Are you looking for a new job with a company that will interview you in English? Are you familiar with the common questions that are asked during an interview for multinational companies? No problem, with the lesson you will be hired in no time!
Vocabulary – Expressions – Phrasal Verbs – Idioms:
Resume – a document listing your goals, education, past job experience, contact information and other relevant information. This is used when applying for a new job and is often referred to as a curriculum vitae(CV).
Applying for a job – the act of delivering your resume in person, through email, through a form online or other methods when trying to find a new job.
Contract employee – when you work for one company that provides its salary and benefits structure) that sells your services to another company on a project or time basis.
Permanent employee – working directly for the main company where you are working. Typically there is no time period and the expectation by the employer and employee is a long term commitment.
Interview – this is usually done one on one where a potential employee will meet with human resources, a potential manager and others at the company where they applied.
Past working experience – previous jobs that you will list out on your resume. Typically this is the most important part of your resume and is discussed during the interview.
Landed a job – when you are hired by a company you can use this expression. You can change out the word landed with got.
Human Resources (HR) – Typically this is referred to as simply HR. It is the department responsible for scheduling interviews, maintaining current employee documents, and explaining the company’s job requirements and goals.
Carried out – a term used to talk about the work or tasks that were part of your past working experience. For example, “I carried out the development of new business in Asia.”
Delegated tasks – what competent managers do best which is the job of telling people what work needs to be completed by dividing up larger jobs into smaller tasks for the individual employees to complete. This phrase is also known as ‘delegating work’ or ‘delegating responsibilities’.
Assessments – tests which are taken in the beginning process of being hired. The tests are a series of questions used to provide the company you applying to with some sense of your personality and capabilities.
Screening Process – performed to initially lower the number of candidates, and eventually to deliver the last few candidates that will be offered the job. This is done through assessment tests, computer screening, and by people in HR and other departments manually looking through resumes in the first phase. Other phases will include interviews and other types of assessments.
Career/Job Objective – this is a useful item to clearly state at the top of a resume. It displays what the applicant is trying to achieve in terms of their career.
Live Example:
John updated his resume since he is applying for a job with IBM. He hopes that he can get an interview so that he can discuss his past working experience with a potential manager. John also realizes that there is an extensive screening process with a series of assessments that he needs to take and pass. He has been contacted by the HR department to schedule an interview.
Hopefully, he will land the job since he is looking forward to working for a big company, and the position meets his career objective and long-term career goals. He does hate applying for jobs and attending many interviews, but he understands that it is part of the process if he wants to make more money. IBM will hire him directly as a permanent employee since they do not like to hire contract employees since there is no loyalty from those types of arrangements.
Live Conversation Example:
Jen: Hey John, I heard that you are applying for a job. What companies are you looking at? Can I look over your resume?
John: I am applying for a job at IBM as a computer programmer. Yes, here is a copy of my resume.
Jen: Your resume looks great! You are highly detailed when discussing the past working experience and it is easy to understand your career objective.
John: Thanks for your feedback. As part of the screening process there are a series of assessments including an IQ test and coding examples. HR called me and set up an interview for Friday.
Jen: Make sure that you talk to them about what you carried out at your last job. Since you were a team lead, you should talk about how well you delegated tasks to the team members.
John: Thanks again for helping me with my CV. I will let you know when I learn if I landed the job or not. It would be great to be a permanent employee since I would like to stay at one company for a long time.
Practice:
Take a look at your resume. Do you have the current information needed to send to a potential employer?
Imagine that you are in an interview. Record yourself, playback the answers and listen to how you respond to the following questions:
Tell me a little about yourself.
Why do you want to work for us?
What previous experience do you have that makes you a good fit?
What are your major strengths and weaknesses?
What are your long-term plans?
For more interview questions and to continue your practice look at Monster’s Top 100 Interview Questions.