responsible for, but in charge of, it's the same thing, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's because of the of, then the verb is in the ING as well.
So I'm responsible in charge of leading a team of five people.
And I think now we also use this idea as, for example, as team lead, my area of responsibility is to, or and even now remit, I don't know.
I think remit comes from originally from the military and we use it more in the civilian world as well.
So that's also another possibility of how to talk about what you do, what your responsibility is.
Yep.
I agree.
Very useful.
Yes.
And then Rebecca talked about outside work, I think last sentence, and that's nice.
So people get to know you.
I love, and then again, the gerund construction with the ING.
I love doing something.
I love, you said.
Hanging out with my.
Hanging out.
Yes.
With my husband and my daughter.
I think I remember baking.
I ate baking.
And now.
Walking on the beach.
Which you can now do wonderful and not maybe germs would tend to say I love to do it.
So it's a gerund construction.
I love doing that.
I can read here on this sheet, which we have.
I hate.
I'm not sure whether you would bring that up in an introduction.
I hate working for that company.
I hate working here.
I hate it.
No, that's not something you would probably use in your introduction.
Yeah.
I'm going to retire next year.
I hate working here.
I meant to do with that is this all these liking verbs, which you can use, but all of them follow the structure with the ING, right?
So I enjoy doing this.
I love doing that.
I like doing this.
And maybe there are things that you don't like or dislike.
Let's say dislike.
That's a nice one.
Dislike.
Not hate, right?
And it's a little bit introducing yourself as a little bit selling yourself.
Would you say that or not?
For sure.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
When you say selling, especially to Germans, they get allergic to that because they hate this American sales pitch.
They're more and to the point.
So it doesn't have to be.
I always say to my clients, it doesn't have to be a sales pitch, but I want to know who you are and I need something memorable.
I meet so many people every week over the last years.
I've met hundreds of people.
And I, for every person, I have a little hook that I go, oh, that's the lady who loves, I don't know, travelling to Thailand, or that's the guy who works in the marketing team.
And he created this specific campaign.
I need to know something specific about you to remember, I think.
So just giving people an interesting hook.
So maybe some people will know, oh, she's into psychology and other people will hook.
Oh, she's got a dog.
And other people say, oh, she lives near the beach or everyone will pull something different out.
It could be, but they need to remember you.
I think that's the most important thing.
So you put something special in there, a little bit different.
Yeah.
I like that too.
And that in another respect to me says that it don't be the one trying to hide, especially if you're not confident with English, you're not hiding, but showing who you are and preparing that.
I think that's a better version because otherwise, yeah, you will not be happy afterwards if you're trying to not say who you are or because of insecurity.
And it's about being authentic, being who you are, show your strengths.
We've talked about this before.
Emphasise your strengths.
And again, it comes back to using these dynamic action verbs.
I support clients.
I manage and coordinate my team.
Rather than just this, I'm responsible for, it's more like these action verbs.
I think are always very helpful.
They're easy to use.
And again, we said present simple, I support, I help.
And they're a little bit more dynamic.
So really no reason to be afraid of introducing yourself, especially not if you have a little preparation and yeah, get it.
And David, any more points from your list?
There's some down the bottom I think we haven't talked about.
There's also that one, if you want to finish off, often you hear this, and that was it, or something like that from a German translation perspective.
But often, as you said, that's all about me or something along those lines.
That's a more natural way to finish at the end of the introduction.
What about talking in certain situations, maybe about past jobs or something like that?
I think that's also possible.
Yeah.
And maybe necessary on the situation.
And again, you can divide it up into whether it's a more formal situation or a less formal situation.
If it's a more formal, you could use maybe the word prior to, and then the company where you're at now.
And then you're talking about previous companies or previous experience.
Or if it's maybe a little bit less formal, you could say previously, although that is still quite formal, but less than prior to.
Or keep it a little bit easier, before I joined this company or before joining, you can use both forms as well.
I worked for such and such company.
So I think if you need to talk about anything beforehand, they're quite useful phrases just to bring that into your topic.
And I suppose here, very quickly, not to get confused with, I have worked, because of course, that's only to do with the current company.
If it's over, then it must be just worked.
I worked for this company, because it's over.
If you talk about the past, use the past tense, I would say.
Yeah, that sounds too easy.
Sorry.
Easier said than done.
Yeah.
You could also bring in something where I find people struggle with if they were on maternal leave or parental leave or they're part-time or work full-time or something like that.
Other vocab, yeah.
I just wanted to add in, sometimes as well, people talk about their qualifications, like their university.
Again, for me, I wouldn't do that unless you're a really new graduate.
Maybe you've only been working for a year or so.
So you could say I studied business and marketing and then I joined the company directly after my degree or something or master's or whatever.
I think otherwise I wouldn't mention it if it's 15, 20 years ago.
It's not really relevant anymore.
I have a slight feeling that it's because when I was in England, this apprenticeship and this Prüfung Industriehandelskammer doesn't exist in England.
Many people, most people in business, they have a degree when they work in jobs.
So that's just a normal thing.
Maybe that's a little different here.
So sometimes people want to focus on that.
Emphasise.
Yeah.
Emphasise.
So I hold a degree and then I say I have a degree in or something.
Maybe.
I don't know.
Could be.
You could be.
Yeah.
It's just I feel in an introduction it's not relevant really unless it's quite fresh, it's quite new or unless you've maybe changed your job.
You could say I studied law, but then later on I changed my job completely and moved into marketing or something like that.
Then it could be something.
And then I remember, oh yeah, that's the girl who studied law and then changed their job completely.
So if it's got an interesting hook to it, I think.
And the other point is, as we've talked about, we start with now and go backwards.
That's the other mistake people make.
Sometimes they start at the beginning.
Hello, my name's Rebecca.
I studied languages and history and politics and then I moved and then I lived in Germany and now they go the other way.
They start at the beginning and you should really start from now and go backwards like you would on a CV.
Start with where you are now and work backwards.
Don't go the other way.
Sometimes that happens.
I hear that quite a lot.
I have a very strong feeling that's very this sort of be precise.
Don't miss anything.
Yeah.
So we can't forget about that.
I think that really shoots yourself in the foot if you do that, because people want to know the now.
They want to know who you are right now.
And then they'll be just like, come on, get on with it.
And then they're not listening.
They're not paying attention.
People have limited attention span today.
So that's why you've got to get your points in.
Absolutely.
From the beginning and the quicker the better.
Yeah, absolutely.
The Golden Nugget.
And this week's Golden Nugget is about speed.
You might be a little nervous because you need to introduce yourself to people you don't know.
They don't know you.
But remember one thing, speed isn't fluency.
Clarity is.
I think this is a very good slogan.
And when you are prepared, you can work on this.
If you need to do the introduction in English and you're not used to doing that very often, try it out aloud to yourself before you go into a meeting, before you go into the interview, because we all tend to talk too quickly sometimes.
We speed up, especially if we are nervous, if we're not sure.
But having a little break, slowing down makes it easier to understand you.
And it reduces the number of filler words you might use.
It will give a better impression.
That's our tip for this week.
Very good.
I like that one.
Absolutely.
And for next session, on a bit of a correcting things, mistakes often people make, like we had a few ideas today when you're introducing yourself, we'd like to move into pronunciation.
How you say words.
Obviously, English is really difficult for this.
You can have the same word and it looks, it's said in probably 15 different ways.
I'm exaggerating, of course.
But in the last episode, we had, I think, the word row, if I'm not correctly, if I'm not mistaken.
So the word R-O-W, it can be row, it can be row, it can be row.
Work that one out for next week.
Homework.
Homework.
Bye.
Bye for now.
Bye bye.
Thanks for listening today, guys.
Just to let you know, we have another workshop coming up very soon.
We are doing another online workshop.
It's going to be four or five hours, small group, and you will be doing grammar with Birgit, you'll be doing communication with Dave and mindset and motivation with me.
You'll be leaving with a nice roadmap, personalised learning roadmap.
And also you do get three free sessions to our conversation club.
So it's a really good deal.
We're offering this for 329 euros, which is a really good deal.
So you've got the full day workshop, you've got your personalised roadmap and you've got three sessions to conversation club.
Head over to our website, 3englishexperts.com and sign up now.
We still have a few places left and we would be happy to see you there.
Thank you.