Welcome back to the Skills 360 – the podcast that looks at the other side of Business English.
Today’s show is the second in our series about your first job interview. Last week, in BE360 Interviews Part 1, we looked at how to show you’re right for the job when you have little or no experience. Today, we’re going to look at how to demonstrate a professional attitude during your interview.
If you’d like to test yourself on the ideas we cover in this lesson,s visit the Business Skills 360 website. There you’ll find a quiz about today’s show as well as a complete transcript.
Job interviews in English can make anyone nervous. After all, you want to make the best impression you can. But as a new graduate, you have an added challenge: little formal job experience. You need to prove to the employer that your studies and university experiences relate to the job you’re seeking.
Today, we’ll cover some ways to help you connect your college experiences to an employer’s job requirements. We’ll look at making introductions and explaining ground rules and interview format. We’ll also look at two types of common questions – “tell me about yourself?” and discussing your education.
We’ll meet Owen, who just got his master’s in electrical engineering. He’s originally from Chengdu, China, a city 2,000 kilometers west of Shanghai. But he moved to Shanghai for graduate school and has decided to stay here for work. He’s interviewing for a test engineer position at IBH, an electronics company.
Today’s meeting is a panel interview. This means a group of people will be asking the questions. So we’ll also meet Erica, who’s in charge of recruiting for IBH, and two of her colleagues: George, an engineering manager, and Cindy, a new HR manager.
Listening Questions
1. Why do you think George is handling the technical aspects of the interview?
2. What are two qualities or transferable skills that Owen mentions?
3. What does Owen say about his university’s approach to learning?
Appropriately enough, we’re doing this first series on another kind of first: your first job interview. The biggest question about first job interviews relates to experience. How do I show I’m right for the job when I have little or no work experience? What am I supposed to talk about? Even if it’s not your first job interview, you might run into the same difficulty. Perhaps you’re changing careers or transitioning into a new aspect of business. The question remains: How do I relate what I’ve done to what they want, even if it’s not directly related?
When you’re helping a caller on the phone, unexpected things can happen. You might need to get some additional information from another source or have the caller to speak to someone else. Or, there may be some interference with the telephone connection that makes it hard to hear someone. It’s good to be prepared so that you can handle the call efficiently, without irritating the customer.
In this lesson, we’ll look at some of these unexpected situations. We’ll discuss ways to tell a caller what’s happening during the call and how to politely question and clarify if you don’t hear or understand something. We’ll cover language for signaling that a call is about to end, and how to politely finish the call.
In the last episode, we met Leroy and Paul. Leroy is a customer care agent for a credit card company. Paul is a customer whose card is about to expire. He hasn’t received a replacement card yet and Leroy is helping him.
Listening Questions
1. Why does Leroy need a minute to pull up Paul’s records?
2. What is Paul’s correct street address?
3. Why didn’t Paul receive his replacement card?
This is the first in a two-part Business English lesson on dealing with telephone inquiries.
It’s natural to feel a little nervous when answering questions on the phone, especially when you’re using a different language. You can’t see the other person, so you can’t interpret facial expressions and body language. You also need to listen more carefully, so you can help the caller quickly and efficiently.
Today, we’ll look at some common strategies that can make handling telephone inquiries a little easier. We’ll start with ways to answer the phone and identify yourself. We’ll also explain language you can use to verify a caller’s name, confirm something a caller says, and clarify the inquiry by restating it.
Now, let’s listen to a conversation between Leroy, a customer service rep at a credit card company, and Paul, a customer. Paul has some concerns about his account and Leroy is helping him.
Listening Questions
1. What is Paul’s main concern?
2. How is Paul’s last name spelled?
3. What are the last 3 digits, or numbers, of Paul’s bank ID number?
