Career resource
How to Explain Your Work Without Jargon
A practical structure for explaining operations, data, or technology work in plain language that interviewers and stakeholders can follow.
Last updated
2026-09-17
Jargon hides judgement
Terms such as "synergy", "leverage", and "streamline" usually make work harder to follow. Plain language forces you to say what actually happened: the problem, the step, and the outcome.
This matters most in interviews. An interviewer needs to understand your role in the work to assess your judgement. If they cannot follow the explanation, they cannot evaluate it.
A fill-in structure
"We had a problem where [describe the friction]. I [describe the concrete action]. The result was [state what you can support], and what I would improve next is [name the next test]."
The value is in the concrete middle section. Replace abstract verbs with specific actions such as mapped, measured, documented, tested, routed, compared, and defined.
Practise on a real piece of work
Take your strongest portfolio project and explain it in three sentences to a non-specialist. If they can ask a meaningful follow-up question, the explanation works. Practice this out loud until it sounds natural.
Iteretta labs reinforce this habit: module tasks require deliverables, and Hiri feedback asks you to justify decisions in a way another professional can inspect.
The plain explanation structure
- 01Outcome: what did the work make easier or possible?
- 02Problem: what was slow, unclear, or risky before?
- 03Action: what did you do, in concrete terms?
- 04Result: what can you show or measure honestly?
- 05Next: what would you improve or test?
Common questions
What if technical terms are necessary?
Use the term once, then define it in context. For example: "The webhook, an event notification between systems, triggers the next step." Keep the definition next to the term it explains.
How do I stop sounding rehearsed?
Practise until the structure is natural, not until the words are fixed. Use the same structure with different examples so it becomes a thinking habit rather than a script.
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