Learn New English Vocabulary – Job Interview Vocabulary
Hey there amigos, today, I share 7 things that you must do if you wanted to impress at your next job interview. Tune in to find out what these tips are. Enjoy :)
Episodes mentioned
[107] Corporate Buzzwords
Get job Ready – starts on 23 October
Transcript
Hey guys, you are listening to the English Made Simple show this is episode number 148, number one hundred and forty eight, numero ciento cuarenta y ocho.
Welcome amigos y amigas, my name is Milena from www.englishmadesimple.net, www.englishmadesimple.net.
I hope you are doing well, you are keeping out of trouble, behaving like adults should behave.
Don’t mind me, I don’t know where I am going with that. I am doing great myself.
My website was offline for like 7 hours last week, that was fun. Not! Then it was loading really slowly for some reason. So slow. Anyway, (those) were fun times. Fingers and toes crossed it is going to work better from now on.
Right. Nobody cares, as my husband likes to say. Nobody cares Milena. Just move on!
Listen up guys, I want to let you know that this will be the last week of the CV and interview talk, although I will come back to this later. Next month I want to focus on speaking. Speaking English and I will be introducing a new program that will help you speak English. I think this is the #1 fear most of my listeners have… speaking English. I don’t know if I should call it fear, but I cannot think of another word at the moment, maybe ‘obstacle’ is a better word. Haha In any case, keep your eyes and ears opened for next month, I will be introducing a new program – so stay tuned!
More on that next week.
Remember guys if you listening to this episode in October of 2017, please know I am running the Get Job Ready program this month, if you think your CV needs to look more professional than what it is right now, then this program is for you. Go to, www.englishmadesimple.net/job to register today, we start next week. Woohoo!
Now, let’s begin to slowly wrap up the topic of CVs and job interviews.
To do this, I will share top 7 tips you should know that will help you get the job. Look, I don’t care what country you are in, where you live, but these 7 things I am going to share with you will make you appear more professional, more confident and help you perform better at job interviews regardless of where you live, regardless what country you happen to be in. It’s not just relevant to Australia and New Zealand.
Let’s move right along!
So what are these 7 tips Milena? Are you gonna share that with us already? Great question.
Ok, so let’s imagine you got yourself a great CV, you get called in for a job interview. Awesome.
You know that you will completely ace this interview because you’ve been practising and preparing yourself well in advance, well before the interview. You know it! You can do this!
I always tell my students that “Looking for a job is a full-time job in itself. “ It will take a lot of time to prepare and you will need some mental work. And if English is your second language, then it will take you a bit more time than what it would have taken a native speaker. It’s just a fact, I am speaking from my own experience. There will be times where you get invited for interviews and you don’t get the job. You did nothing wrong, but you were not as well prepared as the person who did get the job. And that person could be less qualified right, so preparation is really important.
Ok so this is not a sad and depressing story, this is a happy story!! It’s a happy episode!
So, how do you ensure you master the interview? You practice and prepare. I sound like a broken record.You prepare like a mad person. You study all the potential questions that you’d get asked if were ever invited for an interview.
That was my number 1 tip for today.
#1 Practise and prepare. What do you need to practice?
You need to be able to answer questions like: Tell me about yourself. Why should we hire you? What makes you a better candidate over other candidates? What would you say your greatest weakness is? How would your friends describe you? YES they might ask you this question. They did ask me that question before. They asked me once: How would your friends describe you in 3 words?
You need to be able to answer the most typical questions asked at job interviews. Remember to always give examples. Have 3 examples ready in your head that you could just draw upon in case you get asked to give examples. I will talk more about this in Tip # 6.
But now, let’s move on to tip #2. Because we are up to #2
#2 Research the Company
You have to know something about the company where you will be interviewing.
How many employees do they have? Who is the CEO of the company? Check the news to see if there are any news about them, we are looking for positive news here.
Or another suggestion, something I like to do is go to their website and read their About page.
One of the questions they might ask you is: What do you know about us? What do you know about the company.
A-ha! You’ve been warned. I am sharing so much here guys, so much valuable information.
Ok, the next tip I would like to share with you today guys is….
Tip number #3.
#3 Get Ready a couple of days before the interview
What I mean by this, is choose the clothes you are going to wear, iron it, try it on. Can you still fit in? Did you gain some weight? Do you need to buy a new suit? You have to do this before the interview, trust me, getting ready (at) the last minute will just stress you out even more. Also, plan your trip well in advance. Know where you are going!
Also, what I like to do is print a couple of copies of my CV to take with me, and I also take a pen and paper for note-taking.
I will be asking them questions too. This is a two way conversation, it’s not just you being interviewed, so you will have to ask them questions too, expect that. It shows that you are very interested in the role if you have questions to ask them.
Ok, next point I would like to make is ….well it’s going to be short and sweet point.
Tip #4. Be Punctual
Punctual, what does it mean? It means you arrive on time and you are not late to the interview. Come 10 minutes earlier.
Simple.
Moving on to tip#5.
Stay calm, don’t be nervous. I hate it when somebody tell me that! When we are nervous we speak fast and because of this sometimes we can’t articulate ourselves as well as we would like. So we get tongue-tied, say things like Uhmmmmm, ooooh, uhm….
And you get butterflies in your stomach… not a pleasant feeling at all.
Awkward!
Stay calm. I know it’s easier said than done. But if you have really listened to my tip #1 – preparing for the interview well in advance will help you ease the interview jitters.
Jitters is another word for nerves.
So my advice there is to be well prepared for the interview.
Ok the next tip, tip #6 is very important, and I should’ve put it as a tip #2 but that would’ve been too much information in one go. Ok so the tip #6
#6 Demonstrate your skills
How do you do that?
Be prepared to give examples that will demonstrate your strengths. And your strengths are your key skills. (habilidades in Spanish)
If you put that you have Strong communication skills in your CV then be ready to give an example of this.
What are communication skills, what does it mean?
Well, for example, listening falls under Communication – are you able to listen to your manager and ask to clarify meaning if something is not clear? Are you able to share information with your colleagues? Are you able to follow instructions and report to your boss that a certain task has been completed?
Think of your own examples. You will be asked at the interview to demonstrate your skills.
Another example you could be asked a behavioural question such as Describe a time when you did not get along with a co-worker?
First of all, let me explain the phrasal verb here: TO GET ALONG.
If two people get along, that means they like each other’s company, they are friendly to each other.
Do you get along with your boss? It’s nice when you can get along with your co-workers and your boss.
So the question that you might get asked is: Tell us about a time when you did not get along with a co-worker? You colleague.
Ouch… I had my fair share of bad relationships at work. Personality clashes, it’s bad. That’s another story, another day. Not important right now!
If you happen to live in a perfect world where everyone gets along with everyone, somewhere in the la-la-land and you seem to have a perfect relationship with all of you co-workers then that’s great, you are lucky. To help you answer this question then, you would have to invent an answer. Make up a situation where you wouldn’t get along with your co-workers. But make it believable.
The thing is, you have to say something to this question, you have answer that question somehow. Use your creativity. The interviewers want to get an insight into your character, to know how you behave in certain situations.
Great, so much info! Can’t believe I am sharing all this with you. All these secrets!
I wish there was something like this when I was going for job interviews back in the day. I had to learn the hard way! And now you have it the easy way, thanks to moi! Thanks to English Made Simple.
And the last tip for you to remember is tip #7.
#7. Follow Up
We learned about this phrasal verb a few months ago. Let me check, it was in episode #107 called Corporate Buzzwords. Meaning corporate slang. Slang in this case.
If you are new to the English Made Simple show, I suggest you hop into your time machine and go back to episode #107 and learn some business slang. Cool.
So back to tip #7, Follow up.
Follow up with the people who interviewed you. Thank them for the opportunity and tell them that you are very interested in the job. I bet very few people do this.
By thanking them for the opportunity to be interviewed you will immediately stand out from the other candidates.
And it’s just a nice thing to do.
So just to recap, in today’s episode we covered 7 things that you should do before the interview, the tips I shared today will help you land that perfect job. And remember guys, practise makes perfect. Be prepared well ahead of the interview.
Before we finish today guys, I’d like to send a special greeting to Roberto from Chile. Roberto has visited Australia before, he worked for an Australian mining company, and he’s been to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. Wow, that’s great! Roberto will know what I am preaching here in this episode, what I am talking about. And Roberto, if you have time checkout #107 to learn about the Corporate slang, you might refresh your memory about Aussie slang. A big shout to Roberto, thanks for your nice comments, glad to know you are enjoying the show!
Thanks everyone for tuning in today, don’t forget Get Job Ready program starts next week!
Go to www.englishmadesimple.net/job to reserve your spot.
You’ve been an awesome audience as always and you’ve been jamming with Milena chilena from English Made Simple, catch ya next time, hasta la proxima!